Hearts of Space #542 Mnemosyne (11-12-1999) MP3s

Classical Fusion - Instrumental


Sacred/Choral - Artist Special
This is the one hour program from Hearts of Space Radio Show that was first broadcast on the weeked of November 12, 1999. It features the music of the Hilliard Ensemble and Jan Gabarek. Track list and program notes are included in the torrent file.

Program Notes by Stephen Hill, Producer
You're listening to that rarest of rare things: a totally new musical experiment that actually became a huge hit. The year was 1994; the album was OFFICIUM; the protagonists were the English early music vocal group THE HILLIARD ENSEMBLE, Norwegian saxophonist JAN GARBAREK, and ECM Records producer MANFRED EICHER. It was the first attempt at combining medieval and baroque vocal music with contemporary improvised saxophone. The record became a worldwide phenomenon, eventually selling over a million copies, and (in the words of the New York Observer) "collapsing all barriers between jazz and classical, sacred and profane, antiquity and now."

On this transmission of HEARTS of SPACE, we're very pleased to devote the entire program to the followup to OFFICIUM, an extraordinary double album called MNEMOSYNE. Followups to hit records are sometimes disappointing — let me assure you, that is NOT the case here. In fact, if anything, the successor eclipses the original, both in scope and creative inspiration.