Bagpipes & Brass

Bagpipes & Brass

Category: (Music)

6 new, starting at $12.56

2 used, starting at $8.99

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Customer Reviews

Excellent Gift

Reviewed by Penelope N. Foley, 2009-05-05

I gave this CD to my Dad for his birthday. My memory of Saturday mornings with him was waking up to hearing records of the Band of the Grenadier Guards. I thought my mum, more of an orchestra person, would hate it. Only to find they have been playing it endlessly in the car, and delighted with all the new arrangements.

Virtuoso Players Gild the Lilly

Reviewed by J. PAUFF, 2007-04-18

Reviewers who write that these are fine musicians playing lousy arrangements are correct. That's it exactly. The slower cuts are better than the up-tempo ones. Apparently this CD is a big hit with bagpipe tooters. So be it. The rest of us should pass it by or purchase it used.

Keep looking - there is much better stuff than this

Reviewed by T. Madden, 2005-10-04

This album is a perfect example of how a bad arrangement can ruin great music despite the best efforts of great musicians. Everything about this recording is right; selection, performers, sound engineering. Except that the tracks are horribly over-arranged with all sorts of distracting, subtracting variations and trite bridging passages.

Diasppointed

Reviewed by S. A. Wood, 2005-07-12

I am not saying the music is bad or the quality is lacking, because it is not. If you are looking for traditional music played in the traditional way, then this CD is not for you. It is like listening to everyone's interpretation when they sing the "Star Spangled Banner". There is no need to jazz things up that were not written to be. The titles are old but the variations on the score have a lot to be desired if you wanted to hear these songs played the way they were meant to be played.

This album is an absolute disaster

Reviewed by Colin L. Aitken, 2005-06-08

It's said that music soothes the savage beast, but bagpipes will do just the opposite. They will make the hair on your neck stand on end, your blood pressure go through the roof and prepare you to go to war. This album does neither.

The one piece which should most strongly produce the desired result is Scotland the Brave. In this album it is three minutes and twenty seven seconds, the first minute an ten of which are dedicated to fanfare. After that an orchestra plays some stylized version and, I think, I can detect a hint of bagpipes in there somewhere. When one has heard it done "correctly", one can recognize this as a total disaster.

Amazing Grace by the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards has a version that is just about right. (And that selection gives one the ability to listen to a sample. I can see why this one doesn't!)