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Symphony | 
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| Artist: Sarah Brightman
Label: EMI
Category: Music
List Price: £14.99
Buy New: £11.08
You Save: £3.91 (26%)
New (21) Used (2) from £5.50
Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 1799
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
EAN: 5099952060328
ASIN: B0012IWK5W
Release Date: April 14, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Tracks:
| • | Gothica | | • | Fleurs Du Mal | | • | Symphony | | • | Canto Della Terra | | • | Sanvean | | • | I Will Be With You (Where The Lost Ones Go) | | • | Schwere Traeume | | • | Sarai Qui | | • | Storia d'Amore | | • | Let It Rain | | • | Attesa | | • | Pasion | | • | Running | | • | Sarahbande / Fleurs Du Mal - Reprise |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 High Camp, Low Brow, High Jinks. April 26, 2008
The Wolf (uk)
12 out of 18 found this review helpful
Now where to start?
Ms Brightman has never really been anything more than a peripheral
blip on my musical radar. A leftover sideshow from 1980's Lloyd-Webber
extravaganzas. Never (phenomenal record sales not withstanding) to be taken quite seriously.
An appearance on Jonathan Ross last year confirmed my belief that she is
(in the nicest possible way) decidedly potty. Quite a gal none-the-less with those
stratospherically high red shoes and deliciously indelicate revelations about
the prolific proportions of Lord L-W's member.
She didn't sing on that occasion but I sat up and took notice.
I couldn't help myself.
Ms Brightman has a sense of humour. Absolutely no doubt about that.
And so to her new album 'Symphony'.
Please buy it. Right now...off you go...I want you to hear it within the next hour.
Really....I do, I do, I do....!
Let's start with that voice.
It's an extraordinary instrument. Not one that could ever have graced the stages
of the world's great opera houses (of course it hasn't) and not one strong or technically
sound enough to sustain a 'true' operatic role. Nary a Norma nor a Tosca.
However, with a little help from her highly skilled production team,
it scrubs up quite well - even those tentative, bird-scaring high notes.
Ms Brightman's diction and phrasing deserve special mention in their own right.
How can I put this delicately?....errrm....At times her intonation has
a strange, almost Oriental quality (curiously especially when she is singing in Italian)
which just avoids being comical by a hair's breadth.
The music displays a sublimely irreverent, cut-and-paste approach to
the 'classics' veering well to the right of the middle of the road.
Bathos and pompous grandiosity rain down on us us at every turn.
(Go straight to track 2 - 'Fleurs Du Mal' for immediate elucidation).
The adagietto from Mr Mahler's Symphony No.5 ('Schwere Traume')
and the Intermezzo from Mr.Mascagni's fine opera 'Cavalleria Rusticana'
('Attesa') are butchered into vocal arrangements of staggering
(and quite beautiful) vulgarity.
Stay with me here. Remember I really am, in a totally perverse way, enjoying this.
The duets with Misters Bocelli, Stanley, Safina and Lima are more grossly OTT
than anything Mr Meatloaf has so-far been able to muster in his own illustrious career
(and none the worse for that).
Mr Bocelli's in particular projects a distinctly bovine quality, notably when,
with Ms Brightman bravely at his side, he approaches the rousing coda of his allocated contribution.
(Their simultaneous climax deserves our especial appreciation and applause !)
The title track 'Symphony' is, I have to admit, deftly scored and rather lovely.
Perhaps this album's true high point, however, is Mr Peterson's transformation of one of
Mr.Holst's fine interplanetary inspirations ('Jupiter'-uncredited) via the once beautiful
jingoistic hymn 'I Vow To Thee My Country' into a cataclymsic Eurovision
dancefloor anthem now and forever to be known as 'Running'. BRAVO MAESTRO !
As for the artwork....countless middle-aged men throughout the Shires
are doubtless tossing and trembling in their beds as I write!
All in all this extraordinarily exotic concoction is likely to be the greatest feast of overblown
high camp tom-foolery that you will be fortunate enough to experience this side of Christmas.
SUSPEND DISBELIEF !
A must for Broadway Babies, Friends Of Dorothy and Serious Musical Scholars everywhere.
Symphony is terrific and the album artwork is top drawer too. April 19, 2008
film fan (Kent, UK)
13 out of 21 found this review helpful
On listening to this for the first time, my attention was immediately grabbed by the bombastic opening tracks 'Gothica' and 'Fleurs du Mal'. With stirring percussion and swirling strings from the orchestra and accompanying keyboard players, there's a gothic feel to this album. And then of course, the enchanting melodies of the ballads are delightful.
Even the duets, there are four of them, are exceptional as well. One of the duets is with the formidable Andrea Bocelli. The whole album is terrific in my humble opinion but if I was to choose a single favourite track, I think it would have to be 'Sanvean'. It's so calming and relaxing in a sea of crescendo tracks.
I would highly recommend this album and looking at the album design, I am completely taken with that as well. The accompanying booklet opens like a calendar and the images inside show of a gothic castle with Sarah Brightman, resplendent in a flowing red dress, in among the grey background. This album took 3 years to record from 2004 to 2007. Was this studio album worth the long wait? I would have to say yes definitely.
Five Star Music April 16, 2008
Mr. J. Fulton (united kingdom)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Beautiful , mesmerising ,soaring vocals and music fusing together Sarahs different styles , really amazing vocals as always ,, gorgeous cd sleeve too feels like a mini album sleeve great pictures , love it...
Well worth the long wait May 8, 2008
Mart Music (Essex, UK)
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
Five years between studio albums is a very long time for Sarah Brightman fans to wait, although I've been pleasantly distracted during that time by the rise to popularity, plus five album releases along the way, of another lovely singer that is Katherine Jenkins.
Symphony is a whole world away from those sultry Welsh tones though, with its mix of gothic rock-chick power ballads, sweet melodies and duets with singers some of whom I would have considered a mismatch but which really do work.
The album's opening track `Gothica', a short instrumental piece laden with rumbling thunder and silky synthesiser chords, is a piece worthy of any rock band's concert intro and immediately creates an atmosphere of expectancy. It glides seamlessly into `Fleurs du Mal' (Flowers of Evil) where the tension is broken by a guitar powerchord sequence and piercing vocal siren sound which leads into a full scale rock anthem. Add to this a lush orchestra accompaniment and powerful backing chorus and it turns into a fist clenching, head banging classic which any modern rock band would be proud to play.
The theme changes of course, in typical Brightman style, from goth rock to pop ballad (great duet with Kiss guitar/vocalist Paul Stanley), and takes in a little classical music (Mascagni) along the way.
Some tracks will be familiar, like the previously available Canto Della Terra (Song of the Earth duet with Andrea Bocelli - who else?) and some are simply lovely melodies like Sanvean (I am your shadow), a song co-written by Lisa Gerrard (Gladiator theme) and also previously available.
The tracks fit together well, and at just under an hour (excluding bonus track Sarahbande) the album is very playable straight through, start to finish, just like a symphony is intended.
The artwork is delicious, the gothic princess cover theme continuing throughout the gatefold opening sleeve and enclosed high quality booklet.
Sarah Brightman fans shouldn't be disappointed with this treasure, even if it did take five years to appear.
Sarah's Symphony is Brightman Brilliance ! April 11, 2008
Ms. R. R. Wilson (Dorset, UK)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
I love this album - it's been worth the wait. The songs are a mixture as usual of Sarah and they all work. My one complaint - not enough tracks - I'd love more songs! This album showcases Sarah's exceptionally pure and beautiful voice, and is a very easy album to listen to. If it's not in your music collection WHY NOT??
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