Five | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Studio album by | ||||
Released | 23 February 2018 | |||
Recorded | 22-26 March 2017 | |||
Studio | Angel Recording Studios (London, England) CNSO Studio Gallery 1 (Prague, Czech Republic) Tony Banks' home | |||
Genre | Classical | |||
Length | 57:11 | |||
Label | BMG | |||
Producer | Nick Davis | |||
Tony Banks chronology | ||||
|
Five (stylised as 5) is the sixth studio album by the English musician, songwriter, and singer Tony Banks. It was released on 23 February 2018 by BMG Records. It is his third album of classical music, following Seven: A Suite for Orchestra (2004) and Six Pieces for Orchestra (2012).
Five is Banks's third solo album of classical music, following Seven: A Suite for Orchestra (2004) and Six Pieces for Orchestra (2012). [1] Banks had thought of pursuing classical music at a later stage in his career when he could dedicate more time to it. Five originated when Banks was commissioned to write a fifteen-minute piece for live performance at the Cheltenham Music Festival in July 2014, the seventieth instalment of the festival, by artistic director, Meurig Bowen. Banks chose a composition from a collection of short pieces that were in development at the time and worked on it further, which was then known as "Arpregg" but re-titled "Prelude to a Million Years" and became the opening track on Five. [2] [1] Banks spoke of the debut performance of the composition: "The softer passages were fine, but the parts that required real oomph, like the big cello riffs, didn't work very well at all". [1]
Following the Cheltenham Music Festival commission, Banks secured a one-album deal with BMG. It marks his first release on the BMG label, having released his first two classical albums on Naxos Records. Banks reasoned the change down to BMG being more of a "go ahead" label with more favourable promotional effort and its enthusiasm to release it. [3] Banks then felt encouraged by the Cheltenham Music Festival performance to take the individual parts, re-record them, and assemble them in layers similar to that of a rock-oriented album so he could "really get it right". [1] This approach was applied for all the tracks on Five. [4] A series of "very definite and elaborate" demos were recorded which were then used as a template for the orchestra to play their arrangements from, and to Banks, sounded similar to the final arrangements. [1] The piano heard on the album is what Banks had originally played on the demo recordings. [3]
The album comprises five orchestral pieces composed by Banks with their accompanying orchestral arrangements by Nick Ingman. Banks admitted that his percussion arrangements were "lazy", and credits Ingman for improving them to sound better than what he originally had in mind. [1] Having scored several films in his career, he wrote the music on Five without any particular frame of mind, instead writing "what I write". The change in mood, tempo, and atmosphere in the pieces particularly interested him and compared the changes to Genesis songs like "The Musical Box" and "Supper's Ready". [3] His composing for the album deviated little from developing pop and rock songs, but liked the greater sense of freedom that classical composition gives. [5] Banks gave careful consideration to the titles of his pieces and wished to avoid names with "too much baggage". [3] "Prelude to a Million Years" got its title from the 1933 same-titled wordless novel by American artist Lynd Ward, of which Banks is a fan. [3] Banks maintained that "Renaissance" is not based on a piece developed during a Genesis rehearsal session despite what a promotional material for the album had included. [3] A Billboard article noted a resemblance to the band's song "The Carpet Crawlers" from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1974) on "Reveille". [5]
After it was first announced in December 2017, Five was released on CD and a two LP set on 23 February 2018. [2] It was originally set for release on 2 February, but management at BMG moved it back as they wanted to conduct further promotional work for the album prior to releasing it. [3]
Banks considers a fourth classical album containing a four-movement symphony would be a point of stopping his venture into the genre. [3] He also hopes the material on Five is performed live in concert in some capacity, at some point. [5]
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Prelude to a Million Years" | 15:34 |
2. | "Reveille" | 8:58 |
3. | "Ebb and Flow" | 12:49 |
4. | "Autumn Sonata" | 10:16 |
5. | "Renaissance" | 10:14 |
Music
Production
Anthony George Banks is an English musician, songwriter and film composer primarily known as the keyboardist and founding member of the rock band Genesis. Banks is also a prolific solo artist, releasing six solo albums that range through progressive rock, pop, and classical music.
Stephen Richard Hackett is an English guitarist, songwriter and record producer who gained prominence as the lead guitarist of the progressive rock band Genesis from 1971 to 1977. Hackett contributed to six Genesis studio albums, three live albums, seven singles and one EP before he left to pursue a solo career. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Genesis in 2010.
Ludovico Maria Enrico Einaudi OMRI is an Italian pianist and composer. Trained at the Conservatorio Verdi in Milan, Einaudi began his career as a classical composer, later incorporating other styles and genres such as pop, rock, folk, and world music.
Pye Records was a British record label. Its best known artists were Lonnie Donegan (1956–1969), Petula Clark (1957–1971), the Searchers (1963–1967), the Kinks (1964–1971), Sandie Shaw (1964–1971), Status Quo (1968–1971) and Brotherhood of Man (1975–1979). The label changed its name to PRT Records in 1980, before being briefly reactivated as Pye Records in 2006.
Attilio Joseph "Teo" Macero was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and record producer. He was a producer at Columbia Records for twenty years. Macero produced Miles Davis' Bitches Brew, and Dave Brubeck's Time Out, two of the best-selling and most influential jazz albums of all time. Although the extent of his role has been disputed, he also has been associated with the production of Davis' 1959 album Kind of Blue, jazz's best-selling record. Macero was known for his innovative use of editing and tape manipulation unprecedented in jazz and proving influential on subsequent fusion, experimental rock, electronica, post-punk, no wave, and acid jazz.
Colin Matthews, OBE is an English composer of contemporary classical music. Noted for his large-scale orchestral compositions, Matthews is also a prolific arranger of other composer's music, including works by Berlioz, Britten, Dowland, Mahler, Purcell and Schubert. Other arrangements include orchestrations of all Debussy's 24 Préludes, both books of Debussy's Images, and two movements—Oiseaux tristes and La vallée des cloches—from Ravel's Miroirs. Having received a doctorate from University of Sussex on the works of Mahler, from 1964–1975 Matthews worked with his brother David Matthews and musicologist Deryck Cooke on completing a performance version of Mahler's Tenth Symphony.
Magnification is the nineteenth studio album by the English progressive rock band Yes, released on 10 September 2001 by Eagle Records. It is their only album recorded as a four-piece band, and their final album to feature founding member Jon Anderson on vocals. At the departure of keyboardist Igor Khoroshev in 2000, the band agreed to record a new studio album with orchestral arrangements, something they had not done since their second album, Time and a Word in 1970. The album was recorded and mixed using Pro Tools with producer Tim Weidner and orchestral arrangements by Larry Groupé conducting the San Diego Symphony Orchestra. Drummer Alan White plays piano on some tracks.
Kazuhito Yamashita is a Japanese classical guitarist and husband of the composer Keiko Fujiie. His technique and expression are highly acclaimed. By the age of 32, Yamashita had already released 52 albums, including repertoires for solo guitar, guitar concertos, chamber music and collaborations with other renowned musicians such as James Galway. To date, he has released a total of 83 albums.
Joseph McManners is an English singer-songwriter, musician and actor.
Light music is a less-serious form of Western classical music, which originated in the 18th and 19th centuries and continues today. Its heyday was in the mid‑20th century. The style is through-composed, usually shorter orchestral pieces and suites designed to appeal to a wider context and audience than more sophisticated forms such as the concerto, the symphony and the opera.
The Wicked Lady is the soundtrack to the 1983 remake of the film of the same title. It was composed by Genesis keyboardist Tony Banks. The first side of the LP features Banks performing solo versions of themes from the soundtrack. The second side of the LP is the actual soundtrack performed by the National Philharmonic Orchestra. For many years this had been the only entire solo LP by a Genesis member never to have been released on CD. However, a CD version was released on April 15, 2013.
Brett Dean is an Australian composer, violist and conductor.
Fernando Otero is a Grammy-award-winning Argentine pianist, vocalist, and composer.
Isak Roux is a South African born German composer born in 1959. He is known for his arrangements of South African music, especially his work with the musical groups Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Kwela Tebza.
Craig Leon is an American-born record producer, composer and arranger currently living in England. Leon was instrumental in launching the careers of many recording artists including The Ramones, Suicide, Talking Heads and Blondie.
Alban Berg composed his Three Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6, between 1913 and 1915. They are dedicated to his teacher Arnold Schoenberg. A revised version of the score was published in 1929 by Universal Edition. While the composer conducted a first performance of only the first two movements in 1923, the complete work was premiered in the revised version in Oldenburg in 1930, conducted by Johannes Schüler.
Six Pieces for Orchestra is the fifth studio album by English keyboardist and songwriter Tony Banks. It was released on 26 March 2012 on Naxos Records as his second album of classical music, following Seven: A Suite for Orchestra in 2004. The suite is performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Paul Englishby. Two of the pieces feature soloists: Martin Robertson plays alto saxophone on "Siren", and Charlie Siem plays violin on "Blade".
Fabio D'Andrea is a British Italian pianist, composer, songwriter and producer. He trained at King's College London under the composer George Benjamin.
Lúnasa with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra is a collaboration album between Irish traditional Celtic music band Lúnasa and the Irish RTÉ Concert Orchestra, recorded in 2012 and released in April 2013 by Lúnasa Records. The collaboration came about after RTÉ contacted contemporary Irish composer Niall Vallely, requesting he composed music for a traditional group, and Vallely in turn requested Lúnasa for a collaboration, bringing the two ensembles together for a fusion between traditional and classical music. After the two groups performed at the National Concert Hall, Dublin, in April 2012, they recorded the album later in the year.
Ali Radman is an Iranian musician, composer, conductor, pedagogue and pianist.