Harpscape

GABRIELLA DALL'OLIO

Following Paul Lewis’s colorfully orchestrated album, ‘Heritage and Landscape’, EM Records has now released ‘Harpscape’, an album of solo music for his favorite instrument, the harp. For those who imagine that harp solos are all Regency drawing-room elegance and Victorian virtuoso pyrotechnics this collection may surprise. In contrast to Lewis the English composer of place, here is the cosmopolitan Lewis. Of the four suites recorded here, two were inspired by time spent living and working in New Zealand, one by his love of Paris and French Chanson, and the other by a growing fascination with American Jazz forms. Add to this the belief in the power of melody to speak directly to audiences of all musical tastes that sustained his forty-seven year career composing TV and film music and the result is a varied programme of pieces brimming over with memorable and catchy melodies. To quote Lewis in the extensive booklet notes: “My aim in composing harp solos is to allow the instrument to sound as beautiful and as idiomatic as possible, with equal emphasis on mellifluousness of melody, richness of harmony, and, last but not least, sheer entertainment value!”

Price: $27.98