This Austrian musician is one of CD Services biggest selling artists of all-time. His brand of instrumental symphonic music is the ultimate in musical escapism, and clearly influenced by late 60’s/early 70’s progressive bands like Genesis and the Moody Blues. This double CD was issued in 2001 and for those of you new to Gandalf’s music, you need to imagine a cross between Mike Oldfield, Enya (without most of the vocals) and classic Hackett era Genesis (or just Steve Hackett). Disc 1 alone is a continuously flowing, 17 track, seventy-six minute symphonic composition themed around Tolkien’s legendary ‘Lord Of The Rings’ story. This is a landmark recording that encompasses all the instruments normally associated with Gandalf – lots of keyboards for solos, strings and those heavenly, choral passages, electric & acoustic guitars, bass & percussion, plus the odd little bit of sitar. This is music with huge crossover potential, and all the symphonic touches that expose his musical roots are well showcased here. Disc 2 is a bonus limited edition, full-length album of ‘Rare & Precious Pieces’, containing some new arrangements and rare mixes selected from the last 20 years of his celebrated recording career, so it’s a kind of ‘Best Of’ with a difference, and a nice intro for the Gandalf novice. One track features Steve Hackett on guitar, and there’s also a previously unreleased piece, but most of the selected tracks are entirely different versions of tracks from other original albums. To complement the music on this album, the label have produced beautifully lavish, triple fold-out digi-pak packaging, with a matching full-colour booklet housed in the centre portion between the two disc holders – a classy piece of packaging to match the musical class of Gandalf.

441812
Weight: 250.00 g

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