Search - Lake & Palmer Emerson :: Works, Vol. 1

Good but the sun was setting

D. C. Cannon | Rockville, MD USA | 12/06/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I have always been amazed that any group would ever put out an album like this, and I like it a lot simply because it is so gutsy and features such a bewildering variety of musical styles. The original LP was a double album - one side for Keith Emerson, one for Greg Lake, one for Carl Palmer, and the final side was a group effort. From there we go all over the place. Keith Emerson's side is a complete piano concerto with orchestra. While Chopin and Rachmaninoff can sleep peacefully, this is still an amazing composition for a rock artist. The first two movements are calm but the finale is fiery (in answer to a previous reviewer's question, Andante Molto Cantabile means leisurely paced, very songful). Hard rock fans may very well hate this but again the piece works and who else would devote one side of a pop album with this?Lake's side features lovely orchestral ballads that really show case his voice, more so than his guitar skills. Palmer's side is heavy jazz, with an occasional nod towards the classical side like the Bach Invention on tuned percussion. The final side is the group effort featuring an extended jam on the Copland piece (and if I recall correctly was used for an Olympic broadcast) and an extended suite for rock band and orchestral called Pirates.Very brave and unusual - different from the group's glory days until that final side. Still you could tell the seams were showing as the group was thinking as much about going their own ways as individual artists than being a group. While ELP did some good work after this album, they never reached their peak as they did here and with things like Trilogy and Tarkus. At the time ELP probably saw this as a mid career change in course, but in the end it turned out to be their last hurrah."