Gandalf Discography (1981 - 2011
Hedda Jude
He released his first album Journey to an Imaginary Land on 17 March 1981, and his second, Visions, almost one year later on 16 March 1982. He has become one of Austria's most accomplished international musicians.[citation needed]
While the title might perhaps lead you to think that this is a re-recorded version of Gandalf's 1981 albumVisions, the present album is actually a brand new 2001 studio album. It could be considered a belatedfollow-up album (a bit like Rick Wakeman's Return To The Centre Of The Earth), but it is hard to find anydirect connections between Visions and Visions 2001. There are however plenty of indirect connectionssuch as a general return to the sound and feel of the original Visions. Also the two albums are similarlystructured with ambient pieces functioning as interludes between more uptempo and melodic pieces.The quality of the two albums is also similar, though overall I prefer the original Visions. In keeping with his chosen artist name, Gandalf here made an album explicitly inspired by Tolkien'sLord Of The Rings. And he manages to capture the moods of that story and its magnificent fantasyworlds perfectly. As usual Gandalf plays a plethora of instruments including acoustic and electricguitars, keyboards, and the wonderful sitar (that also was featured on the original Visions to greateffect). On some passages Gandalf's electric guitar playing sounds very much like that of Steve Hackett(with whom Gandalf worked on Gallery Of Dreams, and obviously picked up more than a few tricks fromHackett). Other musicians involved here add bass and drums which ensures a strong Rock base of thesound, and yet others add flutes, whistles, and violin, which gives this a distinct Folk music nature. Overall, Visions 2001 is a very high quality offering that deserves to be heard. There are however twomain problems with it that prevent me from giving it the same high rating as the original Visions. Oneproblem is that it is just a bit too long for its own good. With a running time of well over an hour it tendsto wear the listener down despite the high quality of the music. The album would definitely havebenefited from being shortened somewhat. The other problem is that there is one misplaced vocalnumber on this otherwise completely instrumental album. When this song started I first thought thatSpotify had gone mad and started playing an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical soundtrack. It does not fitin at all among the rest of the tracks here and is a complete embarrassment in its own right. With theseflaws taken into account, Visions 2001 is inferior to the original Visions album which was more coherentand effective. Still, if you liked that album, and Gandalf in general, you should get this album as well asit is clearly (despite its flaws) one of Gandalf's better albums.Before ending I should mention that the album comes with a bonus CD called Rare & Precious Piecesfeaturing alternate versions of familiar pieces from throughout Gandalf's recording career (including hiscollaborations with Steve Hackett and Tracy Hitchings). It provides a decent overview, but it is better tostart with the regular albums.Recommended in addition to the original Visions social review comments Review Permalink
Posted Wednesday, June 4, 2014 Review this album Report (Review #1183889)
In 1981, BBC Radio 4 produced a dramatisation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings in 26 half-hour stereo instalments. The novel had previously been adapted as a 12-part BBC Radio adaptation in 1955 and 1956 (of which no recordings are known to have survived), and a 1979 production by The Mind's Eye for National Public Radio in the USA.
The serial was first broadcast from 8 March to 30 August 1981 on BBC Radio 4 on Sundays from 12 noon to 12:30pm; each episode was repeated on the following Wednesday from 10:30pm to 11:00pm.[16] A soundtrack album featuring a re-recorded and in some cases expanded suite of Stephen Oliver's music was released in 1981.[17]
Il sort son premier album Journey to an Imaginary Land le 17 mars 1981, et son second Visions près d'un an plus tard, le 16 mars 1982. Il est devenu l'un des musiciens internationaux les plus connus d'Autriche[réf. nécessaire].
Hij bracht zijn eerste album Journey to an Imaginary Land uit in 1980 en zijn tweede album Visions bijna een jaar later (1981). Zijn eerste albums waren met name meer progrockachtig zoals beide genoemde, To Another Horizon (1983) en Magic Theatre (ook uit 1983). De jaren daarna maakte hij bijna jaarlijks een nieuw album. Later voegde hij saxofoon en dwarsfluit toe, waardoor het een meer newageachtig karakter kreeg.
Great write up. I experienced and think the same thing about thus album. I was a senior in high school and heard it played at midnight on DC101 early Tuesday morning February 1981. When I got to school the next the many friends I had there who were into Rush had the gleem in our eyes. Without speaking we knew what the deal was. Heavy discussions all week long. Riff learning to be had for us musicians. The joy of that one album. Motivated me to the potential of possibilities.
Mit 14 Jahren brachte er sich als Autodidakt zunächst das Gitarrenspiel bei, mit 24 das Klavierspiel. In den 1970er Jahren hat er zunächst in diversen Progressive-Rock-Bands gespielt. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt hatte Gandalf bereits seine eigenen musikalischen Visionen, die er jedoch mit einer herkömmlichen Band nicht realisieren konnte. So begann er Mitte dieses Jahrzehnts in seinem kleinen Heimstudio eigene Aufnahmen zu produzieren, wobei er alle Instrumente selbst spielte. Es entstand sein Debütalbum Journey to an Imaginary Land, welches 1981 veröffentlicht wurde.[2]
The book has been adapted for radio three times. In 1955 and 1956, the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) broadcast The Lord of the Rings, a 12-part radio adaptation of the story, of which no recording has survived. A 1979 dramatization of The Lord of the Rings was broadcast in the United States and subsequently issued on tape and CD. In 1981 the BBC broadcast, The Lord of the Rings, a new dramatization in 26 half-hour installments.
The Lord of the Rings has had a profound and wide-ranging impact on popular culture, from its publication in the 1950s, but especially throughout the 1960s and 1970s, where young people embraced it as a countercultural saga. Its influence has been vastly extended in the present day, thanks to the Peter Jackson live-action films. Well known examples include "Frodo Lives!" and "Gandalf for President", two phrases popular among American Tolkien fans during the 1960s and 1970s,[39] "Ramble On", "The Battle of Evermore", and "Misty Mountain Hop", three compositions by the British rock band Led Zeppelin that contain explicit references to The Lord of the Rings (with others, such as "Stairway to Heaven", alleged by some to contain such), "Rivendell", a song about the joys of a stay at the Elven haven by the band Rush (found on their album Fly by Night, 1975), "Lord of the Rings" and "Gandalf the Wizard" by the German power metal band Blind Guardian (who have also produced a Silmarillion-inspired album, Nightfall in Middle-Earth), nearly the entire discography of Austrian black metal band Summoning (who have also looked to other Tolkien works for inspiration)[40] Rock band Marillion also take their name from Tolkien's Silmarillion. The Lord of the Rings-themed editions of popular board games (e.g., Risk: Lord of the Rings Trilogy Edition, chess and Monopoly),[41] and parodies such as Bored of the Rings, produced for the Harvard Lampoon.
The book has been adapted for radio four times. In 1955 and 1956, the BBC broadcast The Lord of the Rings, a 12-part radio adaptation of the story. In the 1960s radio station WBAI produced a short radio adaptation. A 1979 dramatization of The Lord of the Rings was broadcast in the United States and subsequently issued on tape and CD. In 1981, the BBC broadcast The Lord of the Rings, a new dramatization in 26 half-hour instalments. This dramatization of The Lord of the Rings has subsequently been made available on both tape and CD both by the BBC and other publishers. For this purpose it is generally edited into 13 one hour episodes.
The two Iron Maiden albums released during Bayley's tenure did not chart as well as the band had hoped. The X Factor peaked at No. 8 on the UK Albums Chart and Virtual XI hit only No. 16, both being the lowest-charting Iron Maiden studio albums since Killers was released in 1981, which peaked at No. 12.
dd2b598166