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    Beautiful Darkness: Celebrating the Winter Solstice

    Beautiful Darkness: Celebrating the Winter SolsticeArtists: Jessica Radcliffe, Lisa Ekstrom, Martin Simpson
    Label: High Bohemia
    Category: Music

    List Price: $15.49
    Buy New: $10.24
    as of 2/9/2010 21:32 EST details
    You Save: $5.25 (34%)



    New (8) Used (5) from $10.24

    Seller: -importcds
    Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars 4 reviews
    Sales Rank: 158773

    Media: Audio CD
    Discs: 1
    Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
    Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5

    UPC: 616895310126
    EAN: 0616895310126
    ASIN: B000056K90

    Release Date: October 23, 2001
    Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days

    Tracks:

      • Northern Lass/Snowflakes/Snowflakes [Instrumental]
      • Time Is a Little Girl/Over the River and Through the Woods
      • Time Is Drawing Near
      • Kolyada/Old One
      • Raven Och Bonden/A Gift/Giving the Gift
      • Give Me the Moon
      • Abbotts Bromley Horn Dance/In Winter's Shadow
      • O Vent
      • Cutty Wren/I Look for You
      • Til Here Is There
      • To Drive the Cold Winter Away
      • One Small Candle/Beautiful Darkness
      • Winter Wedding/Wexford Carol/The King/The Holly and the Ivy
      • Solstice Fire
      • Tourne Tourne
      • Bright Child/Magic
      • Holly Bears the Crown

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    Customer Reviews:
    5 out of 5 stars excellent CD   November 22, 2009
    Katie (USA)
    5 out of 5 found this review helpful

    merrymousies has already provided some detail on this CD. It includes both songs and spoken word pieces set to music. A variety of instruments are used. I think it is beautiful.

    One thing I like about it is that it avoids the cliched "light wins over darkness" point of view that so many artists seem to get stuck in when they celebrate the solstice. There is one song called One Small Candle which is from that point of view, but the song ends with a spoken-word piece about "beautiful darkness." As Paul Simon asked: "If the answer is infinite light, why do we sleep in the dark?" (from 'how can you live in the northeast?')

    The harmonizing works really well on songs like the Wexford Carol, which was rewritten to provide solstice, rather than Christian, lyrics.

    I started looking for solstice music after hearing the vastly inferior (in my opinion) recent release by Tori Amos, Midwinter Graces. I found Amos's take on things to be fairly boring and lacking in much originality. Additionally her voice does not sound good. I went looking for something better and found this CD. While Amos appears to have made her CD for commercial reasons, this really seems to be a labor of love on the part of the musicians. Although I also enjoy the solstice music of George Winston/Windham Hill, I thought this CD was better b/c it was a lot less cliched.

    I also thought the poem "Time is a Little Girl" was amazing. Time is compared to a little girl who takes your hand and plays with you, taking you all over different geographical areas, until she gets bored and lets go of your hand. I thought that conveyed the capriciousness of life pretty well, as well as the reality that we are not in control of the passage of time.

    Ten stars.



    3 out of 5 stars Pagan Christmas   September 12, 2009
    D. Tinch
    Nice CD. Liked most of the music. They are very talented people, just not to my taste.


    5 out of 5 stars Wonderful!   December 1, 2003
    merrymousies (Waterford, VA USA)
    13 out of 13 found this review helpful

    This is one of my favorite CDs this season. The songs are simply lovely. Sond of the songs have words that are spoken rather than sung as poems or stories being told. Beautiful flutes, bells ringing, guitars and the like. Its very gentle music that you just want to sit and absorb. The lyrics are beautiful - poetic blessings, celebrating our change of seasons, the winter, the wildlife. A few have a celtic sound to them but most do not. The voices, music are just so harmonious, melodic, wonderful. This cd was just what I needed to celebrate the darkness. An amazing work. I wish I could find more like this one!


    5 out of 5 stars Intoxicating   February 23, 2002
    Rochelle L. Gordon (Chicago, Illinois United States)
    12 out of 15 found this review helpful

    How does one begin to describe absolute musical and lyrical beauty? Beautiful Darkness is that description. It is mysterious, passionate, elegant, grand, heavenly, intoxicating and down to earth all at the same time. The artists on this CD have given music lovers a rare gift with this recording.

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