LENNON/McCARTNEY: Yesterday; And I Love Her; If I Fell; Fool on the Hill; Long and Winding Road; She’s Leaving Home; Wait; Here, There and Everywhere; This Boy; Michelle; Girl; Let it Be; Eleanor Rigby; Norwegian Wood (This Has Bird Has Flown); We Can Work it Out; Step Inside Love; Because.
Hill/Wiltschinsky Guitar Duo
Elap Music: 5210
Every so often I intend to do a retrospective review of a wonderful recording, or book, or musical artist (etc) that had a profound effect on me musically. Such a recording was this one, and the artistes involved. Robin Hill and Peter Wiltschinsky were one of the very best duos in the world, as a listen to any of their duo recordings will show you. Their numerous albums were a wonder to hear and their live performances too, as I was lucky enough to hear them a few times. I also had known Robin Hill for many years before his duet playing, as he played some music of mine in a show I had written the music for, and as he lived near me in Bolton, he became the guitarist in the group.
This beautiful recording with orchestral backing has so many stand- out tracks, but the main thing you notice is how imaginative the arrangements are, with all the important riffs, and other melodies that you recognize as being the bits that you remember from the Beatles originals, woven into a fabric wherein every track sounds utterly different from the previous, and every so often, just for fun, a deliberate reminder of the odd classical guitar piece is added.
This recording hails from 1994, so the recording is 28 years old, but still very fresh with the guitars sitting comfortably in the front of the mix, and the orchestral backing never over powering the players.
The only downside to this is that the duo don’t play together anymore, which is a huge shame, as they really were effortlessly brilliant, but at least we have their many recordings to play, and all of them are truly worth the effort trying to track down.
Chris Dumigan