The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #105508   Message #2172007
Posted By: Zhenya
15-Oct-07 - 09:56 PM
Thread Name: Review: The Elfin Knight (Joel Frederiksen)
Subject: The Elfin Knight (Joel Frederiksen)
I came across this album by accident on eMusic when I was searching for something else in the Classical Music section:
Joel Frederiksen, Ensemble Phoenix Munich: The Elfin Knight.

The title caught my eye, since I recognized it as one of the Child ballads. There are some other Child ballads on the album as well - Willie O' Winsbury, Barbara Ellen and in fact all the songs are folk songs (as opposed to classical pieces.)

I'm mentioning it here, because, to be honest, I don't generally like versions of folk material done by classical singers. I usually find them too stilted and irritating to my ear. But I took a chance and sampled some tracks anyway, since I liked the songs listed, and ended up downloading the whole album. And, in fact, I've been playing it over and over.

I wasn't familiar with this singer before but he has a beautiful voice, and a really nice way with these songs. There are other fine singers on the album as well. What perhaps enhanced it for me is that the accompaniments to the song are done early music style, which I find appealing. There are some instrumental tracks of early music pieces as well.

So, if you already like classically trained vocalists as well as folk music, you may like this album. And if you usually DON'T like such vocalists, perhaps you'll give this a try anyway. I'm very glad I did.

Here's a link to the Amazon page with 30 second samples of the album tracks:

The Elfin Knight