ENSEMBLE GIVERNY
Waterlilies
(c) (p) 1998 Moonbridge
19tks/62mins

When you take this album into your hands, the names of composers, which you can see on its cover says for themselves: Claude Debussy, Erik Satie, Gabriel Faure, Maurice Ravel. "Ensemble Giverny" plays the works of French composers-impressionists. The album "Waterlilies" is a tribute to the creative work of Claude Monet, representing a perfect musical accompaniment to the pictures of the great painter. So, not occasionally this CD is widely used in various museums (for example, in High Museum of Art in Atlanta, or Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo) making it possible to create corresponding sound environment for the visitors and achieving the connection of visual sequence with the sound one. That is, essentially, we are having a new direction in art, where various genres are combined into the new one, where a music becomes more than just a music, and painting becomes more than just more than painting. And this is direction of the future, when various types of art will be integrated into a new genre.

It is interesting, that not long ago I have listened to my favorite collection of the music of French composers-impressionists ("The Impressionists"), performed by the musicians of the famous company Windham Hill Records, and it was interesting for me to compare it with the "Waterlilies". I have found, that the music of Impressionists performed by "Ensemble Giverny" is closer to the canonic one, it is more strict, and, as I should say, it is very intelligent. Besides, the album contains not only the classical works, but also the modern ones. With that, compositions by Deena T. Grossman are very good inscribed into the compositions sequence and sound in unison to the famous melodies by the Impressionists. I should add here very aesthetic design of the album, where the fragments of the picture "Waterlilies" by Claude Monet are used. Here in everything: in the choice of the works, in the performing and in the album design is felt a special refinement and a great love to the things, which the authors of this remarkable project make.

If you wish to make something very pleasant to a dear friend, present him (or her) the "Waterlilies". This gift can tell a lot of things…

Serge Kozlovsky