This is the music that makes Oldfield a GIANT. He utilised his talent magnitudes more greatly than he ever did after. Yes, this music moved the world forward even if the majority don't know it yet.
This music is NOT repetitive! It's a work of art, and absolutely nothing about it should be changed. It's a piece of music that progresses perfectly. Everyone who keeps saying how repetitive it is should open up their ears a little more...and their mind, too! No, I don't mean by taking drugs...although I'm sure mushrooms or LSD would only help with this music. Basically, when music has the power to get you naturally high, you know it's special music. This is no exception!
On peut adorer ou détester Mike Oldfield. c'est une recherche personnelle - effrayante, parfois, de sincérité. Je n'aime pas toute son oeuvre mais j'admire la personne, son talent et son désir de partage (alors même qu'il savait que certains morceaux étaient voués à l'échec commercial !).
Auch bei mir werden viele Erinnerungen wach. Kopfhörer auf, flach auf dem Boden liegend, Träume in Richtung Zukunft und einfach nur Begeisterung über so viel geniale Musik...
Mike Oldfield is the only musician to date who have made modern symphonies like Tubular Bells and Incantations the longest record MO ever have written and my favorite.
This albun is simply groundbreaking, Oldfield achieves a wonderful blend of symphonic rock and minimal contemporay music, I can perceive the Philip Glass and Steve Reich influence, but here Mike aren´t copying nothing, its making a step foward. Simply outstanding...
Bloody hell! Got to admit, I am a person that usually likes thrash/death metal, with a lapse into some classical and prog rock. But, Mike Oldfield taught me a vital lesson; that not all music needs strepsil sponsored vocals and power chords to sound cool. WhobearUK, I salute you. Cheers for sharing these amazing videos. If I ever cross paths with you one day, I would buy you a pint. Many thanks!
My folks got the album when I was 2 or 3, just after it came out. What I love is how you can listen to it in so many different ways, as a landscape to get lost in, as a piece with an overture - introducing the themes - before the movements explore each theme. I remember being reintroduced to the piece by a classical flautist who explained the time signatures and why it was such a complex piece - prior to that I hadn't even considered the beats and bars and counting...
Part one of incantations is AMAZING! (4 parts on the cd). I love it. You can feel Mike oldfield's love for music shining through in that piece (at least I think so) This sounds exactly like the cd..
I have this record. Original. Listen To it at least once a day. After Moby's "God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters" The most beautiful piece of music ever written.
I think you should bear in mind that this work derives wholly from the opening chord. That whole stepwise progression is the one thing that binds the disperate ideas together. It is what makes this piece an underated masterwork.
1979 gab es noch nicht viel populäre Musik, die mit Orchester eingespielt wurde. Ich finde es toll, dass da wo man eine Geige hört, auch eine Geige gespielt wird zusammen mit den elektronischen Klängen einfach genial. Ich möchte nicht wissen wie lange die proben mussten um das so hinzubekommen. Einfach perfekt. Echte Bläser und nicht dieser Elektronikkram. Ich kenne die Musiker nicht aber das waren Vollprofis.
@illuminato100 Anch'io sono un italiano amante del buon Vecchiocampo. E sono perfettamente d'accordo con te. A me piacciono anche i Pink Floyd, ed ero rimasto incredibilmente stupito quando un altro fan dei suddetti aveva detto: "Sì, ma Mike Oldfield fa solo canzoncine.". Io ho gentilmente risposto di andare ad ascoltare Herdest Ridge, Ommadawn, Amarok, Tubular Bells, Incantations, Taurus Two etc, dove raggiunge livelli molto più alti dei Pink. Lui mi ha detto di andarmi ad ascoltare UMMAGUMMA.
Much in the same guise as my response to RSimusic - One can easily 'understand' this and still not be satisfied with the listening experience. Listening to it again 10 months later, my opinion hasn't changed.
I listen to all music with my ears. I love a lot of Oldfield's work, however I have a big preference for say, Tangerine Dream or John Adam's. For me this Oldfield work is a bit like listening to Arvo Part try and be interesting.
@guziec1981 Absolutely! Studio versions are fine, but life there is a 'grain', a delicate roughness (specially in vinyl, also because in the CD there the silences between sides). Truly clever music.
The entire work is held together or "controlled" if you like by the progression but it is the variety of ways it is used (not always obvious) which make the work both interesting and tight rather than sprawling like most prog rock efforts. The ending of the piece reveals that even the "Hiawatha" melody belongs to and is based on the same progression. Once you become aware of that fact, the whole piece is incredibly satisfying and the product of some considerable thought.
@teamcrumb I agree with you about his music - energy changed somehow... if you do a Google Images for Cala Pregonda there are some great images of the Incantations front cover location - in glorious sunshine! Cheers.
Oxygene 13. Oldfield was heavily influenced by Sibelius - u need 2 listen through 2 the end before u can rly work out everything he is up 2 - if yr attention span doesn't stretch beyond 2 mins then this is not 4 u - I know only 2 well that not everyone "gets" Oldfield, he's very "marmite" & I know lots of classical music lovers who find him unbearably naive, maybe you're 1 of them, that's cool, it takes all sorts :) Thank u whobearUK 4 uploading this, it is truly astounding - we're not worthy :)
Well after only two minutes, neither would I? If you are a "Composition Major" then I think you seriously need to wonder about what your education taught you. As a Masters Graduate myself, I regard this piece as an amazing example of concentrated musical thinking. And one that student composers could learn a lot from by studying. If you really cannot hear how the opening chord holds this piece together. (The chordal progression is played as the flute melody and is also in the bass line.)
Well 2 minutes are not hard for me, I own many Oldfield works and listen to lengthy pieces of music regularly, whether that be Prog rock epics or Opera and Symphony of a classical, romantic, modern and post modern idion. I do know some things about music, after all I am a post grad composition student.
...paint through water colours... Even if one takes what you could call my abstract analysis of the piece as indeed, a chord progression, it seems a little bizarre to my mind to then say it holds the piece together. To my mind it would then be the repetition of a short progression that gets put through transmutations in the form of loose variations. So, to sum up, repetition and form 'controlling' a 'chord progression' or 'series of direct transpositions'...
...actual musical elements that are REQUIRED to hold the opening material together! However, these are my views, and I respect that you have your own, egapnala65. Now please, if you could, don't insinuate that my education has been poor and by extension, that my views are 'wrong' and that is is somehow completely bizarre that I would not hear the music how you do. After all, music relies very, very heavily on individual perception.
@hsd628 Nice story,did you tell the same at the academic? strange way ,these days to graduate,,if you did ....................musicians have strange personality,s
This was interesting for 2 minutes and then started getting dull - a shame. The base idea is good, the direct transpositions providing an unusual although continually shifting diatonic base harmony. This develops somewhat through timbre variations but really I feel this section suffers through an overall lack of variation. You can be in love with an idea too much. Oldfield isn't always guilty of it, but he is sometimes
...If the piece were merely that 'chord progression' without suitable variety and formal devices, then it wouldn't be 'held together' at all. More accurate would be to say that the opening material is the core material that then has to be controlled, in my view. Finally, seeing as direct transpositions are so vital to this work, it seems weird to then say that it is that very thing which 'holds the piece' together. It seems to me that you are confusing the 'disparate' ideas with the actual...
Got off your high horse. I simply perceive the music differently to you, and do not find the ideas in the work to be disparate. I definitely don't recall saying that students could not 'learn' from the work. What holds the piece together in MY mind is the repetition of direct transpositions of motivic cells without a harmonic bridge. In other words, I don't see it so much as a chord progression as an almost singular line that is 'shifted',adisplaced as if brushing thick paint through...
There is not a single comment where I have been dismissive or outright told somebody else that they are wrong for having their opinion. Now you have sunk even lower by once again insulting my intelligence and telling me to stick with Mozart. I'm really not going to go into my credentials right now. All I will say is that I am not doing badly in the slightest and I am definitely not some stupid person who does not listen to say, 'challenging' music, if you will. You should try to be less...
This is the music that makes Oldfield a GIANT. He utilised his talent magnitudes more greatly than he ever did after. Yes, this music moved the world forward even if the majority don't know it yet.
This music is NOT repetitive! It's a work of art, and absolutely nothing about it should be changed. It's a piece of music that progresses perfectly. Everyone who keeps saying how repetitive it is should open up their ears a little more...and their mind, too!
No, I don't mean by taking drugs...although I'm sure mushrooms or LSD would only help with this music.
Basically, when music has the power to get you naturally high, you know it's special music. This is no exception!
This music is so timeless and really genious..
Mike's music will last.
There's more magic in this music than David Copperfield could ever produce.
Found this while I was serving in Germany.Bought the double Album. Best thing I ever did. OUTSTANDING.
On peut adorer ou détester Mike Oldfield. c'est une recherche personnelle - effrayante, parfois, de sincérité. Je n'aime pas toute son oeuvre mais j'admire la personne, son talent et son désir de partage (alors même qu'il savait que certains morceaux étaient voués à l'échec commercial !).
Auch bei mir werden viele Erinnerungen wach. Kopfhörer auf, flach auf dem Boden liegend, Träume in Richtung Zukunft und einfach nur Begeisterung über so viel geniale Musik...
Mike Oldfield's longest composition to date and it is really GREAT.
i love his music so much - he's always with me
Es una música tan distinta a todo...
Es un género de música aparte.
Es una obra de arte, como ver el David de Miguel Ángel o La Gioconda de Da Vinci.
MO is the greatest of modern composers, especially his earlier works are real gems.
fa pace col tuo spaziotempo interiore ....
Wow. Anyone attending this had to have been blessed. And how blessed are we that we can now all experience it? Amazing.
6.44 That is so beautiful... Music made for heaven, made in heaven... It is heaven.
Oh my God...this music is terrific!!!!! Superb!!!!
even with a youtube playlist i'm still buying the dvd.
i just found the double vinyl for 4 bucks.
mike oldfield is my man
Likewise
Really great sound quality. Kudos to that!
Spiritual, Mike at his best.
Mike Oldfield is the only musician to date who have made modern symphonies like Tubular Bells and Incantations the longest record MO ever have written and my favorite.
no hergest no dawn??? omma!!!!!! calls ridge
@@XanAxDdu Yes them too, just forgot!
PURE GENIUS.
I totally agree that this is an underrated masterwork, but also Oldfield's most ambitious orchestral piece to date!
This albun is simply groundbreaking, Oldfield achieves a wonderful blend of symphonic rock and minimal contemporay music, I can perceive the Philip Glass and Steve Reich influence, but here Mike aren´t copying nothing, its making a step foward. Simply outstanding...
Thanks for this - I was there at the Wembley Conference Centre to see it - wow, nearly 30 years ago!
wonderful piece of pure art,genius and beauty..
Bloody hell!
Got to admit, I am a person that usually likes thrash/death metal, with a lapse into some classical and prog rock. But, Mike Oldfield taught me a vital lesson; that not all music needs strepsil sponsored vocals and power chords to sound cool.
WhobearUK, I salute you. Cheers for sharing these amazing videos. If I ever cross paths with you one day, I would buy you a pint. Many thanks!
if you like music. you must like this. its heavy passionate and skilled
Incantaions is my favorite LP
Bought this album after Old Grey Whistle Test showed it on BBC2
It's fantastic ...my first concert I saw... 30 yrs ago (!)
I was there and it was a wonderful experience!
still gorgeous!
Yes I totally agree. He has written some amazing music, but the start section to Incantations is classic.
Only one word...
GENIUS!!!
Best 6/13 (xylophone), next 4/13.
Thanks for posting.
My folks got the album when I was 2 or 3, just after it came out. What I love is how you can listen to it in so many different ways, as a landscape to get lost in, as a piece with an overture - introducing the themes - before the movements explore each theme. I remember being reintroduced to the piece by a classical flautist who explained the time signatures and why it was such a complex piece - prior to that I hadn't even considered the beats and bars and counting...
A mighty work from Readings finest.
Part one of incantations is AMAZING! (4 parts on the cd). I love it. You can feel Mike oldfield's love for music shining through in that piece (at least I think so)
This sounds exactly like the cd..
I have this record. Original. Listen To it at least once a day. After Moby's "God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters" The most beautiful piece of music ever written.
I think you should bear in mind that this work derives wholly from the opening chord. That whole stepwise progression is the one thing that binds the disperate ideas together. It is what makes this piece an underated masterwork.
1979 gab es noch nicht viel populäre Musik, die mit Orchester eingespielt wurde. Ich finde es toll, dass da wo man eine Geige hört, auch eine Geige gespielt wird zusammen mit den elektronischen Klängen einfach genial. Ich möchte nicht wissen wie lange die proben mussten um das so hinzubekommen. Einfach perfekt.
Echte Bläser und nicht dieser Elektronikkram. Ich kenne die Musiker nicht aber das waren Vollprofis.
This is what made me want to make music and play instruments. :-)
Extraordinario. Debería formar parte de cualquier antología musical del siglo XX.
This is a modern symphony from the year 1978.
First album I ever bought - in Quadrophonic!
Simplesmente Fantástico, obra de gênio...
Have it on vinyl...love it!
It's the perfect soundtrack for reading 'the lord of the rings'.
Take note, kids... no loopers, sequencers, samples... all keyboards played... IN REAL TIME!! BY HAND!! PROPER MUSIC, BAH GUM!!
Hero.
Mike on its best!!
@illuminato100
Anch'io sono un italiano amante del buon Vecchiocampo. E sono perfettamente d'accordo con te. A me piacciono anche i Pink Floyd, ed ero rimasto incredibilmente stupito quando un altro fan dei suddetti aveva detto: "Sì, ma Mike Oldfield fa solo canzoncine.". Io ho gentilmente risposto di andare ad ascoltare Herdest Ridge, Ommadawn, Amarok, Tubular Bells, Incantations, Taurus Two etc, dove raggiunge livelli molto più alti dei Pink. Lui mi ha detto di andarmi ad ascoltare UMMAGUMMA.
would anyone agree this is his best album?
Sorry my personal album remains ommadawn
Much in the same guise as my response to RSimusic - One can easily 'understand' this and still not be satisfied with the listening experience. Listening to it again 10 months later, my opinion hasn't changed.
I listen to all music with my ears. I love a lot of Oldfield's work, however I have a big preference for say, Tangerine Dream or John Adam's. For me this Oldfield work is a bit like listening to Arvo Part try and be interesting.
In my top 10 of "desert island" albums
@guziec1981 Absolutely! Studio versions are fine, but life there is a 'grain', a delicate roughness (specially in vinyl, also because in the CD there the silences between sides). Truly clever music.
The entire work is held together or "controlled" if you like by the progression but it is the variety of ways it is used (not always obvious) which make the work both interesting and tight rather than sprawling like most prog rock efforts.
The ending of the piece reveals that even the "Hiawatha" melody belongs to and is based on the same progression.
Once you become aware of that fact, the whole piece is incredibly satisfying and the product of some considerable thought.
...remains beautiful...
beissima. it's a fantastic folky world
@arruu2000
I think that adds to it though the building up of the tracks ! Peace n Music
Very good!!!!:)
Christ, the cellos start at a different tempo to everyone else...
This was M.O - R.I.P
@teamcrumb I agree with you about his music - energy changed somehow... if you do a Google Images for Cala Pregonda there are some great images of the Incantations front cover location - in glorious sunshine! Cheers.
Oxygene 13. Oldfield was heavily influenced by Sibelius - u need 2 listen through 2 the end before u can rly work out everything he is up 2 - if yr attention span doesn't stretch beyond 2 mins then this is not 4 u - I know only 2 well that not everyone "gets" Oldfield, he's very "marmite" & I know lots of classical music lovers who find him unbearably naive, maybe you're 1 of them, that's cool, it takes all sorts :) Thank u whobearUK 4 uploading this, it is truly astounding - we're not worthy :)
@zuthoris You seem to have a very clear understanding of what's good ! Where in Germany were you stationed ?
This album definitely rocks !
Paradisiaco..
Tops with me
@hsd628 Thumbs up on that one!
Well after only two minutes, neither would I? If you are a "Composition Major" then I think you seriously need to wonder about what your education taught you.
As a Masters Graduate myself, I regard this piece as an amazing example of concentrated musical thinking. And one that student composers could learn a lot from by studying.
If you really cannot hear how the opening chord holds this piece together. (The chordal progression is played as the flute melody and is also in the bass line.)
@xj900man yea, kicks the shit out of tubular bells
Well 2 minutes are not hard for me, I own many Oldfield works and listen to lengthy pieces of music regularly, whether that be Prog rock epics or Opera and Symphony of a classical, romantic, modern and post modern idion. I do know some things about music, after all I am a post grad composition student.
A lot of Glass here.
Read from bottom to top, if you could do so...
...paint through water colours...
Even if one takes what you could call my abstract analysis of the piece as indeed, a chord progression, it seems a little bizarre to my mind to then say it holds the piece together. To my mind it would then be the repetition of a short progression that gets put through transmutations in the form of loose variations. So, to sum up, repetition and form 'controlling' a 'chord progression' or 'series of direct transpositions'...
I'd guess 11/8. Seems most natural to me to count it out 1-2-3-4-1-2-1-2-3-4-5
It is 11/8 10/8 11/8 11/8... again and again...
...actual musical elements that are REQUIRED to hold the opening material together! However, these are my views, and I respect that you have your own, egapnala65.
Now please, if you could, don't insinuate that my education has been poor and by extension, that my views are 'wrong' and that is is somehow completely bizarre that I would not hear the music how you do. After all, music relies very, very heavily on individual perception.
@hsd628 Nice story,did you tell the same at the academic?
strange way ,these days to graduate,,if you did ....................musicians have strange personality,s
Is this off a DVD?
This was interesting for 2 minutes and then started getting dull - a shame. The base idea is good, the direct transpositions providing an unusual although continually shifting diatonic base harmony. This develops somewhat through timbre variations but really I feel this section suffers through an overall lack of variation. You can be in love with an idea too much. Oldfield isn't always guilty of it, but he is sometimes
John Adams*
Great technical description, but you missed the point I'm afraid! :)
I do that anyway.
I don't really need to bear anything in mind but for the record, I do not find the ideas in this work to be disparate.
Maybe it's just me, but doesn't Mike Oldfield look a bit like David Tennant here?
Hör bitte genauer hin, es ist ganz anders als auf der Studio-Incantations (viel kürzer) und sogar anders als auf der Exposed-CD :-)
only one question ....is he human?
Because you disagree with my views on the overall effectiveness of the piece does not mean I have 'missed the point'. Get over it.
...less insulting.
Good luck in your music career.
...If the piece were merely that 'chord progression' without suitable variety and formal devices, then it wouldn't be 'held together' at all. More accurate would be to say that the opening material is the core material that then has to be controlled, in my view.
Finally, seeing as direct transpositions are so vital to this work, it seems weird to then say that it is that very thing which 'holds the piece' together. It seems to me that you are confusing the 'disparate' ideas with the actual...
Got off your high horse. I simply perceive the music differently to you, and do not find the ideas in the work to be disparate.
I definitely don't recall saying that students could not 'learn' from the work.
What holds the piece together in MY mind is the repetition of direct transpositions of motivic cells without a harmonic bridge. In other words, I don't see it so much as a chord progression as an almost singular line that is 'shifted',adisplaced as if brushing thick paint through...
There is not a single comment where I have been dismissive or outright told somebody else that they are wrong for having their opinion. Now you have sunk even lower by once again insulting my intelligence and telling me to stick with Mozart.
I'm really not going to go into my credentials right now. All I will say is that I am not doing badly in the slightest and I am definitely not some stupid person who does not listen to say, 'challenging' music, if you will.
You should try to be less...
M.O. ist der Beste!!! Aber das Video hier ist definitv nicht live. Das ist exakt die Mucke von der CD. Aber egal, danke fürs on stellen!
Paint with water colours Oxygene13. But then there is very little you can do accept exercise a very deluded ego.
I find the repetition tedious to listen to, sorry. Not a fan.