What We Hold Dear

Reviewed By  Janet Mawdesley       July 13, 2017

 

Artist – Timothy Wenzel   

           Distributor:         

           Released:             2017

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           Website:    http://www.timothywenzel.com/          

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Beautiful keyboards emerge out of the silence in this latest album from the renown Timothy Wenzel, in the track Murmuration, capturing in sound the dance of Starlings as they swirl on the currents, creating a dance of pure beauty and enjoyment. With this album Wenzel steps back a little and creates special pieces for many of the things he holds dear in his life.

He is joined on ten of the twelve tracks by violinist Josie Quick, who has worked with Wenzel on an earlier album, cellist Jordan Shug who adds a lovely resonance to many of the tracks and Sarah Joerz who lends her beautiful vocalisation to Desert Dream, a composition created from a feeling of deep, mysterious spiritual rights being undertaken by a tribe in the Southwestern dessert; beautiful, haunting and mysterious.

A Spring Day in Autumn is about contemplating experiencing the many facets of youth again through the eyes of experience; a bit like what would you tell your 16 year old self looking back! The timbre is reflective, the style almost ancient with the clever use of piano and strings in the composition giving the piece a lovely, otherworldly, feel.

Moon Dance is a deliciously light creation there to encourage everyone to take some time in life to dance in the moonlight, be bathed in the reflective glory and enjoy the timelessness moment, never to be repeated again. While on the essence of life Hypnotised is all about falling in love, feeling that hypnotic pull towards another human as you walk slowly, or run madly, towards the most important person in your life.

Throughout the album, the weeping of the violin adds a delicious mystique to many of the pieces, almost a gipsylike tone to several others. If you listen closely, especially to Moon Dance, where, in the vison of the mind, you can almost see the campfires and the slow dancing unfold.

On A Quiet Night is reminiscent of those times when you are outdoors, somewhere in the world, far away from the madding crowd, where you can hear forever; hear the sound of the earth turning, the world settling, peaceful and beautiful.

Ending with the delightfully reflective Turquoise Sky, Emerald Moon, Wenzel sums up the entire breadth and depth of the album as you are encouraged to slow down, take a minute to listen, to look and to enjoy the bounty that is there to behold; to remember once again that regardless of what in life comes your way it is always timely to discover once again, the things that are precious to each and every one, to rediscover the ‘things we hold dear’.

Once again an album full of inspiration.