The Taliesin Orchestra
Platinum Entertainment, P.O. Box 1724, Roswell, GA 30077
The predecessor to this CD, Orinoco Flow - The Music Of Enya has spent about a year and a half on Billboard’s Classical Crossover chart and has complied an impressive list of congratulations, hence the perceived need for Maiden Of Mysteries as a follow up. To me, much of the appeal of Enya stems from her sound itself --her voice and her arrangements combine to produce music that can be as stunning on the 1000th go round as it was on the first. Practically everyone I know has a copy of Shepherd Moons for use on a "first date."
Therefore, taking the Enya out of Enya is running a great risk, and this album, which presents a smattering of songs from several of her albums, doesn’t--and can’t--approach the sound of the original. To their credit, I don’t really think they’re trying. The goal seems to be to take the music, and--on most instances--give it a different sound entirely or try to expand the into a more non-Enya realm, with some wild violin solos, thick horns, and the like.
Essentially, we’ve got a string orchestra (no violas!), a few winds, pipes, guitars, and more. Some of the arrangements don’t add any new insight and just come off as "easy listening." The more interesting takes include a soulful rendition of "How Can I Keep From Singing," with vocalist Alfreda Gerald giving the song an entirely different feel, and an orchestral version of "Ebudæ," the short Celtic song on Shepherd Moons , (I’m convinced that even those of us who are very familiar with Enya can’t name the songs to save our lives.) that stretches the music out to almost 5 minutes and has some neat orchestrations. "Caribbean Blue," sticks more or less to the original intentions, ends with a rambling violin, but the blue is more pale than Caribbean.
I’ll think I’ll stick to the real thing.
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