Our Review
It is always a pleasure to get a new season of holiday music reviewin' underway by looking in on old friends. Robin Spielberg's The Christmas Collection CD was first featured here in 2002. This year finds Ms. Spielberg toting a new set of holiday goodies, In the Heart of Winter, and it is indeed an honor to be in a position to give this new release some early praise.
Not unlike how I get most projects underway, and thanks to the unpredictable laws of programming an Apple iPod, I managed to listen to the tracks on this CD in reverse order. But even having inadvertently sabotaged the producer's vision of my listening experience, I was nevertheless able to appreciate the beauty of Ms. Spielberg's play, as well as enjoying her intricately embellished arrangements.
Though her phrasing is thoroughly contemporary and her treatments of the traditional carols completely integrated into a new age motif, the attraction of In the Heart of Winter is, to me, more in the strong set of original holiday songs composed by Ms. Spielberg herself. The CD opens--if one listens in the proper order--with In The Heart Of Winter, a contemplatively sentimental tune unique in offering a glimpse of a vocal performance from the artist. Inspired by the fall of Maple leaves in autumn and played with extravagant dexterity, A Change Of Season is imbued with drama and pathos. Solstice Celebration is a light, airy proclamation of the return of the sun. And First Night, an ode to Christmas Eve, is a warm and uplifting tribute.
The annual holiday crescendo still months away, Robin Spielberg's In the Heart of Winter provides an elegant beginning.
--Richard Banks
(Reviewed in 2007)
More
Ms. Spielberg's gifts have won her a place among the nation's most respected contemporary pianists, as well as a slot on Steinway's Artist Roster. Her fourteen recordings include five albums of original piano solos, two recordings of American standards and film songs, original pieces for solo piano and piano/ensemble, a collaborative CD containing instrumentals, sung ballads and songs celebrating mother and motherhood, four recordings for holiday, and a recording of lullabies.
Robin Spielberg
In The Heart Of Winter
Artist site
Label: playMountain Music
Length: 50 minutes
Genre: New Age
Release: 2007
Track List
| Song Title |
|---|
| In The Heart Of Winter |
| St. Basil's Hymn |
| Amazing Graze / Silent Night |
| What Child Is This? (Greensleeves) |
| A Change Of Season |
| God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen |
| Solstice Celebration |
| Hark! The Herald Angels Sing |
| Jolly Old St. Nicholas |
| First Night |
| Away In The Manger |
| Still, Still, Still |