Now They Can Be YOUR Favorites, Too!

... if your threshold is VERY low.

This is singularly unimpressive when you consider that this came out several years after Don Dorsey’s Bachbusters, which proved that 1980s tech could indeed produce startling, inventive, and stirring synthesized versions of classical music.

By contrast this album is uninspired. If  Bachbusters is possible, why produce something which is so bland? Why do it at all? 

01 - Für Elise (excerpt) - Beethoven - 1989
02 - Turkish March Medley - Mozart-Beethoven - 1989
03 - Ave Maria - Gounod - 1989
04 - Rustles Of Spring - Sinding - 1989
05 - To A Wild Rose - MacDowell - 1989
06 - Ritual Fire Dance - de Falla - 1989
07 - Pavane pour une Infante defunte - Ravel - 1989
08 - Hungarian Dance #5 - Brahms - 1989
09 - The Flatterer - Chaminade - 1989
10 - Spinning Song - Ellmenreich - 1989
11 - Gymnopedie #1 - Satie - 1989
12 - Banjo - Gottschalk - 1989
13 - Minuet - Boccherini - 1989
14 - Shadow Dance - MacDowell - 1989
15 - Liebestraüme - Liszt - 1989
16 - Waltz (in the style of Borodin) - Ravel - 1989
17 - Guitarre - Moszkowski - 1989
18 - Spinning Song - Mendelssohn - 1989
19 - Reverie - Debussy - 1989
20 - Minute Waltz - Chopin - 1989
21 - Prelude in C# Minor - Rachmaninoff - 1989
22 - Flight of the Bumblebee - Rimsky-Korsakov - 1989
23 - Rondo Capriccioso - Mendelssohn - 1989
24 - Traumerei - Schumann - 1989

25 - March from The Love of Three Oranges - Prokofiev - 1989 

26 - Für Elise - Beethoven – 1989

Allegedly Faves

To me, the best performances are Tracks 13-14, which use simple variations of electric-piano-type sounds, with a few echoing chimes. Sadly, this is the only effective approach in Baker’s repertoire. Other tracks sound like bad Tomita outtakes, or a first-year piano student’s attempts to be spiffy with sound effects.

“The Flight of the Bumblebee” sounds like a Theremin with diarrhea.

And for his finale, Baker turns Beethoven’s little “Für Elise” from a lilting tune in a minor key into a major-key pompous embarrassment. Fie, and for shame, Mr Baker!

Comparing the work of Don Dorsey or Walter/Wendy Carlos to this album is like comparing Fred Astaire to Stewart (“Look what I can do!”) from MADtv -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyvbFMGmImg.

See what YOU can do until Monday.