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Topic: MoTS versus Mont St Michel, Your preference?< Next Oldest | Next Newest >
nightspore Offline




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Posted: July 29 2008, 11:18

As MO's two obvious "classical" works, an equally obvious question is: which do you prefer? My vote is for "Mont St Michel", where Mike manages, particularly towards the end, to translate his trademark signature of transcendent, emotional yearning into orchestral terms. In MotS, on the other hand, the dominant emotion seems to be uneasiness,which, personally, I find less appealing.
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Sir Mustapha Offline




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Posted: July 29 2008, 12:47

That comparison to me would be equivalent to comparing, respectively, a box of chocolates and a punch on my face. Mont St. Michel is kind of like an over-glorified washed out soup with leftover ingredients, i.e. the melodies that were way too weak to be built into a composition thrown together and played by an orchestra in an attempt to fill up the holes. Music of the Spheres is, on the other hand, a composition.

EDIT: I just realised the first phrase might not deliver the meaning I intended, because I think several people would enjoy a punch on my face much more than a box of chocolates...


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Ciderginaspro Offline




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Posted: July 29 2008, 14:12

Quote (Sir Mustapha @ July 29 2008, 12:47)
That comparison to me would be equivalent to comparing, respectively, a box of chocolates and a punch on my face. Mont St. Michel is kind of like an over-glorified washed out soup with leftover ingredients, i.e. the melodies that were way too weak to be built into a composition thrown together and played by an orchestra in an attempt to fill up the holes. Music of the Spheres is, on the other hand, a composition.

EDIT: I just realised the first phrase might not deliver the meaning I intended, because I think several people would enjoy a punch on my face much more than a box of chocolates...

wow, don't be so cruel with yourself !
you have your own opinions and you tell them! bravo !!

Claire,

ps: I prefer the chocolates....
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olracUK Offline




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Posted: July 29 2008, 19:39

I actually agree with Nightspore here. Mont St Michel does carry that Oldfield trademark - crescendo, feeling, it makes my heart travel (unlike the rest of voyager which is IMHO pants).

MotS really comes across to me as an adventure that failed. Some great melodies, but not a coherent whole. Unlike his usual long form compositions, I think MotS is too disparate, to disjointed to flow for me. I don't get taken on that journey.


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Bassman Offline




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Posted: July 29 2008, 20:08

Well, there are those that say MOTS has too much of Karl Jenkins all over it, that it dilutes the MO presence.  But it's a good enough piece on it's own, even taking into account that it may be a little too derivative for some folks' liking.

On the other hand, apart from perhaps being a bit inconsequential, there's not a damn thing wrong with "Mont St. Michel".  It's pleasant enough.  I would rather have it than NOT have it (we don't need more rarities).  What, every piece MO does has to be an "Ommadawn" or an "Amarok"?  Give me a break.

MOTS gets the chance to stretch out to make it's point to the listener.  If the themes of "Mont St. Michel" were expanded to 45 minutes then maybe a fairer comparison could be made.  But as it stands, and as much as I enjoy MOTS, "Mont St. Michel" gets my nod simply because MO's presence on it is a wee bit more apparent.


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nightspore Offline




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Posted: July 29 2008, 20:28

Quote (Sir Mustapha @ July 29 2008, 12:47)
That comparison to me would be equivalent to comparing, respectively, a box of chocolates and a punch on my face. Mont St. Michel is kind of like an over-glorified washed out soup with leftover ingredients, i.e. the melodies that were way too weak to be built into a composition thrown together and played by an orchestra in an attempt to fill up the holes. Music of the Spheres is, on the other hand, a composition.

EDIT: I just realised the first phrase might not deliver the meaning I intended, because I think several people would enjoy a punch on my face much more than a box of chocolates...

Despite the implied reference to "chocolate soup", which is not the best thing to read about first thing in the morning :/ , I think this is really just saying that two different kinds of emotion are produced, which again I don't dispute.... As for the suggestion that the melodies in Mont St Michel are weak, I'm left scratching my head with the question of, if this is true, why I can't get them off my mind once I've listened to the piece! It's as though Sir M is talking about another Mont St Michel - perhaps "St Michael's Mount", in Cornwall...
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Olivier Offline




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Posted: July 30 2008, 02:20

Quote (olracUK @ July 29 2008, 19:39)
I actually agree with Nightspore here. Mont St Michel does carry that Oldfield trademark - crescendo, feeling, it makes my heart travel (unlike the rest of voyager which is IMHO pants).

MotS really comes across to me as an adventure that failed. Some great melodies, but not a coherent whole. Unlike his usual long form compositions, I think MotS is too disparate, to disjointed to flow for me. I don't get taken on that journey.

Tubular Bells and Amarok are not very coherent either in my opinion, but they are better than coherent, he found something beyond.

Would Incantations be the gold standard in coherence?

MotS has a similar structure as Tubular Bells III, and I agree it's not very coherent, with pointless reprises, and not much development. It's classical sounding music on a pop album structure. I kind of like the contrary better: classical structure with pop instruments.
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nightspore Offline




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Posted: July 30 2008, 07:25

Quote (Olivier @ July 30 2008, 02:20)
Tubular Bells and Amarok are not very coherent either in my opinion, but they are better than coherent, he found something beyond.

So which way are you voting, Olivier?

It's not clear to me what is meant by "coherent", here. IAmarok is a very structured piece, in its way: there is the recurring theme that finally finds magnificent expression in the tubular bells section; there are variations on the "so far" melody, etc. Even the musique concrete sections have as an organizing principle events in Mike's daily life. So presumably "coherent" doesn't mean "structured"...
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Inkanta Offline




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Posted: July 30 2008, 09:11

Yum! Did someone mention chocolate?? My major food group.

I absolutely love Mt. Michel. Sometimes when I listen to it, I am transported in time and place--I can nearly see the history of the place unfolding. I find it lovely, haunting, and full of echoes of things that you can nearly touch.

I recently created a new running playlist and included just a few things from MotS. Leessee <goes into trance cos iPod isn't in front of her> "Harbinger," "On my Heart," And Musica Universalis." Seems like there might be one more. Anyway--surprisingly--or not--those three were about as flowing (or not) as the Mike-given order of the entire work.  Probably because it's not particularly cohesive or flowing to begin with.

My 21-year old daughter, who listens mostly to classical, Celtic, and some progressive rock, heard MotS for the first time on the way to the airport this past Sunday. Her reaction was that it would have made a good movie soundtrack. I think she called it a nice muzak movie soundtrack.  She thought it was pleasant enough, but not exactly breaking new ground or particularly engaging. Her two sisters were listening to their iPods in the back of the car, and I found myself turning the volume up and down on MotS -- you'd have thought I was listening to Amarok, hahaha!


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nightspore Offline




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Posted: July 30 2008, 09:40

Quote (Inkanta @ July 30 2008, 09:11)
Yum! Did someone mention chocolate?? My major food group.

I absolutely love Mt. Michel. Sometimes when I listen to it, I am transported in time and place

!

Would you eat it as a soup, first thing in the morning, though Inkanta! Actually, it might be pleasant at that... not too different from a cup of hot drinking chocolate. (Irrelevant aside: I see you can now buy chocolate bars flavoured with chilli. They're not unpleasant, actually).

Reading between the lines, I take it your vote is for "Mont St Michel". It's funny how some of Mike's pieces absolutely polarize listeners. Voyager and The Millennium Bell seem to contain a far higher percentage of such pieces than other MO records.
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Olivier Offline




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Posted: July 30 2008, 12:00

Quote (nightspore @ July 30 2008, 07:25)
Quote (Olivier @ July 30 2008, 02:20)
Tubular Bells and Amarok are not very coherent either in my opinion, but they are better than coherent, he found something beyond.

So which way are you voting, Olivier?

There is a naivety I don't like in Mont St-Michel, I prefer the rest of Voyager. I think he was too pretentious whne he did Mont St Michel. So I'd vote for MotS. To me Mont St Michel sounds like a bad soundtrack, and MotS like a good one. But I'm not a big fan of either, the comparison is interesting though. The whistle sound in MotS remind me of wondeful music Mike did in Ommadawn in and Amarok, and I just skip MotS usually, I'm not absorbed, I find it too inferior to some of his other stuff, and too pretentious compared to the traditional tracks that I just listened to before it.
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Inkanta Offline




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Posted: July 30 2008, 12:16

Chocolate soup first thing in the morning--wouldn't that be sort of like a fondue into which you could dip raspberries, oranges, strawberries, mangoes, etc.??? Melted chocolate also tastes good on kettle popcorn. Flavored with chili gives new meaning to "hot chocolate." :D  Hmm....could really work. I tend to carry hot pepper packets in my pocketbook--maybe I should try using it with my chocolate instead of pizza.

Years ago in another Oldfield community far away it seemed to be Earth Moving and Heaven's Open.  I actually gave HO as a gag gift to someone I was visiting because his own copy had disappeared (he'd lent it) and he was hoping it wouldn't ever turn up again. But it did and he returned the copy I'd purchased to me, and I sent it to someone else who really wanted it. I really love Voyager for what it is and really like a lot of TMB. "Lake Constance" feels a bit flatter or washed out than MsM, IMHO, though it reminds me of a lake (more than "The Lake") . Kayleigh and I used to dance around to the "Doge's Palace." My daughters and I have performed POE twice on Christmas Eve at the Unitarian Church. Perfect for a UU service. When TMB came out, my office had a young student worker. I lent her TMB, she liked it, went home and found Ommadawn in her father's vinyl collection, really, really liked that, and became a bit of an MO fan.

Getting back to MotS and MsM, these days you're more likely to catch me listening to MotS than MsM, but not because I prefer it. I really don't know--it depends on my mood, I suppose. When Voyager first came out I listened to it every day for a very long time. That's not the case with MotS, but I am listening to it frequently.


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The Caveman Offline




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Posted: July 30 2008, 12:41

The problem i find with MsM is that is so 'Un-Mike' if that makes sense.Voyager is an album i associate with the few months after my first daughter was born and moving out from my parents to live in our own place.We bought the cassette and played it  to death.However 12 years on and i rarely listen to it because it sounds like so many soundtracks to films about 'the old country' (as my grandad described Ireland) and in fact it was once described as such in a review.I don't dislike it and MsM in particular is still a good track in it's own right but one gets the feeling that Mike wasn't trying that hard as it was contractual (his manager suggested it and Mike himself described his reaction to it as "That's easy").
MOTS however is a different kettle of fish altogether.It was written by Mike for Mike (Kerl Jenkins involvement notwithstanding)and is in perfect keeping  with his 'i don't give a sh*t what people think if i believe in it' attitude described at the end of Changling.It sounds like a Mike peice where MsM really doesn't.If this is the direction Mike wants to take then i'm fine with it.....as long as he picks up an electric guitar in the process.....isn't it funny how many people have said that? :laugh:


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arron11196 Offline




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Posted: July 30 2008, 12:51

I think I know what you mean about it being Un-Mike... me and Alan D had a long discussion once on here about how it seemed most like backing to a film or so.

That being said, we both agreed at the time that it was just enough to be a good piece of music still... and I still think so. I find the trouble with Mikes stuff is theres so much other stuff to listen to that I often overlook MsM because it's the only track I sometimes want to listen to from Voyager. I have these fad-like seasons of listening to a few albums; for example recently its been a lot of Incantations, Ommadawn and Platinum.

I haven't had a session of wanting Voyager for quite a while. MOTS is something I would always prefer to give a real listen to like MsM, instead of just being background.

I think the influence on MsM by Robin Smith may have been more significant than Karl Jenkins' role on MOTS. Having arranged the track for orchestra, he would have influenced the large passages of soaring strings synonymous with film style music, that give it that feel.


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Everyone's interpretation is different, and everyone has a right to that opinion. There is no "right" one, I am adding this post to communicate my thoughts to share them with like-minded souls who will be able to comment in good nature.

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The Caveman Offline




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Posted: July 30 2008, 13:25

And now MsM is going round my head.Must listen to it when i finally get home.
 Can't help thinking of my Grandad driving around rural southern Ireland in his boss's van when he worked as a greyhound trainer before moving to England in the 40's. :)


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Sir Mustapha Offline




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Posted: July 30 2008, 15:07

Quote (Inkanta @ July 30 2008, 09:11)
My 21-year old daughter, who listens mostly to classical, Celtic, and some progressive rock, heard MotS for the first time on the way to the airport this past Sunday. Her reaction was that it would have made a good movie soundtrack. I think she called it a nice muzak movie soundtrack.

Funnily, that's exactly the feeling I have for Mount St. Michel, and I mean exactly; and it's augmented because the structure of the song, with those crescendos, the "intense" part smackdab in the middle, the "climatic" ending and the teeny weeny harp plucks before the final chord (I HATE that bit), that's 20th Century Fox right down to the nanosecond. Heck, it could have been used in Titanic. But Music of the Spheres? I find that way too lyrical and melodic to work as a soundtrack. You could easily put images to the music, but the other way around? Not so sure of it.

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nightspore Offline




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Posted: July 30 2008, 20:16

Quote (Inkanta @ July 30 2008, 12:16)
Chocolate soup first thing in the morning--wouldn't that be sort of like a fondue into which you could dip raspberries, oranges, strawberries, mangoes, etc.??? Melted chocolate also tastes good on kettle popcorn. Flavored with chili gives new meaning to "hot chocolate." :D  Hmm....could really work. I tend to carry hot pepper packets in my pocketbook--maybe I should try using it with my chocolate instead of pizza.

Years ago in another Oldfield community far away it seemed to be Earth Moving and Heaven's Open.  I actually gave HO as a gag gift to someone I was visiting because his own copy had disappeared (he'd lent it) and he was hoping it wouldn't ever turn up again. But it did and he returned the copy I'd purchased to me, and I sent it to someone else who really wanted it. I really love Voyager for what it is and really like a lot of TMB. "Lake Constance" feels a bit flatter or washed out than MsM, IMHO, though it reminds me of a lake (more than "The Lake") .

Ha ha - why do I get the impression I've made you hungry, Inkanta? :D

Yes, "Lake Constance" is the ultimate tranquil lake, isn't it, while "The Lake" is clearly a gale-lashed one.
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nightspore Offline




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Posted: July 30 2008, 20:20

Quote (The Caveman @ July 30 2008, 12:41)
The  but one gets the feeling that Mike wasn't trying that hard as it was contractual (his manager suggested it and Mike himself described his reaction to it as "That's easy").

I didn't know that... Still Mike obviously thought highly enough of the piece to use it again in the spacelift section of Maestro.

What makes me less enthusiastic about MotS is simply its mood. It has this edgy, nervous feeling as though there's something menacing waiting somewhere. I prefer the kind of joyous, yearning mood that's present in so many of his other works and also in MsM.
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MusicallyInspired Offline




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Posted: Aug. 11 2008, 09:20

I don't particularly like either of them. I enjoy them as Oldfield works, but I don't prefer them. MOTS had a couple good parts but on the whole it felt like it was trying to do something that it just couldn't do.

But they're both good.


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TheMann Offline




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Posted: Aug. 14 2008, 05:23

To me, the comparison is meaningless. Its like comparing Ommadawn with MusicForTheBalcony.

MOTS is a full-length work with loads of elaborate, mathematical, themes; Mike Oldfield in top-form.

Mont St Michel is to me an experiment with orchester, yes one nice theme, but repeated in absurdum, louder and louder. Loads of crescendos, I just don't get it.

The only common denominator is that there is an orchestra playing, but the musical structures are wildly different. Elgar vs Bach, kind of ...

But I respect your opinion of course; its all down to taste, in the end.
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