Music & Architecture – The Sound Inside

Proportion, purpose, space… the fundamental principles of architecture exist on both physical and metaphysical planes. And they are the fundamental principles of the arts as well—and of music in particular. This compilation offers a diverse glimpse into this connection between music and great works of architecture, as well as some unusual, and usually beautiful sites that are not nearly so well-known and the ultimate architecture—that of the earth itself. The peculiar magic of the world’s great architecture is to both distill and expand the experience of music. A reverberant space gives the musician the change to really listen. Paradoxically, this deeply personal experience can be communicated to a wider audience. Maybe it’s that very intensity that enables this music to speak so clearly—to all of us who might never have the pleasure of playing one of our own creations into the echoing dome of the Taj Mahal, or the vaulted ceilings of a European cathedral, or the implacable stillness of a New Mexico night. Just listen: the spaces are in the music as much as the actual notes.

The Sound Inside  – Music and Architecture
CD review by Andy Busuttil

What is the relationship between people, ‘space’ and music?
In this I am referring to those spaces constructed by nature and the human hand.
We very rarely stop to contemplate this question yet one of the first things many musicians will ask of a sound engineer is ‘reverb’.
Reverb IS space.
It’s an analogue of what occurs naturally in places other than most recording and performance environments.
Yet the intimacy of the relationship is so often poorly understood.
This is a CD of music from a multitude of cultures played and recorded in a multitude of glorious spaces.
From the great pyramids, to the mosques of Istanbul, The Temple of Heaven in Beijing, Echo Canyon in New Mexico and on the list goes, space and music as a unified whole are explored.
No introduced reverb here.
According to the claim in the slip notes, these are all sounds inherent to the interplay between the music and the environment within which it was created.
Listening to this CD is akin to being transported around the World to places where the nature of music, not as separate from the Universe, but as a universal entity, can be heard.
This CD is absolutely gorgeous.
From the viewpoint of anyone who wants to further their knowledge of sound, its passage through space and its embracing of all people within that space so that all become one, it is invaluable.
A real beauty!!!
We are, after all, within the space where music is created and heard and consequently form an intimate relationship with it.
This CD will demonstrate precisely that.