Mike Oldfield

About this product

Working with legendary composer Karl Jenkins OBE, Music Of The Spheres is Mike Oldfield's first classical release and features some of the main players from that musical world. New Zealand soprano Hayley Westenra lends her voice to the hauntingly beautiful 'On My Heart,' while the talents of Chinese pianist Lang Lang shine through on 'The Tempest' and 'Prophecy.' This special 2CD version includes a terrific performance of Music Of The Spheres recorded live with the Euskadiko Orkestra Sinfonikoa, the Bilbao Choral Society and Hayley Westenra at the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao.

The title of this album refers to a theory proposed by the Greek mathematician, Pythagoras, that the movement of the Sun, Moon and planets creates a form of music far beyond the scope of human hearing. That is not to say that listeners will have any difficulty in hearing Mike Oldfield's masterpiece! A work in two movements, Music Of The Spheres is Oldfield's personal interpretation of this theory. Perhaps his most ambitious work since 1973's Tubular Bells, it blends Grade-A classical forms throughout with the instrumental rock that he is more associated with.

With its cinematic overtures, opener 'Harbinger' begins with a motif not too dissimilar to that heard on 'Tubular Bells.' As the listener is lulled into a sense of the familiar, the orchestra crashes breathtakingly in as the music soars to new heights. This continues with 'Animus,' which also features Oldfield's smooth guitar playing. The operatic playfulness of 'On My Heart' is almost a pop song in the vein of 'Moonlight Shadow' as the album ends with the galloping, uplifting 'Musica Universalis,' Latin for the theory after which this singular album is named.