A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

I really expected something special after reading the AMG review. If you pick out one track and listen to it, it's great. But if you listen to several tracks in a row, there's a sameness that I found annoying. It seemed like every track would start out with a promise that went unfulfilled. The orchestral passages seemed uninspired and overdone; you never hear just a few instruments accompanying Hackett, it's always the full orchestra or nothing. And once the orchestra came in, they played until the track was over (yes, this is an unfair oversimplification, but it does convey the feeling I got by the time I was two- thirds of the way through the album). The best tracks are the quieter ones, which are surprisingly few and far between. Oh, well, he's a prolific guy; maybe he'll do a similar, better work soon. Preferably with just a small chamber group behind him.