RENAISSANCE

80's was a very dificult moment to the prog music, Its very common great progressive bands in this moment just forget to be prog, that is not a problem unique of renaissance.

The album have two big problems that make it deserve a " Collectors/fans only "

1°) this is not a progressive album, the effect of 80's on the prog scene, sounds more like abba or something like that

2°) this is a bad album, if you dont care about prog and just look for a nice song, this album barelly have one song that sound good

not a prog album, and a bad non-prog album

Once a friend of mine held a radio show and, of course, I was supporting him. Good for me. One of the songs (and bands actually) I learned from his shows was the opening track of this album. Literally, it captivated me instantly. It was the haunting melody, the superb voice, I don't know what else. It is one of my favourite songs, ever. Naturally I went searching for the entire album and I finally got it. On Day of the Dreamer I realized why Rennaisance fall into the prog firmament. Wonderful and numerous changes, magnificent orchestrations, superb instrumental section (I say nothing of the vocals because I came to know that Annie Haslam is one of the best singers ever) everything does its bit to build a quality song which we could also consider as the sequel of Opening Out. Its ten minutes go by in a flash. Closer Than Yesterday is more pastoral and simpler, but wonderful nonetheless. On Kindness (At the End) Jon Camp takes on the lead vocals and it is a wise choice. The intro alone comprises of a number of changes before Jon starts singing the poignant lyrics. As always the orchestrations and backing vocals are sublime. Side B begins with Back Home Once Again which is similar to Closer Than Yesterday and although it is very pleasant, it is not as engaging as what has preceded. She Is Love sounds a bit "strange" to my ears, a bit "consonant". It separates itself from the rest of the album, it is truly different, but it doesn't enthuse me that much. Jon Camp has mentioned in an interview that the song was meant to be sung by Annie Haslam but the instruments were recorded in the wrong key for her voice and he had to step in. Northern Lights is the album's catchiest song (no wonder perhaps that it reached No. 10 on the UK Singles Chart). The band seems determined to set the record straight and they close the album with the title-track where they flex their prog muscles for good this time. It should be stressed that it is the only song where all members, except Annie Haslam, contributed to the music. The intro alone is pretty much hard to follow. Then the usual rich orchestrations accompany Annie's interesting vocal melodies and the song is carried this way until its ten minutes are gone. The longer tracks on this album are clearly the most interesting ones.

So, this was my introduction to Renaissance. I owe a lot to this friend of mine.

— First review of this album —

This collection from Esoteric includes cleaned-up live concerts from Renaissance, recorded by the BBC for broadcast (and so enjoying pretty decent sound quality). The audio CDs in the set include a 1977 gig from just before the release of Novella, previously released on the Live At the BBC Sight and Sound collection, and a 1978 concert supporting A Song For All Seasons, which hasn't previously had a wide official release.

Neither of these live sets saw the light of day on any of Esoteric's prior Renaissance boxed sets, so if you've been following their excellent reissue program of the band's studio albums you won't have these recordings, even though you probably have accumulated a fair number of versions of the specific songs. If you're big on Renaissance, you already know you want this; if you just want one live collection from them to dip into, I'd go for Live At Carnegie Hall instead; it's the famous live release from them for a reason, and whilst this collection captures their sound in fine quality, it also captures a few mixing errors from the night (in particular, the keyboards are a tad overwhelming in the mix at the start of the 1977 concert).

That said, if you have the Carnegie Hall set and want more live Renaissance, I'd certainly recommend putting this high on your checklist.

A return to true Renaissance? Well, at least Annie Haslam makes a welcome return on this album after a convoy of poor releases from a different line-up. Annie proves she IS Renaissance despite the band flirting with other singers, namely Stephanie Adlington. Actually I had avoided the stinkers Time-Line and The Other Woman due to the onslaught of 1 star ratings from my esteemed Honarary colleagues. But you can't keep a good band down. Tuscany is no masterpiece but Annie sounds angelic on some of these tracks and there is a concentrated return to prog.

The opener Lady from Tuscany is a delicious proggy treat with powerhouse vocals and innovative structure. A beautiful piano piece opens Pearls Of Wisdom, a very calming track with Annie's tranquil vocals and keyboards from Mickey Simmonds. It is actually a very majestic wall of sound.

Eva's Pond has sparkling keys and Annie's echoing high vocals driving its beautiful sparse ambient atmosphere.

Dear Landseer is a return to form that features Michael Dunfords excellent guitar work with acoustic flourishes. The drumming finesse of Terence Sullivan is prevalent throughout. Annie provides a happy positive sound along with the harpsichord of John Tout. Annie even indulges in her high octave intonations familiar to those who remember the masterpiece Ashes are Burning.

In The Sunshine opens with cheerful trumpet sounds and Annie in a romantic medieval mood.

In My Life has haunting tinkling piano and an odd atmosphere. Annie sounds beautiful, crystal clear vocals and very emotional. It is a sad song about wasted moments and "things that should have been said, like how much I need you." The romantic lyrics are heartfelt on this album all written by Annie. Draw into the lyrics and they can really touch you deeply.

The Race has a strong percussive beat and is a jolt of energy on the album. The pace emulates a race of course, and it works well after the previous slowpaced meandering.

Dolphins Prayer is ambient violin textures mixed with very slow paced vocals. I believe it's a cry out for saving dolphins. It is OK due to the multilayered vocals, but a bit too brooding for its own good.

Life In Brazil has a fast tempo guitar, and overlaid vocals with an uplifting atmosphere. It sounds a bit pretentious musically, but thankfully the melody has some endearing qualities and I like the ending.

One Thousand Roses closes the album with pretty synth pads and lovely vocals with a dreamy quality. One of the best songs on the album structurally.

Overall, Tuscany is a genuine return to form though not up to the standard of early Renaissance classics.

Renaissance's Tuscany album - seeing Annie Haslam and Michael Dunford reunite after leading different Renaissance incarnations during the mid-1990s, with Terrance Sullivan joining the lineup too along with more recent musical collaborators (Rave Tesar having been especially close to Annie) - was recorded in 1998, but it took a little while for it to be released, and before Giant Electric Pea was able to issue it domestically, it crept onto the market in Japan in 2000. This got enough of a reaction to merit a tour in support of it, and thus In the Land of the Rising Sun came about, capturing a March 2001 concert.

Song selections come from the albums running from Ashes Are Burning to A Song For All Seasons, plus of course a lot of dips into Tuscany and even a Mike Oldfield cover (Moonlight Shadow) and a couple of Annie Haslam solo tracks - Precious One and Ananda, both from the Dawn of Ananda album which Michael Dunford had guested on. The band do an admirable job of adapting their sound such that all this disparate material, spanning decades, all broadly sounds like it belongs together, and Annie's voice has held up magnificently. As on Tuscany, Michael Dunford concentrates on acoustic guitar, which helps to inject a somewhat folky air to things which sits nicely beside the classic Renaissance symphonic style.

It's not the Carnegie Hall concert, but it's still a magnificent musical journey from a mature band, led by talent (Dunford and Haslam) who are both reconciled to their past and updating their sound for the future. This incarnation of the group would fade away shortly after this release, before reconfiguring and reuniting again, eventually yielding the Symphony of Light album (during the recording of which Dunford would pass away). Whilst Tuscany was a fine test run for this iteration of Renaissance, it's In the Land of the Rising Sun where they really show what they could do, and it's magnificent.

People differ on where Renaissance's classic period came to an end. There's probably some hardcore oddballs who think everything went wrong after the original lineup got replaced more or less entirely after their first couple of albums, leaving the Annie Haslam-fronted version of the band to sail on like the Ship of Theseus - but most people would agree that it's from Prologue onwards that the band really started to come together, with the Haslam/Dunford/Camp/Tout/Sullivan lineup yielding their strongest work. Arguably, that version of the band was running out of steam a little at the end of the 1970s - though I think A Song For All Seasons is charming and Azure d'Or badly underrated.

Whilst Azure d'Or might be a controversial album, there's much more of a consensus about what came next - Camera Camera and Time-Line involved a reconfigured lineup making a radical shift in their sound in an attempt to adapt to changing times. They were hardly the only 1970s prog band trying to fit in with the New Wave 1980s with such a reconfiguration, but it's safe to say that they didn't succeed to the extent that Yes or Genesis did.

Subsequent years saw the band entering dormancy, with some mid-1990s attempts to rekindle the flame in fits and starts, with both Annie Haslam and Michael Dunford fronting different lineups yielding material which didn't win over many advocates. "Annie Haslam's Renaissance" tended towards the poppy, whilst "Michael Dunford's Renaissance" put out two albums - one of which, cheekily, was called The Other Woman and credited to just Renaissance - which just consisted of Dunford on acoustic guitar and a grab-bag of session musicians accompanying Stephanie Adlington on vocals. (The Other Woman tended towards pop-rock just as much as Annie's effort, whilst the following Ocean Gypsy was basically a cover album of old Renaissance tracks.)

However, come 1998 Haslem and Dunford were back together, with Sullivan in tow and John Tout making several recording sessions in a guest capacity, and the end product was this album - initially released in 2000 in Japan before Giant Electric Pea were able to release it domestically. The big question is whether it really measures up to the band's glory days. Esoteric certainly seem to think so - in their lavish series of Renaissance reissues they've skipped straight from Azure d'Or to this, setting aside Camera Camera, Time-Line, and "Annie Haslam's Renaissance" and "Michael Dunford's Renaissance" entirely.

And there's some justification for that - because unlike the two 1980s Renaissance albums, or Annie and Michael's respective mid-1990s projects, this feels like a natural continuation of the musical evolution Renaissance were experiencing in the late 1970s, a true followup to Azure d'Or which none of the other "Renaissance" albums in between managed to be. As with that album and the preceding Song For All Seasons, Renaissance back off from longer compositions and orchestral backing here, and the instrumental sections aren't so complex as in their glory days, but Annie Haslam's moving vocal styles and tight songwriting carry the day.

There is some musical development to lend it distinctiveness; Dunford is clearly still strongly taken with the acoustic guitar here, his efforts with his own Renaissance sub-faction - the Ocean Gypsy cover album in particular - perhaps helping him find ways to incorporate more acoustic, folky notes into a Renaissance-like context. In addition, Annie and Michael share all the songwriting credits, whereas on the last two albums of the 1970s Dunford and Jon Camp's compositions tended to sit side by side, so there's a certain aesthetic cohesion here. As far as the rest of the contributors go, I think the keyboards from Mickey Simmonds (and, when he's sitting in, John Tout) are worthy of note, because by 1998 synthesisers had access to a broader range of sounds than they had in the 1970s, and the Renaissance sound is adapted to the times nicely.

If you think Renaissance's late 1970s turn towards shorter and less complex material was still charming in its own right, you'll likely enjoy Tuscany; it's the sort of thing they might have produced had they stayed together and stuck with that musical direction all the way since Azure d'Or. If, on the other hand, you think it was all a bit downhill after Scheherazade or Novella, you may find it's less to your taste.

At the height of their American fandom (on the US east coast at at least), and riding a wave with their most successful album in both the US and UK with A Song For All Seasons, the symphonic rockers did a wonderful FM radio broadcast in 1978 on WNEW FM. Forty Five years later, the entire radio broadcast was released with the help of venue's former owner and promotor John Scher. The Capitol Theater was the small venue to go in New Jersey at that time. The group and the concert audience were in an incredibly enthusiastic mood and both really fed off each other. It quite remarkable to hear Annie Haslam talk and laugh so much during a concert from that time.

Of course, this is the classic line up of Haslam, Michael Dunford, Jon Camp, John Tout and Terry Sullivan. The last concert to be played in the US, the band were letter perfect and Annie's voice, after 3 straight month of touring, was incredible. Focusing on selections from Novella and A Song For All Seasons, the crowd was eating out of their hand.

A few caveats though. This double CD set does not contain the best versions of "Northern Lights" or "Midas Man" recorded live by the group. And that goes for the encore of "Ashes Are Burning", which the band tried to change up a bit having done umpteenth versions in the last 5 years. Earlier live versions like the one found on "Live At Carnegie Hall" are vastly superior. The other songs are as good as any live performances previously recorded and are still a treat. Especially the epics "Can You Hear Me" and "Mother Russia". Oh, how the audience loved the latter!

So, I can't say that this wonderfully recorded and mastered live broadcast is essential, but if you'd like to hear this band let their hair down and really enjoy themselves, then this 119 minute double CD is for you.

Recorded at the Keswick Theatre, Glenside, PA on October 21st 2022, here we find Renaissance performing alongside the Renaissance Chamber Orchestra to celebrate Annie Haslam's 75th year. I have long been a fan of this band in its multiple iterations, and there is no doubt their 2002 live album 'In The Land of the Rising Sun' is one of my favourites, so when I heard about this I was definitely interested. There have been multiple iterations of the band over the years, but most people point to the line-up of Annie Haslam, Michael Dunford, John Tout, Jon Camp, and Terry Sullivan as being the classic, but Michael and John are no longer with us while Jon and Terry long ago departed, but Annie is still there keeping the flame alive. These days she is joined by Mark Lambert (guitar), who was a member in the Eighties, Rave Tesar (keyboards, piano), who played on the 'Rising Sun' album, drummer Frank Pagano (who has been there for more than a decade), Geoffrey Langley (keyboards, who joined in 2016) and new bassist Leo Traversa, so this is certainly a valid line-up as opposed to Annie and a host of session musicians.

This double CD set covers decades in music, and we get music from Renaissance, Annie Haslam's Renaissance and her solo albums, and there is no doubt great thought has gone into the arrangements as the use of the additional musicians provides amazing depth. There are two keyboard players, and their repertoire has been greatly expanded with the use of real strings and horns. I am sure anyone who went to see this tour would have had a wonderful time, and those who purchase the album will be the same people and will happily relive the experience, but I wonder how many will purchase this for pure listening pleasure as opposed to collectors? Musically this is wonderful, and one cannot fault anyone involved as their delicacy and accompaniment is superb, but we cannot look past the fact that Annie is now into her eighth decade, and it sounds like it. That she is not using effects to mask this is to be admired, but while the range is still there, her voice is now quavery and can be quite shrill. She hits and holds the notes, but sometimes they are a little sharp, and I soon found I was not enjoying the album nearly as much as I expected or wanted to. One could never give this to someone as an introduction, it is only for those who already know the material and are pleased to be able to experience Annie performing the songs which they did not expect to still hear played in this fashion. That she can still hit the notes in "Symphony of Light" is incredible, and "The Sisters" is a triumph with wonderful performances from all involved, but sadly somewhat let down by the vocals. Back in the Eighties I was one of the biggest Jethro Tull fanatics around, but when I last saw them in 2004, I vowed never to see them play again as Ian's voice was totally shot in the live environment.

The arrangements and performances from the musicians involved are superb, and there are plenty of opportunities for them to weave their magic, but sadly it is often let down by the vocals, which is a real shame as many of us view Renaissance as being built around Annie and her amazing voice. Sadly, time has taken its toll.

Another one I forgot to review. What a fluke. This is one of the brilliant albums of this brilliant band. Much of what I like of prog is what Renaissance does.

Running Hard - Great piano and bass to open the album. And then Annie's voice kicks in. They got me there. 10/10

I think of you - What an emotional song. It may be relatively simple in structure, but it's so expertly done. Love it. 9/10

Things I don't understand - Epic track with great musicianship, ebbs and flows and ... what a voice 10/10

Black Flame - Much to like, especially the musicianship and the voice. Some may not be fond of the track, but Renaissance lifts everything to another level 9/10

Cold is being - For me, this is the least appealing track on an otherwise brilliant album 7/10

Mother Russia - One of their classic tunes. It's so grand. 10/10

This one is an obvious 5-star album for me. Renaissance at its peak.

It was by shear luck that I came across this album in a used record store back in the mid-1980s and it was what I would call spontaneous serendipity that I bought it having never heard of the band or their music until that day. I was flipping through LPs and the album cover stood out to me. After reading the list of song titles, I was intrigued enough to purchased the used LP. I put it on the turntable as soon as soon as I got home and have been enjoying many, many times ever since.

A Song for All Seasons will always hold a special place in my musical soul where Renaissance is concerned. In my opinion, I don't believe it their best prog effort; however, it has excellent production values, superb musicianship, and a couple of real prog gems, i.e. Day of the Dreamer and the title song. The album is joy to listen to and, to me, that's what makes it worthy of a 4-star rating.

Needless to say, after hearing A Song for All Seasons, I instantly became a Renaissance fan and started collecting all their previous works...back to Prologue, that is. I'm not really fan of their pre-Haslam era material.