Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things are passed away, behold all things have become new. II Corinthians 5:17
Posted on 07/26/2002 5:56:34 PM PDT by Shermy
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) - An Estonian record company has released an album of Black Sabbath songs played by a quintet specializing in music from the Middle Ages and singing in the main literary language of that era, Latin.
"If you take away the massive wall of sound from many Sabbath songs, what you have is pure 14th century music," producer Mihkel Raud claimed Friday. "Really."
The 12-track album — called "Sabbatum," Latin for "sabbath" — includes "Wheels of Confusion" ("Rotae Confusionis") and "War Pigs" ("Verres Militares") in slow, minimalist versions that wouldn't seem out of place at mass in the Sistine Chapel.
"We went at it with the fantasy that these songs in Latin were actually the original versions, and that Black Sabbath found and used them," Raud said. "Usually ... albums try to add modernity to known music. We did it the other way round."
The 33-year-old producer has loved the hard rock group's music since the 1970s when this Baltic Sea coast nation of 1.4 million was still a Soviet republic and Ozzy Osbourne — lead singer and now star of the MTV reality show "The Osbournes" — was notorious for performance antics like biting the head off a bat.
He thinks he's onto something big with an album of contemplative music — whispering harps, gently-tapped frame drums — that appeals, he hopes, to classical tastes as well as to headbangers.
"There are 100,000 potential buyers: Sabbath and classical fans," he said.
Some 1,200 CDs have been sold, mainly to U.S. buyers via the Internet since the album was released in March, Raud said. He considers any sales over 10,000 a big success for his tiny, two-year-old Beg the Bug Records.
Raud wooed the music group Rondellus, whose three previous albums were of mainstream sacred music, to arrange and record the Black Sabbath tunes. He described ensemble members as "open-minded" and "enthusiastic," though he decided not to ask them to record Black Sabbath songs referring directly to the devil.
"I felt that asking them to sing, 'My name is Lucifer, please take my hand' would have been too much," he said.
Music publishers who owned the rights to Black Sabbath songs granted permission for them to be recorded by Raud, he said.
"People said we were crazy, sure," he said. "But that's part of the beauty of the thing."
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On the Net:
Official album website, including audio samples:
http://www.sabbatum.com
Okay. I am curious. Before I buy: Are the lyrics available? (Latin, English, it doesn't matter.)
I think what you have left is really a drunk Ozzy Osbourne.
so this producer started listening to Black Sabboth when he was a one year old?
Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things are passed away, behold all things have become new. II Corinthians 5:17
Since Black Sabbath's (?) music is based on intervals between the tonic and dominant/subdominant, he's right.
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