The tracks on this record are a mixture of arranged Baroque music and original material written by the two collaborators, Thys van Leer and Rogier van Otterloo.

The Baroque stuff consists of solid gold Bach ("Sheep May Safely Graze" etc) and a few by Handel and others played by van Leer (flute) with a small string orchestra, and it is terrible. The arrangements have stripped the music of any meaning it may have had.

There is none of the vulgarity of real Baroque music it has all been scaled down to make it mild and inoffensive. I suspect that even the more dramatic harmonies have been modernised to this effect. Everything has been reduced to a moderate or slow tempo-The resulting music can only be described as soporific.

It doesn't anger me to think that the mighty Johann Sebastian Bach has been reduced to this piffle - it just bores me. So much has been lost in the compromise and nothing gained. The arrangements and performance are just hopelessly unimaginative.

Van Otterloo attempts with one of his compositions a pastiche of the Baroque style Parts of 'Rondo II' do sound like Bach flute concerto Then the tinkling harpsichord is replaced by an equally timid bass guitar, and a drum — dumchik dumchik dumchik. A soft piano joins in and the transition to the popular style is complete. Now it sounds like the music in 'Love Story'.

The rest of the original tracks are freer and slightly more experimental. Van Leer's compositions have dreamy names -'Carmen Elysium', 'Mild Wild Rose', 'Introspection II' is a particularly apt name. It is the most introspective, self-conscious music I know.

The original compositions are freely scattered amongst the Baroque work, and you hardly notice the difference. Its all good dinner music.

Where they've tried to make Baroque music appeal to a wider audience, they've failed. Where they've tried to incorporate elements of Baroque style in thier own, they've failed.

James Robb