Joel Frederiksen and Ensemble Phoenix Munich: Requiem for a Pink Moon, An Elizabethan Tribute to Nick Drake
On Joel Frederiksen’s Requiem for a Pink Moon, an Elizabethan Tribute to Nick Drake, selections from a 20th century English songsmith’s sadly truncated canon of music are set alongside that of forebears some 300 years his elder. Pink Moon, Drake’s final and most famous recording, clocks in at under a half hour, yet its realm of influence includes musicians from Robert Smith to Lou Barlow to Mikael Åkerfeldt, and even to the likes of Frederiksen, a bass singer and lutenist who has made a career expertly performing Elizabethan and early baroque music. And while the purest of Drake fans may find themselves irked by how his music sounds in the hands of classically trained period musicians (fans of period music may feel similarly about uncharacteristic 20th century British-folk elements) the record’s beauty lays in the way the songs of each party are left to sit and gaze at one another, elucidating music that seemingly has no business being in the same lineup.
Ensemble Phoenix Munich – Photo Thomas Zwillinger
