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Black Sabbath Goes Classical
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Jul 29 13:03 UTC 2002 |
Black Sabbath Songs Recorded in Latin
From: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=816&e=5&cid
=816&u=/ap/20020726/ap_on_en_mu/estonia_black_sabbath_2
Fri Jul 26,11:22 AM ET
By MICHAEL TARM, Associated Press Writer
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."
___
On the Net:
Official album website, including audio samples:
http://www.sabbatum.com
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