Therion - The Miskolc Experience review
| Band: | Therion |
| Album: | The Miskolc Experience |
| Style: | Symphonic metal |
| Release date: | June 08, 2009 |
| Guest review by: | Uirapuru |
Disc I [CD]
01. Clavicula Nox
02. Symphony No. 9 [Excerpt] [Dvořák cover]
03. Vedi! Le Fosche Notturne Spotigle [from "Il Trovatore"] [Verdi cover]
04. Dies Irae [from "Reqiuem"] [Mozart cover]
05. Symphony No. 3 [Excerpt] [Saint-Saëns cover]
06. Notung! Notung! Neidliches Schwert! [from "The Ring"] [Wagner cover]
07. Overture [Excerpt] [from "Rienzi"] [Wagner cover]
08. Der Tag Ist Da, Pt. 2 [from "Rienzi"] [Wagner cover]
09. Herbei! Herbei!, Pt. 1 [from "Rienzi"] [Wagner cover]
Disc II [CD]
01. Blood Of Kingu
02. Sirius B
03. Lemuria
04. Eternal Return
05. Draconian Trilogy
06. Schwartsalbenheim
07. Via Nocturna
08. The Rise Of Sodom And Gomorrah
09. Grand Finale
Disc III [DVD]
01. Clavicula Nox
02. Symphony No. 9 [Excerpt] [Dvořák cover]
03. Vedi! Le Fosche Notturne Spotigle [from "Il Trovatore"] [Verdi cover]
04. Dies Irae [from "Reqiuem"] [Mozart cover]
05. Symphony No. 3 [Excerpt] [Saint-Saëns cover]
06. Notung! Notung! Neidliches Schwert! [from "The Ring"] [Wagner cover]
07. Overture [Excerpt] [from "Rienzi"] [Wagner cover]
08. Der Tag Ist Da, Pt. 2 [from "Rienzi"] [Wagner cover]
09. Herbei! Herbei!, Pt. 1 [from "Rienzi"] [Wagner cover]
10. Blood Of Kingu
11. Sirius B
12. Lemuria
13. Eternal Return
14. Draconian Trilogy
15. Schwartsalbenheim
16. Via Nocturna
17. The Rise Of Sodom And Gomorrah
18. Grand Finale
+ Documentary
+ Therion Goes Classic - Bucharest
Therion goes live? again. That's right, once again fans are given the chance to bear witness to a pompous presentation of the Swedes. In the year of 2007 the band confirmed participation in the International Opera Festival Of Miskolc, a notorious cultural event held in the Hungarian city of Miskolc. In other words, Christoffer Johnsson made promises of a unforgettable epic presentation; the firmaments of the National Theatre Of Miskolc were supposed to tremble before the power of Therion's exhibition, accompanied by the local symphony orchestra and choir, all documented in a double CD and DVD. Such high expectations, of course, ended in a frustratingly standard display of music.
Clearly the whole thing did not receive much attention even among the festival. The National Theatre, with little more than a thousand seats, had a noticeable portion of empty spaces. And, as you can imagine, they have no ability to support fancy stage effects, which, while comprehensible, decreases the chances of any possible extra excitement that the show has to offer. Still, the orchestra and the choir started "Clavicula Nox" with no sign of Johnsson or the Niemanns, that are presented only from the second track to on, running a sequence of beautiful theatrical classics (properly rearranged) of masters such as Mozart, Verdi and Wagner. These interpretations fill the "Classic Adventures" part of the show, and unlike the second act, counts with determinant participation of the whole cast of musicians, the essential differential of this live project.
After this enjoyable and proper tribute, comes the second act named "Therion Songs," for many the most awaited moment of the presentation, but also where the greatest amount of disappointing moments gather. The parade of nine of the band's original compositions is far from bad, but they do not arouse the "something else" feeling that the presence of the orchestra should afford. Almost nothing is aggregated to the originals, and through this the experience of watching becomes exhaustive, since we are basically just watching the band play, only in a small space, with no visual features whatsoever and surrounded by lots of people with instruments. In "Schwartsalbenheim" and "The Rise of Sodom and Gomorrah," the most emphatic participation of the orchestra results in some good moments, and show perfect adjustment and synchronicity, but after the "Grand Finale" the general feeling is that most the time spent watching The Miskolc Experience was wasted.
Rehearsals, scenes of the Hungarian city, setting of the stage and some other information about the event are included in the documentary of the DVD, which also shows an interesting performance of the orchestra and the choir in Bucharest, one year before Miskolc. Fanatics for Therion will probably be the only ones to truly enjoy the whole thing.
With this broken promise of grandiosity, Therion closes another step in its history, since it was the last contribution of the brothers Kristian and Johan Niemann. The intention was excellent, there is no doubt about that, but despite all the work to set such a glamorous event, the result was only average, and as profit The Miskolc Experience has at least yielded a good tribute to some classical mastermind composers.
Guest review disclaimer:
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
Comments
Comments: 5
Visited by: 69 users
| Uirapuru Liver Failure Posts: 2955  |
Written by Juliana on 19.08.2010 at 04:26 Weird.. I just didn't feel like givin it a rate. XD Probably an 8 for the CD's (the first cd basically) and a 6 for the DVD's... so I would only truly recommend 1/3 of the whole set. 
----  ---- member of the true crusade against old school heavy metal, early 80s thrash, NWOBHM, traditional doom, first and second wave black metal, old school death metal, US power metal, 70s prog rock and atmospheric doomsludgestoner. o/
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| jadawal Posts: 241  |
I own it and find it quite entertaining. A good review, but I definately wouldn't label it a waste of time. But I guess I am a Therion fanatic. I found the orchestra great, and the choir, although low in volume at points, was full and diverse. I'd give the set at least an 7.5-8. On the other hand, there are a few covers I don't enjoy all that well because at points there are crunching guitars, bass and drums over soft flowing passages that in my opinion just add an awkward presense to the once perfected masterpeices.
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| 4look4rd The Sasquatch Posts: 840  |
I had such high expectations for this CD/DVD but it has fail written all over it. The performance and song selection are very very good, but the problem lies on the mixing. I think the person that mixed the audio has no idea what classical music is or how powerful a choir can sound. The entire orchestra and choir is helplessly buried under the sound of the band. Try listening to Epica's live CD (A Classical Conspiracy) and compare with this release. Its quite sad because the band performed very well, the orchestra was very nice, and the choir seemed excellent, but all of their efforts are in vain due to a piss poor mixing job.
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| Ivor Staff Posts: 5492  |
Written by 4look4rd on 28.12.2011 at 23:47 Here's a question to you. Did you listen to it on a 5.1 set? There's only 5.1 audio tracks on the DVD, no stereo. Hence, if you try to listen to it in stereo there's bound to be remapping of the channels to fit on a stereo set. For me the problem was that the extra channels were omitted at all during the playback. I'm still to go back to this DVD with either forcing the mapping, or getting a 5.1 set to watch. So, I can't really judge if the sound is poor. But I know what you mean. Under the conditions that I watched it, it sounded all wrong. I.
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| 4look4rd The Sasquatch Posts: 840 |
Written by Ivor on 29.12.2011 at 01:04 That actually might be the problem. I used a standard 2.1 system and the choir's lack of presence just killed the who experience for me. I wanna give it another try when I get a proper audio system.
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