[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > ... If I'd > been feeling very brave, I might have said that her singing was getting so > croaky that juxtaposing it with very lush orchestral arrangements would throw > it into unfavourable contrast.
That's what bothers me the most, the contrast of her choppy singing and downturned phrases with the flowing stringy sound. Her inability to sustain a phrase is especially obvious when listening through headphones. It's not a matter of wanting her to sound like she used to because I like her lower voice, but why make her limitations so obvious by backing it with the lushness of an orchestra? I think the songs that work the best are the snappier jazz ones where the short phrases make sense. To add to my displeasure, those long intros, especially on disk 1, seem pretentious and remind me of a movie score, and after the big buildup the usually wimpy endings are unsatisfying. All in my opinion, of course. There are some beautiful moments in these songs, but mostly T'log annoys me, depresses me to hear Joni's lack of lung power, and/or puts me to sleep. Disc 2 is especially fine for drifting off to, a sure cure for insomnia. I do like the packaging, and the cds in a book idea, and seeing glimpses of Joni's life as a painter. That is all beautifully done and a pleasure to look through. And I'll probably be listening again to T'log and finding the highlights (Unchained Melody being one I recall) and trying to ignore the rest. If Joni does write again, perhaps it could be with someone else doing the singing so she could write freely rather than just write what she'd be able to sing. Think Joni would ever do that? And if there was someone to do Joni's singing for her, any ideas as to who that might be? Debra Shea NP: Henryk Gorecki, Symphony No. 3. Thanks, Joseph in the Philippines, for your mention of this a while ago. It's a heartrending beautiful piece of music.
