Viktoria Mullova - Through The Looking Glass (2000)

Recorded an almost incredible 11 years earlier, this CD sits right alongside Viktoria Mullova and the Matthew Barley Ensemble's latest offering, The Peasant Girl, extending and complementing the listening pleasure derived from that recording.

Two tunes, Joe Zawinul's The Pursuit of the Woman with the Feathered Hat and Youssou N'dour's Life, are common to both CDs, but in different versions. Much of the rest of this CD is composed of tunes made popular by the likes of Alanis Morissette, the Hollies and Duke Ellington. One was both written and originally performed by the Bee Gees, another written by George Harrison and performed by the Beatles. [If that information is liable to make you wary, you can safely overlook it.] Interspersed throughout the 15 tracks are five versions of Miles Davis' Robot 415; original, duo, waltz, psycho and solo. All is most imaginatively arranged by Matthew Barley, not only making the absolute most of Mullova's phenomenal violin skills, but also making room for important contributions from Julian Joseph on piano, Sam Walton, Paul Clarvis and Colin Currie on various percussion instruments, Steve Smith on guitar, and of course Barley himself on cello. Joseph, Walton, Clarvis and Barley, now known as the Matthew Barley Ensemble, accompany Mullova on the latest recording too.

This recording is particularly notable for its cohesion; many tracks progressing almost seamlessly from the preceding one, and yet we have in total an enormous spectrum of music, from jazz through jazz fusion to the hauntingly beautiful The Air That I Breathe that concludes the album. Notwithstanding the provenance of many of the tunes, not one comes across as in any way a lightweight ditty.

As with The Peasant Girl, finding a genre label that fairly represents the finished product is a problem. But does that matter? So long as it is understood that on this occasion Mullova is not playing the classics, few who buy this CD are at all likely to be disappointed.