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a masterpiece and a film to be made

I don´t like metal music. However, Nighwish is one of my favourite bands. I have all of their records, I know all of their songs and I have passed many many hours “quarrelling” on the web about the eternal question among the band fans. Which was the band’s best singer?

My devotion to the band was (and still is) so strong that I wasn´t present at my sister-in-law’s wedding, as at the same day and time Nightwish were giving a concert in Athens!!!!

Nightwish’s heart and soul and one of my idols is their founder, composer, lyricist and pianist, the great Tuomas Holopainen, born in a small town in Finland some 45 years ago. When he is not recording with the band (Nightwish have the habit to release an album every 4 years), he runs solo projects and he collaborates with other musicians (his last project “Auri” is marvellous).

I have listened to “The life and times of Scrooge” hundreds of times. I bought the cd in 2014, a few days after its release. And I continue to listen to it very often, more often than any Nightwish record (except, maybe, “Imaginaerum”), especially in autumn and winter.

As you may have already understood the album is a tribute to Scrooge Mc Duck´s life. Basically, it is an imaginary soundtrack based on the homonym Don Rosa´s graphic novel. For those who do not know hom, Rosa is Disney’s actual illustrator of Scrooge, after the death in 2000 of Carl Barks, the person who inspired the cartoon hero.

The “life and times of Scrooge” is an absolute masterpiece, a trip to the places where the famous stingy lived. Tuomas has collaborated for the project with the Metro Voices, one of the most famous choirs in England with appearances in tenths of films (Pirates of Caribbean, Romeo and Juliet, The Lion King, Sahara etc.) and also with the notorious London Philharmonic Orchestra.

The album starts at Glasgow, where, according to the tale, Mc Duck was born in 1877 and continues (with a Morricone style theme, as the same composer confesses) in New Orleans and Australia, where Scrooge had gone, hunting more money, as always.

But Mc Duck´s adventures didn´t end up there. Klondike was the place where Scrooge searched for his sled, Scotland the place where Scrooge was mourning his father´s death and his mansion the place where Scrooge wrote an imaginary letter during the last days of his life.

I urge you to buy this record, especially if you like Ennio Morricone, Mike Oldfield, Franz Zimmer, Lisa Gerrard and, generally, film music. I can´t imagine a better present for Christmas.

Until that moment, I let you enjoy the first single of the album “A lifetime of adventure”

Condividere

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