RENAISSANCE
A Song For All Seasons CHERRY RED
Orchestral prog classic re-released on vinyl with original artwork and poster.
Renaissance recorded so much quality music in the 1970s, it feels odd to think that 1978’s A Songs For All Seasons was the group’s only UK Top 40 album. Even then they had to wait around for penultimate track Northern Lights to go Top 10 in August of that year before it charted, five months after its original release. But it wasn’t as if the group had made any radical changes. They had recorded concise and melodic songs before and Opening Out, the first track here, could have been single material too.
With David Hentschel, who had produced Genesis since A Trick Of The Tail, behind the desk and Michael Dunford playing electric guitar as well as acoustic, the sound is bold and vivid. Typically, Renaissance didn’t cut corners with their orchestral approach and A Song For All Seasons features the Royal Philharmonic arranged by Louis Clark, who had worked with ELO. And while an orchestra playing with a rock band can give timing problems, here the sprightly strings track the twists and turns of the opening instrumental section of the 11-minute title track. John Tout adds textural synths and piano to this mini-epic, and drummer Terry Sullivan and bass player Jon Camp are punchy and fluid, but the latter’s playing is so busy that the song would have benefitted from more space.
Annie Haslam hits some wonderful high notes on She Is Love’s anthemic finale, but apparently felt it was recorded in the wrong key for her voice. Camp sings the song ably but the vocals, keyboards and the orchestra – conductor Harry Rabinowitz’s sole arrangement – feel rather at odds with each other. By contrast, on Northern Lights the rich strings, and dancing winds in the chorus, complement Haslam’s triple-tracked voice. Renaissance looked set to move up into the commercial big league, but they never repeated its success. And like many groups of their vintage they lost their way into the new decade while pursuing a more overtly pop tack, and puttered to a halt in 1983.