Konvergencie

In 1970, the Czechoslovakian group Collegium Musicum released their first EP, Hommage a J.S. Bach. That same year they produced their self titled debut LP. In 1971 came Konvergencie, a double album with four songs of about twenty minutes in length each. The CD reviewed here contains the entirety of Konvergencie as well as excerpts from their first two efforts.

Collegium Musicum are a group very much in the ELP mould. Analogue keyboards and reworkings of classical pieces can't help but remind one of Keith Emerson. The two major differences are that Collegium Musicum tends to concentrate on Baroque composers rather than Romantic, and they are more likely to meander off into an extended blues jam rather than rely on thorough composition.

Here's the bad news. Firstly, if you don't like ELP, you probably won't like this album, but you probably guessed that anyway. Secondly, the lyrics in English are abominable, although neither of the two English tracks here were on the original album Konvergencie. Thirdly, the album tends to waffle on in a way that was only really acceptable in the early seventies. Extended periods of soft muffled noises do nothing for me.

The good news is that there is some excellent music and musicianship on this album. Marian Varga's keys are the obvious standout, though I'd probably rate him as a couple of notches below Keith Emerson. "Suita po tisic a jednej noci", which is a working of extracts from Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherezade", at times works as well as anything like it.

All in all, despite the fact that this album has some very good moments (it would want to, in over two hours), I can't get myself too excited about it. If you loved Pictures at an Exhibition, this album is definitely worth a listen; otherwise, I'd recommend looking elsewhere. — Conrad Leviston.