Being the editor of the Classical Music site here at BellaOnline has its perks. I often get sent CDs to review and I get to meet a lot of artists that I hadn’t known of before – if not in person, at least online. Most recently I am very pleased to have reviewed Nick Davis’ newest CD, “Candescence” and to have spoken with him via e-mail several times.

The 43 year old Nick Davis hails from Perth, Australia and has a wide and varied, and quite successful history in music – despite having been self taught! He has done everything from being in a pop band to writing commercial jingles to performing in theatre to his current passion of writing classical music. Since I am here to talk about his album (can we still use that word?) I’ll direct you to his website to check out more of his history!(See bottom of article). Just don’t fall in love with the pictures ladies; he’s married with two lovely daughters.

Nick is actually among a new breed of classical composers; instead of working with a live orchestra, he uses digitally sampled instruments. Now before everyone freaks out – this is not a synthesizer! Digitally sampled instruments are actually recorded instruments that are then transferred to a computer and then can be “mixed” to the artist’s content. For most instruments the sound is very true and a difference cannot be heard. Unfortunately (in my opinion at least) the same cannot be said for a few of the string instruments, primarily the violin; it sounds stringent and “twangy”. Hopefully one day the sound technicians will be able to fix this flaw. Enough of the logistics for now, we’ll debate live orchestras vs. digital for recordings in my next article!

Onto “Candescence”! There are ten pieces on this CD and they seem nicely balanced between lighter pieces and more melancholy songs. I won’t say that I loved every piece on here, but for the most part was pleased.

There were three pieces that I very much enjoyed. “Flight to Freedom” – I really liked the piano in this piece (wouldn’t mind getting my hands on a written copy of it – ahem!) Also the contrast between the piano solo and the full orchestra is very nice. The flutes are excellent – you cannot tell the difference from the real thing! “Yearning” reminds me (in feel at least) of “Moonlight Sonata” which is one of my most favorite songs of all time. I can easily picture a forbidden couple meeting in secret angst with this song playing in the background – stunning! The final piece, “The Fallen” is an excellent choice for the finale of this CD. It had me thinking of words like celestial and majestic! I love the percussion section, especially the timpani, and was very glad to hear it included in this song as it for the most part is not a part of the music on this CD.

My least favorite pieces on the album are “La Mamselle” and “Sojourn” and for pretty much the same reason – they have a heavy violin presence, and with the quality of the violins’ sound it does not make for pretty songs. “Sojourn” might have been salvageable if it had been turned into a piano solo, but “La Mamselle” reminded me of a wearing down music box, I just didn’t like it, (sorry Nick).

Other pieces on the CD are “Flight to Freedom”; “In my Heart” – the only piece which uses a live violin, played by Dan Carney; “A Lover’s Lament” – which does use the digitized violins, but is lovely anyway (Nick does melancholy very well); “Return of the Brave” – a march (I am not typically a fan of marches, but this does offer a very different sound from the rest of the album and is done well.); and “Lullaby for Madeline” a piano solo written for Nick’s youngest daughter Madeline.

Overall I enjoyed this album and found it very relaxing. I would recommend skipping over the two songs that heavily featured the digitized violins as these would jar you out of relaxation. Nick says he plans on taking a long vacation from writing music after this CD. I think he will be doing himself and his fans a disservice if he were to do so just now.

”Candescence” was written, arranged, performed, produced, etc, etc by Nick Davis and sponsored by Wesley Classics. It can be purchased through Nick’s website: www.nickdavismusic.com