The least impressive of all
Jon Lord
's 1970s flirtations with the classics,
Windows
-- a collaboration with synth wizard
Eberhard Schoener
-- was recorded live at the
Eurovision
presentation of
Prix Jeunesse
on June 1, 1974, in Munich. Performed by both a seven-piece
rock
band and the orchestra of
the Munich Chamber Opera
,
comprises just two pieces. The title track, which was built around a Far Eastern
renga
(a form of chain poetry), is highlighted, for longtime
Lord
watchers, by the inclusion of large swathes of the vocal segment of his earlier
Gemini Suite
; and the somewhat presumptuously intended
"Continuo on B.A.C.H.,"
"a realization" (say the liner notes) "of a well-known incomplete fugue by
Bach
." Whether
himself would have appreciated the end result is, of course, another matter entirely. While
"Continuo"
certainly has its moments of quite sublime beauty, one is never allowed to forget what one is listening to -- an orchestra battling it out with a
band, and only occasionally giving ground. The inclusion of
David Coverdale
and
Glenn Hughes
in the band is particularly eyebrow-raising. Though more or less ideal for the last years of
Deep Purple
, neither musician was what one would call subtle, with
Coverdale
's histrionic bellowing, in particular, swiftly distracting from the moods that the music and the other musicians are so patently attempting to maintain. Indeed, of the photos from the concert that bedeck the album jacket, one speaks louder than many words could -- it depicts
in full vocal flight, while the horn player beside him raises his eyes, apparently, heavenward. Overlook some of the
band's excesses, however (including an utterly unnecessary
jazz fusion
passage during
), and
does pack some breathtaking passages, both melody- and energy-wise. Like too many mid-'70s
'n'
classical
hybrids, however, it simply tries too hard to be special. ~ Dave Thompson