The bizarre adaptations of Brahms' folk song settings on this disc, called Nur ein Gesicht (Only One Face), by the German group Franui Musicbanda create an unlikely juxtaposition: Brahms' simple settings of folk song tunes combined with half-ironic, pseudo-primitive, post-modernist arrangements. But the arrangements are strangely insinuating, seductively sliding into your consciousness and insidiously removing all thought of fidelity to the originals. Performed by the virtuoso Franui Musicbanda, a 12-piece dance band complete with vocalists, the music here comes alive as raucous, funny, sentimental, and weirdly haunting. Surely no more for the purist than the group's previous disc of Schubert adaptations, this disc will likely delight listeners with an ear for the recherché. Try the wild rumpus of Komm du, mein Liebchen komm!, with its careening saxes and squealing trumpets or the unearthly beauty of In stiller Nacht, with its trio of women's voices plus harp, and if these don't do it for you, perhaps you ought to pass.
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