With thanks to Sibelius Software Ltd. for the fabulous Sibelius 3
Working with Sir James Galway on his CD Wings of Song was a great honour. The arranger and producer Craig Leon (who has worked on cross over projects with Joshua Bell, Luciano Pavarotti, Andreas Scholl and Sting) created tailor-made arrangements of popular classical melodies for flute and orchestra for Sir James.
During the recordings at the Abbey Road Studios in London in late June 2004 I helped with all kinds of last-minute ›problems‹ which had to be dealt with on the spot, ie problems with scores, express production of corrected orchestral parts. Fortunately all these ›problems‹ were immediately solvable.
Since Craig completed the entire album within just five weeks, he had not time to fine-tune the orchestral material for the recording. That part fell to me after the recording sessions. I put together the revised orchestral material of almost all of the arrangements, which are now being rented out by Boosey & Hawkes.
Craig Leon wrote: »Matthias Spindler proved to be an invaluable help on the Wings of Song project with Sir James Galway. Since we had very little time to prepare the scores for the recording Matthias helped out considerably with the editing and printing out of the scores and parts for the LSO to perform. With his knowledge of the Sibelius system things went much quicker and easier at the sessions than they could have, especially considering the time constraints that we were operating under.«
Helen Spielman remarked: »It’s getting late. Matthias runs upstairs to fix parts on the Sibelius software for the two French horn players. He photocopies them and literally races back downstairs to give them to the musicians. Everything here is obviously well organised and has taken much preparation, but all the tools are available to make last second changes if needed.«*
* quot. fr.: The Balance is Heaven: at Abbey Road Studios with Sir James Galway, in: The Flutist Quarterly 36, Vol. XXX, No. 1, Fall 2004, p. 40
James Galway – Wings of Song
Composers: Anonymous · J.S. Bach · V. Bellini · J. Brahms · J. Denver · A. Dvořák · G.U. Fauré · C.W. Gluck · J. Offenbach · M. Ravel · J. Rodrigo · E. Satie · C. Saint-Saëns · F. Schubert · H. Shore · R. Wagner
Arrangers: Craig Leon · Howard Shore
Flute: Sir James Galway · Lady Jeanne Galway
ViolonCello: Moray Welsh
Orchestra: London Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Klauspeter Seibel
2004 Deutsche Grammophon
1CD |D|D|D| 477 5085 |G|H| (Int. Version)
1CD |D|D|D| 477 5236 |G|H| (UK Version)
2CD |D|D|D| 477 5362 |G|H| (QVC Version)
1AVCD |D|D|D| 477 5335 |G|H| (Taiwan Version)
Int. Release Date: 09/2004
2004 — Music Week Classical Chart #1 (Great Britain)
2004 — Billboard Top Classical Albums Chart #2 (USA)
2004 — Billboard Classical Albums Chart #4 (USA)
My thanks go to the following people, who supported my work (in alphabetical order): Colette Barber, Sir James Galway, Lady Jeanne Galway, Craig Leon, Ed Nash, and Klauspeter Seibel.