COMPOSERS: Burman
LABELS: Nonesuch
ALBUM TITLE: You've Stolen My Heart
WORKS: You’ve Stolen My Heart
PERFORMER: Asha Bhosle (singer); Kronos Quartet; with Zakir Hussain & Wu Man
CATALOGUE NO: 301696
Kronos plays Bollywood. That it just works is partly down to Bhosle singing eight of the 12 RD Burman songs. Her voice has now mellowed into something near a contralto, so her expressive power is richer than ever. Then there’s the arrangements, in a versatile texture of strings, percussion including Zakir Hussein on tabla, keyboards, and a plucked layer from the unlikely but convincing source of Wu Man’s pipa. But the Kronos’s solos try too hard and have trouble ‘between the notes’. The players’ contribution to accompaniments is much more telling, and if the soundtrack-style swooping violins aren’t samples, they are good enough to be. Robert Maycock
Burman
Kronos plays Bollywood. That it just works is partly down to Bhosle singing eight of the 12 RD Burman songs. Her voice has now mellowed into something near a contralto, so her expressive power is richer than ever. Then there’s the arrangements, in a versatile texture of strings, percussion including Zakir Hussein on tabla, keyboards, and a plucked layer from the unlikely but convincing source of Wu Man’s pipa. But the Kronos’s solos try too hard and have trouble ‘between the notes’.
Our rating
4
Published: January 20, 2012 at 3:57 pm