Daddy Where Did I Come From/Little Arabella/Happy Freuds/Intermezzo From Karelia Suite/Don Edito El Gruva/ Ars Longa Vita Brevis
Ars Longa Vita Brevis was the follow up album from the British progressive group The Nice. If features their interpretation of a classical work by Sibelius and the extended title track symphonic suite.
“The first three songs are a lot of fun, and the suite, despite containing some really bad ideas (the first movement is a four-minute drum solo), it did lay the blueprint for other bands to do this sort of thing later.”
“One of the most innovative albums of the 60s. This album is composed of two parts. The first made up by yummy psychedelic songs, while the second is a symphonic progressive suite, the first in rock history.”
“It's not quite as symphonic as I was expecting. With the exception of the organ it seems to be more or less traditional rock instrumentation, though played with an eye towards bridging the gap between classical and pop music. Unfortunately, like most attempts to bridge that gap it fails to produce anything like the complexity of classical music.”
“Keith Emerson began his long compositions on this album with the extended suite Ars Longa Vita Brevis, an influential multi-part rock song with orchestral flavours and driving organ parts. Other tracks such as Little Arabella, Happy Freuds, and Daddy Where Did I Come From undercut the artistry of the album, but add some fun, I guess.”
“This is the album that started the whole progressive rock genre, during the height of psychedelia in 1968. The vocal and guitar work are very much in the 60s style, yet there is an entirely new dimension in there, created by Keith Emerson's driving, swirling organ, well supported by drums and bass and foreshadowing things to come later. Rock music weds classical on this album, and their child is progressive rock, precocious, curious and capricious.”
“When pop acts forget their roots as pop musicians they can sometimes overreach and come across as pretentious and annoying but The Nice don't do that here, they are still a psychedelic rock band and they don't forget it.”
Thank you - much appreciated.
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