Music CD Mediterraneo, featuring Mediterranean music performed by guitarist Terrence Farrell

Featured Album

Mediterraneo

Terrence Farrell
Guitarist

Listen to Song of the Sirens from Mediterraneo (starts at 2 minutes 30 seconds in the following video; first song is Gymnopedie #1 from the Alla Romanza album):

Or listen to MP3 audio samples:
	Never On Sunday Manos Hadjidakis
	Carmen Georges Bizet
	Pavane for a Dead Princess Maurice Ravel

1.	Cleopatra's Dance Terrence Farrell	8.	Sonatina I Federico Moreno Torroba
2.	Never On Sunday Manos Hadjidakis	9.	Sonatina II Federico Moreno Torroba
3.	Zorba the Greek Mikis Theodorakis	10.	Sonatina III Federico Moreno Torroba
4.	Carmen Georges Bizet	11.	Arabic Caprice Francisco Tarrega
5.	Spanish Serenade Juan Malats	12.	Danza del Sannio Italian Traditional
6.	Czardas V. Monte	13.	The Old Castle Modeste Mussorgsky
7.	Pavane for a Dead Princess Maurice Ravel	14.	Song of the Sirens Terrence Farrell

The first time I saw the Mediterranean Sea I was five years old. My family was on vacation from our home in Salzburg, Austria and it was my first experience with a large body of water. The impact of that visit was profound; even at that age I sensed the difference between people. Only later did I gradually learn the real significance of its immense history. Home to countless civilizations that have embraced its shores, it is truly one of the melting pots of the world. A cauldron of political ideas that would shape the West's definitions of liberty, democracy, and republicanism.

The forgiving water gave birth to several of the world's great religions and philosophies. It is a playground for the rich and famous and to every other economic group as well. Northern Europeans looking for warmth, others looking for an economic holiday in Greece and the well-heeled off to their favorite haunts on the Cote d'Azur. All the while the local inhabitants are wondering what all the fuss is about.

On my travels throughout the region I found the similarities in the music quite interesting. There is a certain rhythmic vitality that is quite pervasive. Every climate creates its own set of values. It would be hard to imagine northern and southern European composers coming up with the same sort of music. The North's long cold winters make for a different kind of music than the South's sunny climes where the heat quickens the heart ... one only needs to consider Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra, Helen of Troy to name but a few who come from the region.

This album comprises some of my favorite music from the Mediterranean. There is a certain sensuality to the music that I find quite irresistible, a hot-bloodedness that speaks to me like no other. Much of its music looks East more than we might at first think. On a recent trip to Turkey, I was amazed at the similarity their music had to the music of Spain. On the same note, I was surprised how much the music of the Black Sea, the Mediterranean's cousin, looks east. It is one thing to be told about it in a music appreciation class, but it is quite another to hear it exemplified by a street musician in Yalta.

I have often wondered what the ingredients are that bind that part of the world; even with all its political difference the similarities are so profound. It certainly was the world's first super highway. It is a place where nature's abundance has been kind and everyone seems to agree that there is a quality to the light and a blue to the sea that give it its sense of place and that place is called Mediterraneo.

Terrence Farrell
Santorini, Greece

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Terrence Farrell Guitarist

Terrence Farrell
Guitarist