DJ Tiësto
Adagio For Strings

THE REVIEW

When you mention the title "Adagio For Strings," most people think of Stone's war film (Platoon), proceeding with associations of ideas much like with "Ride Of The Valkyries" and Apocalypse Now, now indelibly linked in the collective imagination.

Probably, when Samuel Barber composed in 1938 what would become his greatest success, he didn't imagine that history would remember him almost exclusively for it. It would have been even less conceivable to even remotely foresee the extent of the electronic treatment, cynically applied to his sweet strings replaced by mechanical devices, aimed at transforming the original melodic harmony into a compulsive-obsessive beat (such a disturbance) intended not to enchant, but instead to electrify and inflame the audience.

After the successful revivals by William Orbit and (a little less so) Antiloop, in 2005 it was the turn of one of the international trance heavyweights to review his copy and provide his own interpretation. Fresh from the good performance in front of the whole world at the opening ceremony of Athens 2004, the valiant Yngwie Malmsteen of trance (he's a bit flashy, but his covers don't yet feature dragons and tongues of fire) pulled an umpteenth A-list piece out of the hat capable of taking him to stadiums and sports arenas across the ocean.

There's no precise and concrete way to describe the ebb and flow of the piece, the tension that declines and the adrenaline that pumps... if the descent from classical music is evident, the cleanliness and coherence of the electronic fusion does not leave you stunned but pleasantly impressed.
For the rest, it is trance: it won't tell you who you are and what you should be, it won't teach you anything you don't already know, and it will hardly make you reflect on themes of social interest. But the movement and energy that will develop in you and around you will be palpable.

If it tells you nothing, you can always pop an acid and watch an episode of 'Sottovoce'.