Secret Garden

Secret Garden is Norwegian composer Rolf Loveland (piano, keyboards) and Irish violinist Fionnula Sherry. The album, however, offers much more than this duo; it is awash in orchestral strings (real ones), a choir (real one), and as many percussionists, harps, fiddles, keyboards, and whistles as are needed. Songs from a Secret Garden, a chart-topper in Europe, is unabashedly romantic, absolutely gorgeous. "Sigma," featuring boy soprano Rhonan Sugrue and the Irish National Choir, is very pensive, like dried flowers left, an expected return disappointed. The lyrics begin, "I search for the sign that will set my soul free." Although Celtic music fans will find many moments of bittersweet nostalgia between the violin, pipes, and pennywhistles, the album's closest musical relation might just be the intimate works of Maurice Ravel, particularly his "Pavanne for a Dead Princess." Romantic themes of true depth, played full out. Secret Garden is not afraid of tenderness nor beauty. ~ Carol Wright, All Music Guide