Nordisle Bois Orchestre - Poetry of the Mountain

It's hard to know what to say when all the CD booklet will tell you is the song titles and composers.

What's almost certain is that the Nordisle Bois Orchestre (or Orchestra on some CDs, depending on where they were released) is strictly a studio creation. This sounds to me like a mixture of a few real instruments and some electronic enhancement, although the results are somewhat better than is usual for these sort of things.

Despite the French sounding moniker attached to this CD it originated in Japan on the Denon label. In fact there were number of albums released by Denon in the 1980s and '90s that bore the Nordisle Bois name. Some were also released in Europe and a few made it to North America.

On almost all of these albums the selections were composed entirely of Western pop songs, including some, like Feelings and Say You, Say Me, that a goodly number of people would go out of their way to avoid.

Here's one of the better selections from Poetry of the Mountain.

This Masquerade



Very few of the Nordisle Bois Orchestre CDs seem to be for sale on line. And those that are sell for ridiculous prices -- $25 and up, mostly for used copies. No legal downloads are available, so this is one of the few occasions when I might suggest that those of you who like easy listening covers of pop hits to look for downloads elsewhere, if you know what I mean.

I've also seen these CDs occasionally turn up in thrift stores and pawn shops, so keep your eyes peeled.

The selection below comes from the 1990 release Morning, not Magic Moment (1994) as shown in the video. A few of the tracks from Poetry of the Mountain are also on both of these CDs. Ballade Pour Adeline is very much in the style of Richard Clayderman, who had the hit version.