Eric Eller wrote this review for Green Man Review.
Hand bells have always meant one thing to me — Christmas. How limited my concept was — the Arsis Hand Bell Ensemble sets this conception clearly as the narrow, provincial perspective it is with Awake, my heart! This collection of Estonian folk songs has an ethereal, haunting quality that no other instrumental arrangement could deliver. The hand bells offer up a pure sound that appears simplistic on the surface. But only on the surface — an uncomplicated presentation is the perfect disguise. Smoothly interlocking tones weave a complex undercurrent of rich, beautiful music.
Awake, my heart! gets inside your head almost immediately. After only a few songs it makes a play for your heart as well. The songs range from the bright and joyful sounding “A Maiden’s Voice” to the haunting and captivating “Grow Into Shepherd”. The album taken in toto is a complex linkage of melodies that hints at the images behind the original songs. Lullabies, shepherd’s tunes, and folk stories are given a rich emotive power through the deceptively simple hand bell. The result is a transporting feeling that absorbs your full attention.
As an instrumental arrangement of originally sung folk tunes, the album has only one drawback. The lyrics to the original songs would have fully fleshed out the images that each song is meant to convey. The music suffers no loss; only the listener’s understanding does. There is a brief discussion in the liner notes on the background and origins of Estonian folk music, along with a few snippets of verse from the songs on Awake, my heart!. It’s not enough. Songs like “The Wife of a Snake” deserve more background than a simple comment that it’s a fairy tale, especially since the subject is far from the first thing one would think of for a hand bell ensemble.
“PLEASE LISTEN SOFTLY!” The emphatic instruction on the back of the CD cover is, oddly, much louder and overtly powerful than the music itself. A necessary order, since the nuances that arise in the interplay of quiet instruments are lost at high volume. The command is a necessary one. Awake, my heart! has a subtle and textured power that is best grasped with the music turned down low.
(CCn’C Records, 2003)
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