Music of the Spheres (Mike Oldfield)
| Music of the Spheres | ||||
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| Studio album by Mike Oldfield | ||||
| Released | 14 March 2008 | |||
| Recorded | Abbey Road Studios, Studio 1, June 2007 | |||
| Genre | Classical | |||
| Length | 45:30 | |||
| Label |
Universal Classics and Jazz Mercury |
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| Producer | Mike Oldfield Karl Jenkins |
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| Mike Oldfield chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Music of the Spheres | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
| IM | |
Music of the Spheres is an album by English musician Mike Oldfield, released in the United Kingdom on 17 March 2008. The album, Oldfield's second album with Mercury Records and his first classical work, is based on the concept of a celestial Musica universalis.
The album features New Zealand soprano Hayley Westenra (on "On My Heart") and Chinese pianist Lang Lang on six tracks.
Music of the Spheres was nominated for a Classical Brit Award in 2009.
In an interview on BBC Radio 2's Steve Wright show, broadcast 23 February 2006, Oldfield elaborated on his next project, saying he was working on a long instrumental – probably in three parts and without any drum loops. He also mentioned the possibility of a tour. In an interview for the March 2007 issue of Resolution Magazine, Oldfield added that it would be a classical album "going to be based around the festival of Hallowe’en, rather than the Hollywood horror film", in which he would only play "classical guitar and grand piano". In an interview with This is London, Oldfield revealed the name of the new album as Music of the Spheres.
Initially the album was written with electronic elements, like his last album, Light & Shade, but as the album developed it became an orchestral piece. The single "Spheres" is from the early stages of the album. Oldfield wrote much of the music in the music notation software Sibelius on an Apple Macintosh. Oldfield noted in the computing magazine MacFormat that creating the orchestral score for the album was time consuming, as the MIDI timing and velocities varied too much.
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