Track by track 175 Focus 11

Archive number: 175

Title: Focus 11

Main Album: Focus 11

Track number: 11

Genre: Progressive Rock Instrumental

Studio: WedgeView Studios, Netherlands

Length: 6:11

Composer: Thijs van Leer

Musicians: Thijs van Leer – Hammond organ, piano, flute; Menno Gootjes – Guitars; Udo Panekeet – Bass; Pierre van der Linden – Drums

Producer: Geert Scheigrond

Engineer: Geert Scheigrond

Label: In and Out of Focus Recordings

Date of recording/release: November 2018

Alternative recording: Focus 50 Album Complelely Focussed

Notes: This stand out track is in several parts. We begin with with a beautiful guitar led slow melody that takes us to 1:15. Something more brisk then breaks in, introdiced by the piano but led by the guitar, flute and piano. This goes on until 1:47, ending on a long drawn out note that is succeeded by a further part based around a very catchy 10 note tune on guitar. At 3:07 there is a flute led bridge as far as 3:31 when the catchy melody comes back in. This meanders on until 4:38. From there to 5:41 we have a guitar led tune, again very catchy and ending on a long drawn out note. The final section is a repeat of the second brisk element from before again featuring piano and flute. The track ends with a flourish on solo flute.

Track by track 174 Final Analysis

Archive number: 174

Title: Final analysis

Main Album: Focus 11

Track number: 10

Genre: Progressive Rock Instrumental

Studio: WedgeView Studios, Netherlands

Length: 3:51

Composer: Thijs van Leer

Musicians: Thijs van Leer – Hammond organ, piano; Menno Gootjes – Guitars; Udo Panekeet – Bass; Pierre van der Linden – Drums

Producer: Geert Scheigrond

Engineer: Geert Scheigrond

Label: In and Out of Focus Recordings

Date of recording/release: November 2018

Alternative recording: None

Notes The track begins with 35 seconds of rhythmic drums and rhythm guitar work as it builds up an atmosphere (slightly reminiscent of the track Birth). A screaming guitar then comes in as the geat continues. At 54 seconds things skow slightly as the piano leads for a short while. A clear but slightly dissonant guitar leads briefly after that. The chugging beat continues then until at 1:31 the guitar leads again with a series of descending lines. The piano can still be heard behind it. At 3:13 the beat we began with resumes until 3:22 and again 3:32 when the piano motif is heard briefly twice more. The tracl=k then fades.

Track by track 173 Mare Nostrum

Archive number: 173

Title: Mare Nostrum
Main Album: Focus Family 11
Track number: 9

Genre: Progressive Rock Instrumental
Studio: WedgeView Studios, Netherlands
Length: 5:08
Composer: Udo Pannekeet

Key: C
Musicians: Thijs van Leer – Hammond organ; Menno Gootjes – Guitars; Udo Panekeet – Bass; Pierre van der Linden – Drums
Producer: Geert Scheigrond
Engineer: Geert Scheigrond
Label: In and Out of Focus Recordings
Date of recording/release: November 2018
Alternative recording: None

Notes: The whole band begin together with a laconic guitar-led melody slightly changing arouf the one minute mark. At about 1:53 the drums energetically lead into a jauntier section. The guitar work  grows increasingly more energetic. At around 4:32 it slows before quickly closing with drums and the whole band.

Mare Nostrum is the Latin for "Our Sea" and was a Roman name for the Mediterranean Sea. In the decades following the 1861 unification of Italy, Italian nationalists and Italian fascists who saw Italy as the successor state to the Roman Empire attempted to revive the term.

Track by track 172 (154) Clair-Obscur

Archive number: 172

Title: Clair-Obscur

Main Album: Focus 11

Track number: 8

Genre: Progressive Rock Instrumental

Studio: Unknown

Length: 3:14

Composer: Thijs van Leer

Musicians: Thijs van Leer – Hammond organ; Menno Gootjes – Guitars; Udo Panekeet – Bass; Pierre van der Linden – Drums

Producer: Geert Scheigrond

Engineer: Geert Scheigrond

Label: In and Out of Focus Recordings

Date of recording/release: November 2018

Alternative recording: Focus Family Album

Notes: This is the same recording as is found on The Focus Family Album

Track by track 171 Palindrome

Archive number: 171

Title: Palindrome

Main Album: Focus Family 11

Track number: 7

Genre: Progressive Rock Instrumental

Studio: WedgeView Studios, Netherlands

Length: 5:34

Composer: Thijs van Leer

Musicians: Thijs van Leer – Hammond organ; Menno Gootjes – Guitars; Udo Panekeet – Bass; Pierre van der Linden – Drums

Producer: Geert Scheigrond

Engineer: Geert Scheigrond

Label: In and Out of Focus Recordings

Date of recording/release: November 2018

Alternative recording: None

Notes: The track begins with drums then a guitar riff plus a discordant organ sound that cuts through the melody. This pattern continues for the first 49 seconds when a lighter pattern comes in for 15 seconds before reverting to the previous pattern. At 1:26 we are back to the new lighter pattern for another 15 seconds before reversion to the first pattern. At 2:02 a new stately slow march comes in. This lasts down to 2:36 when the original pattern repeats punctuated with a series of short drum breaks (at 2:58-3:05, 3:16-3:23, a longer one at 3:34-3:5, 3:56-4:03 and the longest at 4:14-4:45). The stately slow march comes in again at 4:46 to end the track.

A palindrome is a word, number, phrase or other sequence of symbols that reads the same backwards as forwards, eg madam or racecar, the date and time 12/21/33 12:21 and the sentence: "A man, a plan, a canal – Panama". The 19-letter Finnish word saippuakivikauppias (a soapstone vendor), is the longest single-word palindrome in everyday use, while the 12-letter term tattarrattat (James Joyce Ulysses) is the longest in English.

The word was introduced by English poet and writer Henry Peacham in 1638. It is derived from the Greek roots πάλιν 'again' and δρóμος 'way, direction'; a different word is used in Greek, καρκινικός 'carcinic' (lit. crab-like) to refer to letter-by-letter reversible writing. The concept of a palindrome can be dated to the 3rd-century BC, although no examples survive; the first physical examples can be dated to the 1st-century AD with the Latin acrostic word square, the Sator Square (contains both word and sentence palindromes) and the 4th-century Greek Byzantine sentence palindrome nipson anomemata me monan opsin.

Palindromes are also found in music and biological structures (most genomes include palindromic gene sequences). In music Haydn's Symphony No. 47 in G is nicknamed "the Palindrome". In the third movement, a minuet and trio, the second half of the minuet is the same as the first but backwards, the second half of the ensuing trio similarly reflects the first half, and then the minuet is repeated.

The interlude from Alban Berg's opera Lulu is a palindrome, as are sections and pieces, in arch form, by many other composers, including James Tenney, and most famously Béla Bartók. George Crumb also used musical palindrome to text paint the Federico García Lorca poem "¿Por qué nací?", the first movement of three in his fourth book of Madrigals. Stravinsky's final composition, The Owl and the Pussy Cat, is a palindrome.

The first movement from Constant Lambert's ballet Horoscope (1938) is entitled "Palindromic Prelude". Lambert claimed that the theme was dictated to him by the ghost of Bernard van Dieren, who had died in 1936. British composer Robert Simpson also composed music in the palindrome or based on palindromic themes; the slow movement of his Symphony No. 2 is a palindrome, as is the slow movement of his String Quartet No. 1. His hour-long String Quartet No. 9 consists of 32 variations and a fugue on a palindromic theme of Haydn (from the minuet of his Symphony No. 47). All of Simpson's 32 variations are themselves palindromic.

Hin und Zurück ("There and Back": 1927) is an operatic 'sketch' (Op. 45a) in one scene by Paul Hindemith, with a German libretto by Marcellus Schiffer. It is essentially a dramatic palindrome. Through the first half, a tragedy unfolds between two lovers, involving jealousy, murder and suicide. Then, in the reversing second half, this is replayed with the lines sung in reverse order to produce a happy ending.

The music of Anton Webern is often palindromic. Webern, who had studied the music of the Renaissance composer Heinrich Isaac, was extremely interested in symmetries in music, be they horizontal or vertical. 

Just as the letters of a verbal palindrome are not reversed, so are the elements of a musical palindrome usually presented in the same form in both halves. Although these elements are usually single notes, palindromes may be made using more complex elements. For example, Karlheinz Stockhausen's composition Mixtur, originally written in 1964, consists of 20 sections, called "moments", which may be permuted in several different ways, including retrograde presentation, and two versions may be made in a single program. When the composer revised the work in 2003, he prescribed such a palindromic performance, with the 20 moments first played in a "forwards" version, and then "backwards". Each moment, however, is a complex musical unit, and is played in the same direction in each half of the program. By contrast, Karel Goeyvaerts's 1953 electronic composition, Nummer 5 (met zuivere tonen) is an exact palindrome: not only does each event in the second half of the piece occur according to an axis of symmetry at the centre of the work, but each event itself is reversed, so that the note attacks in the first half become note decays in the second, and vice versa. It is a perfect example of Goeyvaerts's aesthetics, the perfect example of the imperfection of perfection.

In classical music, a crab canon is a canon in which one line of the melody is reversed in time and pitch from the other. A large-scale musical palindrome covering more than one movement is called "chiastic", referring to the cross-shaped Greek letter "χ" (pronounced /ˈkaɪ/.) This is usually a form of reference to the crucifixion; for example, the Crucifixus movement of Bach's Mass in B minor. The purpose of such palindromic balancing is to focus the listener on the central movement, much as one would focus on the centre of the cross in the crucifixion. Other examples are found in Bach's cantata BWV 4, Christ lag in Todes Banden, Handel's Messiah and Fauré's Requiem.

A table canon is a rectangular piece of sheet music intended to be played by two musicians facing each other across a table with the music between them, with one musician viewing the music upside down compared to the other. The result is somewhat like two speakers simultaneously reading the Sator Square from opposite sides, except that it is typically in two-part polyphony rather than in unison.

(See Wikipedia)

Track by track 170 (164) Winnie

Archive number: 170
Title: Winnie
Main Album: Focus 11
Track number: 6
Genre: Progressive Rock Instrumental
Studio: Mosh Studios, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Length: 5:13
Composer: Thijs van Leer
Musicians: Thijs van Leer – Hammond organ, Flute; Menno Gootjes – Guitars; Udo Panekeet – Bass; Pierre van der Linden – Drums
Producer: Geert Scheigrond
Engineer: Geert Scheigrond
Label: In and Out of Focus Recordings
Date of recording/release: November 2018
Alternative recording: Focus Family Album
Notes: This is a slightly shorter edit from the version on The Focus Family Album

Track by track 169 Mazzel

Archive number: 169

Title: Mazzel

Main Album: Focus Family 11

Track number: 5

Genre: Jazz Rock Instrumental

Studio: WedgeView Studios, Netherlands

Length: 4:23

Composer: Thijs van Leer

Musicians: Thijs van Leer – Hammond organ; Menno Gootjes – Guitars; Udo Panekeet – Bass; Pierre van der Linden – Drums

Producer: Geert Scheigrond

Engineer: Geert Scheigrond

Label: In and Out of Focus Recordings

Date of recording/release: November 2018

Alternative recording: None

Notes: Mazzel is a Dutch slang word for luck (used in phrases for good luck, also so long or bye) taken from Yiddish (as in Mazzel tov, good luck)

The track is led in by the electric guitar before the whole band joins with choppy jazz type progressions. At 01:33-01:44 (and 03:28-03:42) the guitar becomes a little more mournful and then it is back to the jazz. Plenty of variation but no prgression. From 01:44 flute or synthesiser is introduced.

Track by track 168 How many miles?

Archive number: 168

Title: How many miles?

Main Album: Focus 11

Track number: 4

Genre: Progressive Rock Pop Song

Studio: WedgeView Studios, Netherlands

Length: 4:48

Composer: Thijs van Leer

Key: C

Musicians: Thijs van Leer – Hammond organ, flute, vocal; Menno Gootjes – Guitars; Udo Panekeet – Bass; Pierre van der Linden – Drums

Producer: Geert Scheigrond

Engineer: Geert Scheigrond

Label: In and Out of Focus Recordings

Date of recording/release: November 2018

Alternative recording: None

Notes: These are the lyrics to the track

How many miles between

my love and I?

My love, where have you been

all my life?

How many stars have seen

us weep and cry?

With tears of joy that mean

us man and wife?

Let me reflect your energy

that moves my soul to ecstasy.

Let me become your melody

be sung in perfect harmony.

Amazing grace, your face divine,

now let me be your Valentine.

Let me become your bird so free

on wings made for eternity.

How come you shine so bright

you lucky star?

This fragrance of your soul

smells from afar.

How is it possible

your answer's yes?

My deepest joy, my love,

forever jazz …

let me reflect your  energy ...

The track begins (00:00-00:09) with drums before breaking into a bouncing instrumental ensemble with guitar and flute. Then at around 01:09 a slightly cheesy pop song comes in and lasts until around 03:27. We then revert to the bouncing instrumental but this time with a spoken van Leer voice over reiterating the lyric until the fade.

Track by track 167 Theodora Na na na

Archive number: 167

Title: Theodora Na na na

Main Album: Focus 11

Track number: 3

Genre: Jazz Rock Instrumental

Studio: WedgeView Studios, Netherlands

Length: 4:27

Composer: Thijs van Leer

Key: C#

Musicians: Thijs van Leer – Hammond organ, piano, synthesiser; Menno Gootjes – Guitars; Udo Panekeet – Bass; Pierre van der Linden – Drums

Producer: Geert Scheigrond

Engineer: Geert Scheigrond

Label: In and Out of Focus Recordings

Date of recording/release: November 2018

Alternative recording: None

Notes: The piano and guitar begin this laid back track with piano and guitar and some sort of synthesiser in the background. At 00:12 the drums and bass come in and then at aound 00:16 the flute too. As the track progresses there are more electric guitar licks and a regular return to the beginning. It is quite meandering on the whole and peters out rather than coming to any definite conclusion, although it does actually end.

Track by track 166 Heaven

Archive number: 166
Title: Heaven
Main Album: Focus 11
Track number: 2
Genre: Progressive Rock Instrumental
Studio: WedgeView Studios, Netherlands
Length: 4:26
Composer: Thijs van Leer

Key: G
Musicians: Thijs van Leer – Hammond organ, piano, flute, voice; Menno Gootjes – Guitars; Udo Panekeet – Bass; Pierre van der Linden – Drums
Producer: Geert Scheigrond
Engineer: Geert Scheigrond
Label: In and Out of Focus Recordings
Date of recording/release: November 2018
Alternative recording: None

Notes: We begin with several seconds of choppy organ with a drum beat at 00:04 and guitar led band joining in. At 00:09 a riff comes in and then is varied a little until 00:37 when a repeated piano trill comes into the mix, the drums becoming more stilted. Then at around 00:59 we have a four note chanticleer or cockerel sound played on organ then guitar and then with flute dominating. That section carries on through to 01:55 where it is superseded by an organ and piano led theme that reverts quite soon to the four note theme. Shortly after, a rising theme dominates before, at 02:41, we are back with the organ theme from the beginning. That develops, giving room for some nice guitar work and jazzy piano. At 03:40-03:48 van Leer's voice is heard scatting. The band continue until 4:05 when a more laid back version of the four note section comes in and we end with a drawn out note on guitar.

Track by track 165 Who's calling?

Archive number: 165

Title: Who's calling?
Main Album: The Focus Family Album
Track number: 1
Genre: Progressive Rock Instrumental
Studio: WedgeView Studios, Netherlands
Length: 5:28
Composer: Thijs van Leer

Key: C
Musicians: Thijs van Leer – Hammond organ; Menno Gootjes – Guitars; Udo Panekeet – Bass; Pierre van der Linden – Drums

Producer: Geert Scheigrond
Engineer: Geert Scheigrond
Label: In and Out of Focus Recordings
Date of recording/release: November 2018

Alternative recording: Focus by Thijs van Leer and Jan Akkerman

Notes: This reworking of the flute led 1985 track begins and ends with distorted staccato solo electric guitar and provides the sort of loud and brash opener that often opens a Focus album. The electric guitar is joined by drums around 00:04 and then the full band. Over the furious paced rhythm an organ backed guitar comes in around 00:22 with a yearning melody that reaches something of a climax around 01:45. The original riff comes in again at 01:50. This riff over the organ continues until 2:22 when the guitar lead comes in again and the previous figure is more or less repeated, coming to a similar climax around 03:45. At 3:50 a more violined theme comes in and the guitar increasingly breaks down as Menno works up and down the fretboard at increasing speed until a fade begins, only cut off by the repeated riff from the beginninng.

Track by track 162 Five fourth

Archive number: 162
Title: Five fourth
Main Album: The Focus Family Album
Track number: 18
Genre: *****
Studio: Unknown
Length: 7:05
Composer: Thijs van Leer
Musicians: Thijs van Leer - **** Menno Gootjes - Guitar; Bobby Jacobs - Bass; Pierre van der Linden - Drums
Producer: Bobby Jacobs
Engineer: Bobby Jacobs?
Label: In and Out of Focus Recordings
Date of recording/release: 2014/2017
Notes: 

TO B ECOMPLETED

Focus Under the Bridge London October 2019

I have been to Stamford Bridge, Chelsea's ground, more than once but I had not really noticed that under the East stadium near the Shed end there is a venue called Under the Bridge, Last Friday night I and a ministerial friend (who I convinced about Focus last time they were in town) were among a couple of hundred squeezed into this state of the art setting. (A light show is a rare treat at a Focus gig but appreciated - I think the visuals man must have a sense of humour as we had a picture of crocuses as we started on Hocus Pocus or as Jan Akkerman would surely have rechristiened it Focus crocus!). We caught most of Chantel McGregor's set which was of a high standard. She plays guitar and sings with a bass and drums rhythm section. Of course, once Focus stepped on stage were into a whole new zone with each member of the band making a solid contribution that was rewarded with a solo slot for for each - more in some cases. Van Leer was on form with the complete array of two kinds of flute, organ, melodica, scat, whistling, throat singing, lots of vocoder and a brief vocal on the opening song.
The set list began as usual with some very early stuff - Focus 1, a little Anonymus and House of the King. We then had a version of Eruption, good but not outstanding on this occasion I thought. We then moved on to some more recent stuff - Winnie and the simple but effective All hands on deck with the essential Sylvia in the middle.

We then had some songs rarely heard, if ever - Focus 4 (!) from Mother Focus and Focus 6 which has never appeared on a Focus album (I can only find it on a van Leer solo album. You can hear a recent live version here.). Between these we had Who's calling? originally on the Akkerman van Leer Focus collaboration of 1985 but recently revived on the Focus 11 album. Staying with 1985 material we then had a very fine version of Le Tango with melodics, whistling, etc. Before tackling that Thijs remarked on the presence in the audience of former wife Rosalie Peters who wrote lyrics for  this and other songs. We then had two numbers from Hamburger Concerto regularly played back to back La Cathedrale and Harem Scarem. In the second, van Leer takes opportunity to make himself scarce. So we had solos from Menno Gootjes and Udo Pannekeet on six string bass. Van der Linden had had one in Eruption and was to get another very full one on the penultimate track.

The set of over two amazing hours (no-one in the band showing any signs of tiring) closed with the usual Hocus Pocus and then slightly over they plumped for Focus 2 (rather than Focus 3) as the closer. Stupendous stuff.

There was an opportunity to meet the band but there was a rather long queue and so we decided to head off.

New Album - Focus 11

My autographed copy

I have had opportunity now to listen to the new Focus album several times. It is difficult to review a Focus album early on as their stuff usually repays many, many plays and it is often not until the umpteenth play that the full subtleties of a recording are sometimes appreciated. So far one is very positive certainly.

There are appropriately 11 tracks on the album. As usual, most track are entirely instrumental but with one vocal track. This time it is How many miles? a sort of pop song with fairly juvenile English lyrics but s good track. Two tracks were previewed on the previous stop gap album Focus Family - Clair-Obscur and Winnie. I think they are exactly the same as on the previous album. The other retreads are the opening track Who's calling? a reworking with a nice opening riff of the final track on the 1985 album called Focus and featuring Akkerman and van Leer. The second track, Heaven, will be familiar to some as a reworking of the original version of My sweetheart. This track is on the final Focus Akkerman album Mother Focus but first saw the light of day coupled with Love Remembered in 1974 in a concert in Japan.

The other seven tracks appear to be brand new. The stand out at the moment is Focus 11, the closing track, which keeps up the strong tradition of excellence those tracks all have. All the tracks on the album are van Leer compositons except for Mare Nostrum by the new bass player Udo Pannekeet. Palindrome appears to be a musical experiment that might well have come off. Mazzel is a rare reference to things Jewish. In general, the tracks feature the usual mix of bass, drums, guitars, organ, flute, lots of piano and some occasional vocalisations from van Leer.