On this highly personal album, part of "The Rick Wakeman New Age Collection,"
Wakeman turns the interpretive skills he once applied to Henry VIII's six wives to a subject much closer to home: his own family. His parents, his wife Nina, his children, and his pets all get their musical portraits painted as keyboard instrumentals. Several of the pieces are calm and peaceful like much new age music, while some subjects, such as Wiggles the rabbit, inspire more upbeat and/or complex pieces. The lyrical "Nina" was later rewritten as "The Meeting" for the Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe album. The CD ends with two pieces written as film themes, unrelated in subject to the rest of the album but similar in content. Accessible and endearing. ~ Stephen Raiteri