Track Listing

1. Theme From Silk Road
2. Bell Tower
3. Flying Celestial Nymphs
4. Mirage
5. Linden
6. 40800
7. Takla Makan Desert
8. Lord Of Wind
9. Caravansary
10. Moon-Star
11. Pray At Xian - (live) / Mercury=20

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #99939 in Music
• Released on: 2003-02-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Album Description
Best of Silk Road blends Kitaro’s influences from traditional Japanese music and the romantic Western tradition with serene and seductive arrangements, gentle melodies and combination of lush, majestic textures. This CD features a previously unreleased version of the ‘Theme for Silk Road’ as well as ‘Pray at Xian/Mercury’, which was recorded live in Xian, China during Kitaro’s 2002 Silk Road tour.

Amazon.com
In 1980, few people knew about the Japanese synthesizer player named Kitaro. He'd released a few albums in Japan, but Silk Road was the album that put Kitaro on the map. Originally recorded as the soundtrack to a Japanese TV series about the trade route between Europe and China, Kitaro subsequently released it as a double LP. This disc contains some of the best themes from that recording as well as some other songs, including 1996’s "Flying Celestial Nymphs" and "Caravansary" featuring Yu-Xiao Guang’s delicately expressive lines performed on a native Chinese violin called the huquin. The Best of Silk Road concludes with two new pieces, "Pray at Xian/Mercury," nearly 18 minutes in length. They feature Kitaro on Native flute playing over gentle arpeggiations. Although these pieces do become tiresome in their repetition, the Japanese composer's melodic trade-offs with To-san on Chinese pipa are a serenely austere respite from Kitaro's often overly lush orchestrations. --John Diliberto

Customer Reviews

Best of Silk Road is Also Best of Kitaro
A good album. If you like the theme from The Silk Road, you could also purchase the original video of The Silk Road produced by NHK TV Japan. Kitaro's music is soothing and an excellent accessory to meditation.

Hauntingly beautiful.
I was intoduced to the music of Kitaro while serving in Okinawa, Japan as a Navy Hospital Corpsman back in the early 1980s. At that time Kitaro Silk Road Music was only available in the old fashioned record form. My friend had a copy and recorded from it on audiocasette for me. Of course the quality was not the best but I never forgot the music which had the power of bringing tears to my eyes. I will always associate it with the island of Okinawa. My father used to call it "wind music" and indeed one can understand why. This part of the music is reminiscent of the many typhoons which used to plague the island. But after the storm the place was simply beautiful. There were amazing sunsets to behold while living near the water. The music has such a quality of emiting emotions from your soul. I see it as a real catharsis and it hold close to me. I cannot recall the exact name of the album from which I first heard Kitaro but after ordering this CD the music on it is very familiar so I believe this was the one. Anyway I strongly recommend it as a most beautiful form of music.

Classic Kitaro
I'm a Kitaro fan no matter how good or not so good his albums are