''Through A Glass Darkly'' is a 1978 album by Peter Howell and the

BBC Radiophonic Workshop The BBC Radiophonic Workshop was one of the sound effects units of the BBC, created in 1958 to produce incidental sounds and new music for radio and, later, television. The unit is known for its experimental and pioneering work in electroni ...

. It featured six original instrumental compositions including "Through A Glass Darkly - A Lyrical Adventure", a 19-minute track which took up the whole of the first side of the record. Much of the music on the album leaned far more towards the

prog rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Initi ...

of the 1970s than the previous output by the Radiophonic Workshop. The track "The Astronauts" later featured as the B-side to the 1980 single release of Howell's arrangement of the ''

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...

'' theme. It was reissued as part of the

Record Store Day Record Store Day is an annual event inaugurated in 2007 and held on one Saturday (typically the third) every April and every Black Friday in November to "celebrate the culture of the independently owned record store". The day brings together fa ...

exclusive 6-CD box set ''Four Albums 1968 - 1978'' 29 August 2020.

Track listing

Musicians

* Peter Howell –

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

, synthesisers,

acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...

*Terence Emery -

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionall ...

*Howard Tibble -

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

*Brian Hussey -

*Tony Catchpole -

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

*Des McCamley -

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

References

External links

mb21 Discography entry
* {{Authority control 1978 albums BBC Radiophonic Workshop albums BBC Records albums