Rick Wakeman is, in my opinion, one of the greatest musicians to grace rock music. He studied piano, clarinet and orchestration at the Royal College of Music, but left to become a session musician. This is brilliant, because he had a huge influence in music, if not just giving thousands upon thousands of budding keyboard players that they could be more than just background noise. This work is an absolute masterpiece, and manages to sound epic in spite of the recording limitations of the day. His classical training comes through strongly in his use of strong, recurring melodic themes, which he uses as focuses (sounds less poncy than foci) to build his songs around. The adventurous arrangements have been prepared with great skill, and they consist of a rock band, the largest number of keyboards you can think of, and a choir. His technical skills on the keyboard are nothing short of incredible, and "Jane Seymour" gives you a taste of his ability. His song writing ability is demonstrated at its very best on tracks such as "Catherine Howard" and "Anne Boleyn", which have melodies that you will be humming for days. Not classical, but not quite rock: this is an essential prog album.