Жердің Ортасына Саяхат

Journey to the Centre of the Earth is the second album by English keyboardist Rick Wakeman, released on 3 May 1974 by A&M Records. It is a live recording of the second of his two concerts at the Royal Festival Hall on 18 January 1974, the premiere of his 40 minute orchestral rock piece based on Jules Verne's 1864 science fiction novel of the same name. It tells the story of Professor Lidinbrook, his nephew Axel, and their guide Hans, who follow a passage to the Earth's centre originally discovered by Arne Saknussemm, an Icelandic alchemist. Wakeman performs with the London Symphony Orchestra, the English Chamber Choir, and a group of hand picked musicians for his rock band, which later became the English Rock Ensemble. Actor David Hemmings narrates the story. Journey to the Centre of the Earth was overall well received by music critics. It reached No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart, and peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 in the United States. It was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America in October 1974 for selling 500,000 copies. The album earned Wakeman a nomination for an Ivor Novello Award and a Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance. In 1999, Wakeman released a sequel album Return to the Centre of the Earth. After the original score was presumed lost, Wakeman was reunited with it in 2009 and re recorded the album three years later with 18 minutes of music previously cut due to time constraints.

By mid 1973, Wakeman had been with the progressive rock band Yes for almost two years, and he had released his debut solo effort, The Six Wives of Henry VIII. For his next release Wakeman wished to make an album that told a story with its music, something that he had been inspired to do so since his father took him to see a performance of the symphonic fairy tale Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev which features a narrator telling the story and an orchestra illustrating the action. Malone called the project a challenge and "completely different" to what he had been involved with previously.

German Professor Lidinbrook discovers an old parchment that detailed a journey to the centre of Earth undertaken by Arne Saknussemm, an Icelandic alchemist. The parchment, when decoded into Latin and translated by Lidinbrook's nephew Axel, reveals an entrance to the route in the extinct volcano of Snæfellsjökull in Iceland. The pair embark on their journey with their guide Hans. and organised during a break when Yes were touring Tales from Topographic Oceans. Rehearsals began in December at Farmyard Studios in Little Chalfont, owned by Trevor Morais, with the band only before full scale rehearsals with the orchestra from 5 January 1974. On the day of the concert, further rehearsals began at 9 a. m. Two sell out performances were held at 6 and 8 p. m. on Friday 18 January 1974 at the Royal Festival Hall in London, attended by 3,000 people each. Each performance lasted for one hour and forty minutes. An initial plan was to have the concerts filmed for a prospective home video release when it was "commercially viable", but it did not come into fruition. Wakeman thought the segment would be a disaster as the film arrived at the venue shortly before the first performance and resorted to improvising on the piano without knowing what the footage was. The first half of the second show was recorded, initially as a test to see if the equipment worked correctly. It remained unreleased until 2002 as part of Wakeman's limited edition box set Treasure Chest. The recordings were produced by Wakeman, and mixed by him and engineer Paul Tregurtha at Morgan Studios in London from 21 to 29 January 1974. Wakeman heard cuts of the album during the subsequent Yes tour, rejecting several of them. "I just didn't like the sound, and it was worth doing it properly for the sake of a few extra days". Wakeman was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for the album, and it earned him a Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Instrumental Performance. The record was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America in September 1974. In 1999, marking the album's 25th anniversary, Wakeman released a sequel titled Return to the Centre of the Earth. The story follows a group of adventurers who attempt to follow the previous expedition to the Earth's centre as discovered by Saknussemm. In 2002, Wakeman released the 8 CD compilation box set Treasure Chest which contained the previously unreleased first half of the second concert at the Royal Festival Hall.

The album received some negative reaction upon its release, with music critics having described the record as a "classical pastiche genuinely appalling" and "brutal synthesiser overkill". Journey however, was well received by others. A journalist for The Sunday Times missed the Royal Festival Hall concert, but thought on record the music "comes over magnificently a striking work which only occasionally lapses into pretentiousness". Music journalist Chris Welch of Melody Maker thought the album was "entertaining, fresh and disalarmingly unpretentious This could be a score for a Hollywood musical – tuneful, but with epic overtones". Welch noted Wakeman's "familiarity of the story" and his "close observance to detail engenders a warmth to the work, which made it a resounding success as a concert performance". In a retrospective review, Mike DeGange of Allmusic called the album "one of progressive rock's crowning achievements" and noted "interesting conglomerations of orchestral and synthesized music".

In July 1974, Wakeman headlined the Crystal Palace Garden Party concert, performing the album in its entirety with selections from The Six Wives of Henry VIII. Wakeman decided to use the small lake in front of Crystal Palace Bowl as part of the show; balloon versions of the dinosaurs were built to act out the album's climactic fight. When deployed, rising from the water, they failed to fully inflate, collapsed into each other and got stuck in front of the stage. The audience, many under the influence of hallucinogens, jumped into the lake to join them. The morning of that show, Wakeman had lost consciousness and collapsed in his home, suffering several bruises. He attributed it to the fatigue of preparing for the show. During the performance, he suffered lightheadedness and felt as if he were floating. The next morning, with the band at his house making preparations to take the show on a world tour, Wakeman was on the phone with a journalist when he again fell to the floor, this time regaining consciousness, but suddenly feeling very sick. He was taken to hospital where doctors determined that he had suffered a heart attack, perhaps his third in the last 24 hours. Due to his relative youth at the time, it was attributed to the stress of touring combined with Wakeman's heavy smoking and drinking. Advised to remain in hospital for nine months and possibly retire, at least from touring, Wakeman instead went ahead with his tour plans. In celebration of the album's 45th anniversary and Wakeman's 70th birthday, Wakeman performed the re recorded version at the Royal Festival Hall on 13 and 14 July 2019. In February 2023, Wakeman performed two shows at the London Palladium, the second of which included a performance of Journey to the Centre of the Earth.