In conversation with a friend recently, the talk turned to modern rock and pop adaptations of classical music. We both agreed that very few such adaptations had been successful. However, I said that a few of them had been enjoyable, particularly in fusing heavy rock music and orchestral classics. He was dumbfounded, and challenged me to produce an example.
Well, Paul, here it is. Ritchie Blackmore was the lead guitarist for the group Deep Purple in the 1970’s, and went on to form the group Rainbow before moving on to his current Renaissance-theme group, Blackmore’s Night (which we’ve covered on this blog in the past – they’re one of my favorite groups).
Here’s Ritchie Blackmore, Rainbow and a full string orchestra performing (live) a variation on the fourth movement of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.
Spectacular, isn’t it?
Peter
The PANTS! Oh god, the pants! Pass the brain bleach!
Jim
Flip it the other way, and do hard rock/heavy metal with classical instruments… voila!
Apocalyptica!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epSMyGjVsmE
(Embedding is disabled…) These folks (Finns, I believe) play hard rock and are best know for their covers of Metallica songs … on cellos.
Phenomenal skill.
Of course, Emerson, Lake & Palmer did some nice pop/classical combinations – some Aaron Copland, Pictures at an Exhibition, and so forth.
A more recent one is Vanessa Mae's pop version of the Toccata & Fugue in D Minor:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VexO1L0_d2U
There is something similar that was done in the movie "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" for the Mall scene with "Beethoven" playing keyboards, creating a hard rock version of what sounded like a classical song.
I looked it up, and it's a song called "Play With Me" by a relatively unknown rock band called Extreme. While not a classical adaptation, there are definite classical influences (which I would assume is why it was chosen as a song played on modern instrumentation by a time-traveling Beethoven), just as a lot of contemporary artists continue to pull from classical influences even today.
There's a youtube clip of the scene, which can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2a3nbTrO_c
The song itself starts at around 2:18.
Also, the WV for me was "undisses". I'm assuming that would be a set of compliments meant to offset prior insults. 😉
Try Omega Ltd http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9CQH-5tVNQ
Tchaikovsky one or a version of Tchaikovsky's piano cencerto in b minor. Peter you should know them They were a South African rock band in the 70's