[Mortte Jousimo]

I got this idea from Nirvana thread. There has been long time argument about the popular music - is it art or not? - and I think there are a long time persons who thinks popular isn´t art, only music that is made in big symphony orchester is art. I have always think that it is bullshit, so I think maybe we could collect here works where those lines between classic orchester music and popular music is crossed.

Here´s some to begin:

Moody Blues: Days Of Future Passed. Maybe first time when classical orchestra and pop-orchestra made an lp together. Not a good example, the classical orchestra plays only in songs spaces and in the begin and the end of the album, the real songs are played only the band.

the Nice: Ars Longa Vita Brevis and Five Bridges. The first albums (I think) the classical orchestra and Rockband playing together. Both are very good albums! There are also versions from Sibelius Karelia Suite and part of Tschaikovsky´s Symphony Nro. 6, also some Bach´s I think. This band is very underrated and I think many didn´t know it was the first progressive rock band.

Deep Purple: Concerto for group and orchestra. I like this dark art-work a lot although it was doomed from many critics. I think it´s much better than Jon Lord´s solo orchestral pieces (Gemini Suite and Windows). There´s also lots of that band and orchestra didn´t play in same time.

[dionysusundone]

Metallica S& M,
/thread

[Mortte Jousimo]

I don´t still know how to search old threads in this Sonic gossip. So I continue a little. Maybe this all is allready written.

At first about that Metallica S & M -album. I thought it was quite funny when I read somewhere when that album came that Metallica is doing something new, that no-one hasn´t done!!! To me that albums sounds quite poor. I think Metallica didn´t want to make new arrangements to their songs, so the orchestra arranger have only possibility to try add the classic Orchestra there. So the result was that Metallica plays songs exactly same way as they has done all the time and you can hear Orchestra on somewhere back doing something. I think the only new song Ecstasy Of gold is only one that works.

Frank Zappa: Lumpy Gravy. This is very very arty album, but there is used big orchestra (only in chaotic parts). I like this also a lot!!!

Yes: Time and word. Some critics have said the first two Yes albums are just copies of the Nice music, but I disagree. Already this second album Yes is very personal band. The whole album isn´t made with classical orchestra, but in songs there is orchestra with, the band sound very good and very powerful!

Pink Floyd: Atom Heart Mother. I think Ron Geesin used a chorus very creative way in this a-side masterpiece. Very dark and powerfull!!! There´s also brass orchestra in Wright`s Summer `68 on second side and that sounds great too!

Emerson, Lake and Palmer: Pictures at an Exhibition. Well there is no classical orchestra, only band playing this Mussorgsky´s masterpiece. But I think this is the first time when band is trying to play the whole art work. But I was then a little disappointed when I got the original Mussorgsky´s piano work. It is very hard to me understand, why they left Tuileries, Bydlo, Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks and Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle out from the album. I think they´re not complicated than the other material, but maybe they couldn´t manage to make them work in rock versions. But all the material that´s in this album is just great and sounds so fine!

Mike Oldfield: Orchestral Tubular Bells. It´s almost same arrangement as the original, but it´s amazing how good it works!!! There´s no other "rock-elements" as Mike Oldfield with his guitar at the end, but I think this is also good example.

I know there exists symphony versions from the Who´s Tommy, but I haven´t ever even seen it. Maybe it is quite lousy, have somebody heard it?

Pekka Pohjola: Sinfonia no.1. There is no rock instruments, but I have to mention it, cause it´s just so great!!! He started in great band Wigwam, but very soon left into solo career. Pohjola have influences from Sibelius, but he´s got also something very own, maybe kind of child thing in his music like beefheart has. But in Pohjola music there´s nothing same as in Beefheart music. His bandmates have said he listened Zappa´s Hot Rats a lot before he made some of his almost first compositions. I agree about that, but maybe Zappa listened Sibelius before Hot Rats, who knows? Anyway, Pohjola´s whole career has been kind of braking the corridors of art music and popular music. I think he is still very much underrated also here in Finland.

I think in newer classic/popular colaborations have made same mistake as in Metallica´s S&M: they don´t arrange the songs. So it is more like classical orchestra is playing on the back of popular orchestra.

[Glice]

I tend to think the problem with bands using orchestras is that they use them for the gravitas, for the big thick sound, rather than for what the orchestra actually does. So the Cellos ape the bassline and the strings follow the melody/ chords... it becomes a loud piano rather than what a classical orchestra does, more generally. If you think about the opening to Beethoven's 5th (after the famous Dun dun dun DUUUUUHs), there's three main lines of melody/ harmony, moving in complimentary motion relative to the bar, coming together at the end of the phrase. It's not a complex trick, after some 300 years of 'classical' music, but it's the sort of thing that rock bands tend not to do - they prefer phrases defined by the first beat of the bar, or the off-beat in reggae. I'm sure there are rock musicians who can get away from it, and I know Zappa was fairly well-trained but... well, Zappa's incapable of making serious music, everything he does is defined, for me, by his general hatred of music and his appalling sense of humour (whether he's doing 'funny' stuff like don't eat the yellow snow or not).

[Mortte Jousimo]

Originally Posted by Glice

I tend to think the problem with bands using orchestras is that they use them for the gravitas, for the big thick sound, rather than for what the orchestra actually does. So the Cellos ape the bassline and the strings follow the melody/ chords... it becomes a loud piano rather than what a classical orchestra does, more generally. If you think about the opening to Beethoven's 5th (after the famous Dun dun dun DUUUUUHs), there's three main lines of melody/ harmony, moving in complimentary motion relative to the bar, coming together at the end of the phrase. It's not a complex trick, after some 300 years of 'classical' music, but it's the sort of thing that rock bands tend not to do - they prefer phrases defined by the first beat of the bar, or the off-beat in reggae. I'm sure there are rock musicians who can get away from it, and I know Zappa was fairly well-trained but... well, Zappa's incapable of making serious music, everything he does is defined, for me, by his general hatred of music and his appalling sense of humour (whether he's doing 'funny' stuff like don't eat the yellow snow or not).

I´m not good in music theory and specially I do not know almost nothing about classic music. I just listen music and some music, no matter in what genre it belongs sounds me great and other not. But have you heard those examples I give before? At least (in addition with Zappa) Keith Emerson (from the Nice), Jon Lord, Ron Geesin and Pekka Pohjola has (had) a classical education.