classical and rock crossover

[Mark Stryker]

For something I'm working on relating to classical music and rock crossover (don't ask) I want to identify a couple of examples where the marriage works well and a couple where it doesn't. Does anyone here have any inisight on the matter? I'm especially interested in at this point in rock artists who have tried to cast their music in classical clothes. There are any number of "classical" composers like the Bang on a Can folks (Michael Gordon, David Lang, Julia Wolfe, etc.) who write notated music that uses rock rhythms, instruments, textures, production, etc., but that's a separate but related topic. Thanks in advance.

Edited April 27, 2012 by Mark Stryker

[Teasing the Korean]

A place to begin: Some artists used straightforward song forms and simply pasted on orchestras or added, after the fact, unnecessary orchestral or instrumental interludes that were not intrinsic to the structure of the song forms.

The better artists experimented with unusual structures that included longer thematic development more akin to traditional "classical" composing.

[Mark Stryker]

A place to begin: Some artists used straightforward song forms and simply pasted on orchestras or added, after the fact, unnecessary orchestral or instrumental interludes that were not intrinsic to the structure of the song forms.

The better artists experimented with unusual structures that included longer thematic development more akin to traditional "classical" composing.

Well, yes, of course that speaks to differences between good and bad, but I'm cool on the analysis front. I'm looking for specific bands/albums/songs ...

[David Ayers]

Rhys Chatham, many and various (!)

Georges Lentz, 'Ingwe'

Paul McCartney

Jon Lord

[T.D.]

This might be a reach, but Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür started out as a rock musician (until 1984). He did study composition with significant names, and "switched" to composed music, so I dunno if he qualifies. I've heard some of his Architectonics pieces (live and recorded), which are pretty good IMO.

Terje Rypdal's a more obvious name who started out in rock, but he seems too far removed from the field...

Edited April 27, 2012 by T.D.

[David Ayers]

Yeah Tüür was my fifth!

[Mark Stryker]

I've actually met Tüür. The Detroit Symphony has played some of his music (under Neeme Jarvi when he was music director here but also under son Paavo Jarvi as a guest). Tüür came to town for one or the other of those weeks and when I saw him in the lobby I when up and introduced myself. Nice man. Interesting composer too. Very eclectic but doesn't create pastiche and there's some rewarding guts and dissonance there.

Edited April 27, 2012 by Mark Stryker

[A Lark Ascending]

Whilst there are the odd 'rock meets classical' records I've enjoyed, I'm not sure they ever really 'work' in the sense of producing something really integrated. When coming from the rock end you tend to get the orchestra 'glued' on or used to provide a backdrop.

The high season of this was clearly the 70s prog-era - Deep Purple at the Albert Hall with the great Malcolm Arnold conducting and helping out the young John Lord. I quite like that one but the orchestra and rock group seem in quite separate bubbles. Caravan and the New Sinfonia (a live album that I actually attended in '73) just has the original tunes with live orchestra. I got rid of them long ago but recall the mid-70s Mahavishnu albums having a large orchestral involvement (the Santana/Alice Coltrane 'Illuminations' would fit there too). And then there were Rick Wakeman's behemoths!

A recent one I enjoyed was the Yes album 'Magnification' - no keyboard player but an orchestra instead. What I liked there is that eliminating the synth-centred keyboards actually helped make a more interesting record.

The trouble with all these projects is the 'classical' style always tends to be stuck somewhere in the mid-to-late 19thC. A 20thC style would be far more suitable. I'm just not sure the rhythmic flexibility of classical (usually without a pronounced beat) goes with beat-driven rock music very well.

There is a different beast in the former rock musician turned 'classical' composer. Jon Lord has been mentioned but what I've heard is very much in the Romantic vein. The Genesis keyboard player Tony Banks has done some stuff that I've not heard. And there's an imminent release of a transformation of some of Robert Fripp's solo guitar music for orchestra.

******

As for the classical moving into jazz Michael Tippett's 'Songs for Dov' has some freakout electric guitar (and hipster lyrics!); I think 'New Year' might have too. Bernstein's 'Mass'? (I've never heard it). I think Mark-Anthony Turnage incorporates rock in places but I don't know his music that well.

[Alexander Hawkins]

I don't know the stuff at all, but I do know that Johnny Greenwood (Radiohead) works a lot with the Britten Sinfonia here in the UK...might be worth checking out, but I'm afraid I don't have any sense of what it sounds like

[JETman]

Try checking out any of the 3 King Crimson Larks' era albums.

[David Ayers]

Should have mentioned Frank Zappa!

King Crimson covered a bit of Holst (Mars) on In The Wake of Poseidon

Manfred Mann's Earth Band mindlessly plagiarised Firebird on The Roaring Silence

Jacques Loussier Trio (rock drummer!)

Edited April 27, 2012 by David Ayers

[A Lark Ascending]

Manfred Mann's Earth Band mindlessly plagiarised Firebird on The Roaring Silence

And Holst with Joybringer (Jupiter, though not the 'big' tune, strangely enough)

Then there's Keith Emerson doing everything from Bach through Sibelius and Mussorgsky to Copland. I have a feeling he even did Ginastera after I lost touch. I recall reading an interview back in the early 70s where he expressed enthusiasm for contemporary South American composers.

Renaissance were also keen on unacknowledged classical borrowings in a Laura Ashley sort of way. They made a nice song out of Debussy's 'La Cathedrale Engloutie' using the piano piece to frame a folky type thing.

Edited April 27, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[David Ayers]

To say nothing of rock opera (Lloyd Webber, Pete Townshend)...

Keith Emerson wrote a piano concerto and maybe other stuff...

Glass's versions of Bowie/Eno

OK I'll stop now - Mark, you never told us whay you were thinking about this or what you already had...?

[A Lark Ascending]

Watch out Anton!

[David Ayers]

Tangerine Dream

Mike Oldfield

where does it end?

[David Ayers]

David Bedford

[A Lark Ascending]

The flirtation between rock and classical (and jazz and classical going right back - John Kirby etc) often (but not always) strikes me as a mixture of:

a) a shorthand way to get a reputation as 'classy';

b) a way for classically trained musicians (especially pianists) to use what they learned in formal training;

c) a way of filling out an album with a ready made tune rather than making one up yourself (the first Renaissance album - a totally different band (that grew out of The Yardbirds, unbelievably) to the one that had mid-70s success with the same idea - filled an entire lengthy song with a large chunk of Beethoven's Pathetique sonata. It wasn't just the blues that got stung on royalty payments.

Not that I'm complaining - things like The Nice doing a bit of Sibelius' Karelia Suite or ELP doing Copland's 'Rodeo' got me intrigued about the originals.

Edited April 27, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[David Ayers]

Elvis Costello

[A Lark Ascending]

David Bedford

Much more interesting - he realised music had moved on from Rachmaninov.

[David Ayers]

Robert Wyatt

Sting

[A Lark Ascending]

Robert Wyatt

Plays Offenbach!

There are great chunks of cod-Messiaen in Henry Cow c. 'In Praise of Learning'. They knew their trendy left-field classical (they were fond of referencing John Cage).

Edited April 27, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[David Ayers]

Camel!

[A Lark Ascending]

Not sure if these count:

Shirley Collins with David Munrow's Early Music Consort of London. Although a folky, Shirley would be involved with the early folk-rock Albion Bands (even marrying bass player Ashley Hutchings who was also a founder of Fairport and Steeleye Span). In fact the various mutations of the Albion band regularly mixed rock beats with elements of early music with Phil Pickett, who had another life as an early music specialist, often aboard (he also guested on many a Richard Thompson record).

And on the same lines, a band called Gryphon with a liking for crumhorns and the like.

Edited April 27, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[Mark Stryker]

To say nothing of rock opera (Lloyd Webber, Pete Townshend)...

Keith Emerson wrote a piano concerto and maybe other stuff...

Glass's versions of Bowie/Eno

OK I'll stop now - Mark, you never told us whay you were thinking about this or what you already had...?

Kid Rock is teaming with the Detroit Symphony in a couple of weeks for a benefit concert in which they'll raise $1 million for the orchestra. (Most of you probably know that Rock is from here and is a big booster for all things Detroit.) I've been thinking about issues related to this one-time marriage, etc., and what the larger context is. While I've studied quite deeply connections/mergers between of classical music and jazz, I really don't know symphonic rock stuff at all.

Thanks all for the suggestions. Speak up with more ideas if you have them.

[A Lark Ascending]

Probably marginal again, but this one works for me. A folk/classical thing but there are rock drums in places. A depiction of the supposed crossing of the Atlantic by a mad Irish monk several centuries before Columbus.

Davey did a few of these things ('Granuaile' is a good one) - in the 80s. It seemed to ultimately feed into Bill Whelan's 'Riverdance' phenomena via a suite done by Planxty at a Eurovision Song Contest interval ('Timedance') - the latter part has Irish jigs, rock drums and orchestras all going for it.

Edited April 27, 2012 by A Lark Ascending