The Pop Album that Hooks people on Classical Music
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- Опубліковано 29 сер 2021
- Is it sacrilege to add a drum-beat to classical music? And what about stringing together bleeding chunks of the best 'hooks', stripping them of their meaning and context. Or is it all just a bit of light hearted fun. Or is it actually a useful educational tool that gets people interested in Classical Music. It's time to look back at 'Hooked on Classics'.
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Putting Bach to a Beat (and a Bass )
• Putting Bach to a Beat...
David Bruce - The Lick Quartet
• The Lick Quartet - Dav...
David Bruce - The North Wind was a Woman IV The Crescent Moon is a Dangerous Lunatic
• The North Wind was a W...
Wendy Carlos BBC Interview
• Wendy Carlos Interview...
Royal Philharmonic Hooked on Classics
• The Royal Philharmonic...
Hooked on Classics Live Part 1
• Video
Opening 80s Photograph / enda35mm
Carducci Quartet with Christian Tamblay: Shostakovich String Quartet no.8 3rd mvt
• Shostakovich String Qu...
Walter Murphy - A Fifth Of Beethoven (1976)
• Video
Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Fanfare For The Common Man - Live In Montreal, 1977
• Emerson, Lake & Palmer...
Stars on 45 Beatles Medley
• Stars On 45 - The Beat...
K-Tel Ultimate Rock Compilation
• K-TEL RECORDS Direct R...
The Joy of Singles BBC Documentary
• The Joy of the Single ...
Scott Ampleford talks to Louis Clark
• Scott Ampleford talks ...
K-Tel Vegmoatic Commercial
• K-tel "Veg-O-Matic" co...
The Art of Moog - Switched on Bach
• Art of Moog - Switched...
Waldo de los rios - Mozart Symphony No.40
• Waldo De Los Rios Mo...
Legs and Co Top of the Pops
• Legs & Co - Hooked On ...
Also sprach Zarathustra - Eumir Deodato - Euro Groove Department Live
• Also sprach Zarathustr...
I remember being about four years old, and ELP's version of "Pictures at an Exhibition" was shown on television. I was completely engrossed. My mother, always a teacher and sensing an opportunity, handed me her copy of the Mussorgsky sheet music.
And that is the day that I became a fan of both turn-of-the-century Russian composers and prog rock.
Just a note about Bach, though. Having done a lot of Bach arranging, I have to agree that his music is "impervious". Maybe it's that instrumentation in his day was more rudimentary, but his music doesn't depend as much on orchestration in a way that many later composers do. You can change pretty much anything in a piece by Bach EXCEPT the notes, and it still often works.
Wendy Carlos' music can easily be heard by watching Stanley Kubrik's A Clockwork Orange. I'm sure your droogies wouldn't mind vadding a bit of the old ultraviolence in order to hear a bit of Ludvig B.
I am not a fan of the movie, but it is one of my favorite soundtracks.
She also did the score to the 1982 Tron, although that was an original composition rather than adapted classical. I especially liked that her fanfare for Tron himself was just a three-note rising chromatic figure. Perfect for a personified computer program!
@@brianspenst1374 It was never meant to be a comfortable watch (or read); even so I think it would not be acceptable to made as it was now.
The music is absolutely horrorshow
Carlos' microtonal works are interesting. Does my head in, but in a GOOD way! 😀
Trivia note: the Brandenburg we hear Wendy working on in the clip isn't from Switched-On Bach but The Well-Tempered Synthesizer. Gould called it the best performance of the 4th ever, live or canned. Your Bach-with-a-beat makes me think so much of Jacques Loussier. You must love him.
Just from that clip I can tell it is one of the best performances of the 4th brandenburg ever!
In a few days I am going to release a video of that same brandenburg movement in honour of Wendy :D
That reminded me of Loussier as well. Great arrangements.
As kitschy as 'Hooked On Classics' was, it was ultimately a force for good because it exposed classical music to a wider audience, and earned a lot of money for the RPO.
Yes, but still it's pretty sacrilegious the way it vulgarizes often sublime music. Like getting exposed to Christianity through televagnelists.I guess some light classics could be more appropriate though, as they were meant for salons and dances and weren't deemed serious music.
I think the first classical piece that I came across with drumbeat was Rob Dougan's 'Clubbed To Death' (I first heard it from The Matrix). Thought it was actually really cool, still think it is. Great video, David! Although I think I'm showing my age by not knowing Hooked on Classics.
I think I'm showing my age by knowing it!
Clubbed to Death is an amazing piece of music.
If someone had told me that Elgar would top the club charts...
Never doubt the coolness of "Clubbed to Death"! It might be the coolest song in existence, now that I think of it.
I'm listening to it right now, writing this comment in slow motion.
I was ‘hooked’ on the various Hooked on Classics LPs. Yes I know I will be quartered for saying this but these records opened up a new world of classical music to me. Hearing all the various little ‘hooks’ made me curious to listen to the full works and that is how I became a classical music lover.
Yes. Right there with you. Living in Puerto Rico, you really had no way of listening to classical music. This is how I learned.
My first album as a young kid was “Saturday Night Fever” that had the disco version of Beethoven’s fifth symphony, which I loved.
It was titled ‘A Fifth of Beethoven’ which my father found hilarious. “What happened to the rest of him?” He would ask me, laughing.
I wanna hear it now.
I believe that Hooked on Classics had as much influence and educational worth as Carl Stalling's work on Looney Tunes (which Mr. Bruce has already talked about). They both had their place in bringing classical stylings to a wider audience. Hooked on Classics got me started and I went out searching for the original versions afterwards.
Personally, I find Jethro Tulls Bouree to be one of the tastiest incarnations of these reimagined classic pieces I think it helps that its done in a somewhat playful lighthearted manner ...
That, and the impeccable source material (plus I really enjoy the performance too hehe)
Oh, today is an excellently lucky day for me, because I was previously unaware of that piece, and now I have listened to it for the first time, and wow is that such a delight.
(The version I listened to is from a 2008 concert, available on youtube.)
Hell yeah. That bass just walks over that song and it sounds sooo fucking good.
Came to the comments to loudly wonder, how come this gem was not mentioned in the video :)
Interestingly this track is on Living in the Past LP version, but not on the CD unfortunately.
Hooked on classics came out the same year I started to learn the oboe. The influence of that album was immense for me learning what classical pieces I should pay attention to. For every melody that was played I went out and got the album and listened to the original. It helped expand my musical vocabulary that still serves me well to this day. Not bad for a pop album! Thank you for this, it was a fun romp through memory lane.
I was in fourth-year primary school and our teacher Mr Rickard was obsessed with HOC. In fact, he almost demanded that we all went out and bought it, which I did. I was ambivalent about it but knowing that my grandad loved classical music I gave him it to him listen to. He hated it and in return gave me his entire classical music LP collection. Schubert and Beethoven symphonies, Bach, Handel, huge choral works and one of 'Favourite Marches', conducted by Arthur Davison, who later taught me. It's doubtful that without HOC my grandad would have given me those records and thereby set in motion my lifetime fascination with classical music. So Mr Rickard, you got your way, but only through the back door and in a way you never intended. HOC still takes me back to being 10 years old though. Great video.
I'll never admit publicly that I actually attended a live performance of Hooked On Classics.
idk if anyone will care, but I found a Switched on Bach record on the street today. One of my best finds!
Orchestral pieces with modern instruments like electric guitars and a drumset are so underrated. Check out George Martin's orchestral work if you haven't already.
Jon Lord’s Concerto for Rock Group and Orchestra is also a brilliant piece to check out!
A great George Martin example is a performance of March of the Meanies from the "Pepperland Suite" on en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_My_Life_(George_Martin_album)
Bang on a Can playing Steve Reich! ua-cam.com/video/wRN_jUrJSnE/v-deo.html
@@smkh2890 a friend of my dad composed a few songs for bang on a can and its also an excellent example of this
ua-cam.com/video/Qr0UzlA8F-M/v-deo.html
Medleys with quick cuts can be amazing in the right situation. When I use to go booze it up on Friday nights there were some cover bands who would do some amazingly tight and creative medleys of 80s 90s and 00s hits.
This producer was a head of thier time!!!! Sampling classical music and flippin' them into sick beats.🔥
"Hooked on Classics" seriously got me interested in classical music as a teenager, and is probably a big part of the reason I'm a musician (electronic, not classical) today. Pardon me while I go slip some Bach into a melodic techno piece I'm working on.
This reminds me that certain modern composers have already allowed such takes on their works: see REICH REMIXED, and IN C REMIXED (I'm sure there's more). In the edm world, Barber's Adagio for strings was popular, as well as Purcell's FUNERAL FOR QUEEN MARY, certainly inspired by Wendy Carlos' work.
Well done! I loved how you fleshed out the history of all of this. Great compilation and editing. You're a pro at bringing more musical diversity to everyone's ears!
It was Hooked on Classics and Sky’s Toccatta that really got me into classical music. It must have worked, as 40 years later, and a BMus music degree, I still love modern interpretations !
This video made me remember Sky's Toccatta from when I was a kid. I just heard it again. Totally epic.
That Crescent Moon with a drum beat sounds punk as hell! Love it!
As a teenager, I *loved* Rondo Veneziano. You can't really admit this in polite company these days, but it was just fun to listen to. I also thought that some of the examples you played were fantastic, like that Funky Beethoven's Fifth. Sure some of this was done as a quick money grab, but I think you've shown that updating old music, even just to include a basic rhythm section like you'd have in rock, can make sense. It may not be pure or whatever, but it sure can be enjoyable!
One of the first CDs I ever listened to. I'm certain it put a lot more people onto classical music as a result.
I just love your sense of humour and, of course, how you manage to communicate such great ideas from the most unexpected subjects. Again, thank you for all your hard work
“Hooked on Classics” is a blast if you need a boost working out or doing physical work it’s perfect for turning your day around.
Thanks, David. I got my first real taste of classical music from Bugs Bunny, but "Hooked On Classics" was a critical second wave in my education. I still get that discoey beat in my head whenever I hear Mozart's 40th or Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue.
Modifying, remixing, sampling is a valid art form that as all art can be done well or not. Then taste takes over and one ear's hideous is another's nectar. All art is valid for someone, let them have it, and you/we can have ours. I'm a totally non musically trained hack, the stuff I make is rarely noticed to ever be praised or killed with fire, but it gives me joy to make it, and my wife claims to like it. Love your channel David, always super interesting and informative/educational.
Except that "Hooked on Classics" isn't art. Not because I say so, but because it obviously wasn't intended as such.
Louis Clark, the conductor for Hooked on Classics, also arranged and conducted the classical bits for the Ozzy Osbourne song Diary of a Madman.
I think i had three of these albums. The first three volumes. Cheezy as it was, it was my introduction to Gershwin. So I came out ahead
You forgot Jacques Loussier's Play Bach. A jazz trio interpretation of Bach's music, with incredible improvs and virtuoso playing. Not in the same class as Hooked on Classics (of which I still own a CD). I was a teen and just learning about classical music when all these were coming on the market. Great memories.
This was great! Very well done and informative.
Anyone remembers "Mozart Forte" with The Shadows? I was already hooked on classics when I was a teenager, but Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an exhibition" played by Emerson, Lake and Palmer made me hooked on Mussorgsky! Not a big fan of the "disco beat" classics, but I suppose they must have had the same effect, and hooked a lot of people.
I honestly like hooked on classics. It's a great introduction to this music, if you hear something you like, you can listen to the original.
David, you really are the most brilliant music educator currently on UA-cam and I really mean that. Your comments and praise of Wendy Carlos’ incredible music warms my heart. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community myself, and a trans ally, she was/is a huge inspiration to me, even though of course, I have never actually heard any of her music due to her not wanting it out there on the internet. Thank you David! 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
Wendy Carlos kicked open the door to classical music for me as well. And then there were the comedic influences: Warner Brothers cartoons, PDQ Bach, Ernie Kovacs, Gerard Hoffnung. Hoffnung even got me listening to a little opera. These cross-cultural influences are extremely influential and we owe these artists a big thank you. Did I mention Woody Allen and Rimsky-Korsakov?
@@paulmichaud7565 I personally never heard of Wendy Carlos until well after I got into classical music and Bach, probably because most things about her are so hidden nowadays unfortunately ):
I find that making the percussion or drums expressive or at least varied enough where it flows smoothly with the music is a very good way of adding new flavor to classical music while still avoiding the monotonous and/or sacrilegious sounds of just a kick and snare added over existing music.
The cover took me here. That was basically my introduction to classics, and I'm thankful for that!
The first live opera I ever saw was Gluck's "Orpheus and Eurydice" and was totally overwhelmed by the beauty of the music so I was delighted when the "Dance of the Furies" a proto-rock piece of music if ever there was one,was included on one of the "Hooked On Classics" albums.The energy of this piece even without drum beats is absolutely amazing-afterall the devil always has the best tunes.(Martin Luther.)
Watched this morning and had to watch again this evening. So much good stuff in one video.
I've always dreamed of hearing John Bonham laying down a steady backbeat on the pulsating polychord bit in The Rite Of Spring, ignoring all the syncopation and rhythmic shifts in the piece. That sounds awesome in my head.
It was so much fun as a young boy! Which became an educational experience for me as I grew up and recognised different pieces x
I'm so glad you made this video and that it showed up in my feed. I had a bootleg version on cassette when I was a teenager, which was probably a good 30 years after it was made. I didn't think anyone would remember it anymore much less make a video about it.
OMG I remembered these coming on the radio in Jamaica and I would rush to put a cassette tape in to record them. Never knew it was a real album of sorts... I just thought it was the radio DJ being inventive. So cool as of today (decades later) I now know it was Hooked on Classics. Thanks David for this!!😱😱
It really was a pleasure chatting with Louis Clark. He was rather ill at the time, but immediately lit up when he began discussing music.
Nice to see my interview included here, brought back a pleasant memory. Thanks!
Another example of "Hooked on classics" style albums are the ones by Spanish conductor, arranger and producer Luis Cobos, most of them recorded, coincidently enough, with the RPO. I must admit that when I was a child I liked particularly his album "Mexicano" that has mixes and arrangements of both traditional and classical Mexican music.
I loved that medley, it was on BBC Radio 2 most every morning 40 years ago and when i saw the CD for 25p I grabbed it much to the shock of others in the charity shop LOL! I think this track, Nigel Kennedy and the film Amadeus did more for classical music than anything else.
Well before the "Hooked on ..." recordings, there was the Dutch band Ekseption. Their presentation of the classics was much more "arranged" and adapted to a rock band, but nonetheless faithful to the originals imo. As a teenager at the time I thought they were quite good, and they certainly introduced me to a fair number of classical pieces.
Ekseption was very popular at the time. They had this wonderful album “Beggar Julia’s time trip”, a concept album in which they used a story of a girl and her composer boyfriend to skip through (a bit of) music history. I remember my father playing this album to my uncles and aunts to convince them that not all pop music was bad… (and me cringing inwardly 😂).
Oh my gosh! I love Hooked on Classics. Despite only being a teenager, I have always been around it. My first sound system was a tape player, and my favourite tape was one from the range called Hooked on Rhythms and Classics, which did whole tracks in this style, and I later discovered the original. These tapes, which I later bought as CDs where I could (still unable to find the aforementioned Hooked on Rhythms and Classics, so am working on a CD burnt with the tape rip), are a real spearpoint for why I love classical music now, as they served as an introduction to a lot of classical greats for me. There is also Vadrum's "Classical Drumming", which is very similar to Hooked on Rhythms and Classics, where he takes the whole piece and adds drums.
I also am a massive fan of classical fusion now too, with one of my favourite albums being the Jacques Loussier Trio's Theme and Variation on Beethoven, which takes the second movement of Beethoven 7 and creates a whole album from jazz variations on it. Jacques Loussier is one of my favourite Jazz/Classical fusion artists, along with Eugen Cicero, whose version of Solfeggio by CPE Bach is a firm favourite. Many of my favourite Jazz artists have brilliant tracks where they dabble with fusions: Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Gordon Goodwin, Gerry Mulligan.
On UA-cam, there is a brilliant small channel, Joe Parrish, who has made metal versions of The Planets, Rite of Spring, Night on a Bald Mountain, Shostakovitch 10 and Nutcracker which are all phenomenal, both in recording, but also the arrangments which hit the balance perfectly between staying true to the original while also being metal enough to be unique.
I would LOVE to see [be part of;)] a new classical x drum beat album if that were a possibility!
Wonderous video. Absolutely loved it
Way back in 1967 my music teacher at a South London secondary school brought a record into class and played it on the portable deck. It was Benny Goodman's Bach Goes To Town. I instantly fell in love with it. Now I'm not sure what Benny Goodman's motives for jazzing up Bach were but I'm sure it turned some Lindy Hoppers and G.I.s towards the classics back in the 1940s.
Then of course came The Beatles' experiments with classical structures and orchestration.
David Bruce: bringer of joy! Your style and inventiveness are gateways to unanticipated (perhaps forbidden) musical delights.
Great vid! Very thorough. I think it's a fourth thing: it's a phase in the journey of the sampling technique which found fame in the Beatles "Revolution #9" and which later found a comfortable home in the hip-hop genre. And yes, it has to do with your "non-musical" friend's comment about just focusing on the stirring bits and leaving out the boring introductions, interludes, and codas, so that you have a non-stop longer piece of content to keep the party going longer, with no easily bored parties having time to yawn stretch and say "Okay, well, we've got a couple more parties to visit before the night's out. Ta-ta!" It's a music that says, "The party is here and it stays here. We have the beat as our table and we have all the great musical themes that you love, and some you mayn't have heard, as our small plates." And yes, there are artists that serve larger plates with only one or a few samples, as well as those who use many samples not for a long party mix type of music, but for a singular project/concept of weightier substance.
Wendy Carlos
I think that videos of VaDrum here on UA-cam was a big reason that I started listening to classical music
fond memories. good educational tool and a boatload of fun, IMHO.
12:18 this just sounds like JRPG dungeon music, it's great
I can always get something from these things. Either they actually kind of work, or they're just hilarious. Sometimes both.
Well, back in the early 90s Richard Clayderman became very popular in China. He was THE person that the majority of Chinese people think of when they think of Classical music. I can't say I'm a fan now that I listen to some of his words around that time but he did popularized Western classical music to ordinary Chinese people. I remember my father bought a cassette of his album and commented "this is what classical music will sound like from now on". It feels funny to me thinking about that comment today :D
Thanks for the memories! Just a note on German pronunciation: in Liebesträume the äu is pronounced like English oi! So Lieb-ess-troi-me (Dreams of love) whereas if you pronounce it au like ow in cow it becomes Liebestrauma which means love trauma ... which would of course be worthy of a piece of art 😹
Both my parents are classical musicians but my sister and I rebelled against classical music because of how it dominated family life while we were growing up. There has always been a lot of classical music that I can appreciate and even love but that early overexposure to it means that I rarely choose to listen to it.
My dad has always loathed "anything with a beat" while my mum is open to all sorts of music. During car journeys to school she would play, for example, Elvis and Beatles compilations. Out of curiosity she bought a couple of Hooked on Classics tapes. It was bad enough having to listen to my dad practising all day but these tapes were a step too far!
I thought that this was the ultimate assault on the senses until I got into Led Zeppelin at university and a friend played me a tape of an orchestra with drummer playing Led Zep covers... Now that was a true abomination!
In contrast, some of the crossover examples towards the end of this video sound really interesting with much cleverer and more musical integration of the drumming.
Wendy Carlos looks like an OG technological wizard!
I didn't have much interest in classical music until I watched A Clockwork Orange and loved the soundtrack by Walter/Wendy Carlos. I think the context of our discovery of music defines our love or dislike of it, and that window into Kubrick's imagination opened me to the raw power and significance of classical music to our human experience. The jolliest of classical symphonies have a dark underbelly, and the darkest melodies shine the brightest light. At least that's how I like to enjoy it!
That Rite of Spring reworking was hilarious, as was the Bach (Yogev Gabay is a wonderful musician and human). Who played bass in that?
I think it is a gateway drug for classical music; I remember 'Hooked on Classics', and the 'Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack', which was everywhere in the late '70s, from constant radio play to the neighbour's stereo playing over the fence, featured both 'A Fifth of Beethoven' and David Shire's 'Night on Disco Mountain' (a reworking of Mussorgsky's 'Night on Bald Mountain').
I ended up getting a boxed set of cassettes of edited classical favourites (cut down "best of" moments from Symphonies, Concertos and Orchestral Suites) in the '80s that introduced me to Brahms ('Academic Festival Overture'; which was itself a medley of popular tunes of it's time!). And it was through listening to another compilation album that I discovered a new way of listening to music; until then, I had always listened to "classical" music as a kind of imaginary soundtrack, and the mostly programmatic music on these compilations supported that, but when I encountered the 3rd movement from Brahms' 3rd Symphony, as one of the tracks, I discovered something else. The music wasn't programatic, but it created a mood and had a structural complexity that I became mesmerised by and I began to listen to music for it's structural beauty and not just it's descriptive affect. Soon I fell into the Brahms rabbit hole, buying up recordings of his Symphonies and Concertos, and getting lost in the marriage of expressive affect and structural beauty in his music and I still consider him to be my favourite composer (although I have, over the last few decades, become similarly obsessed with Philip Glass as well!).
My first answer to a rhetorical question on UA-cam: Hell yes.
Wore out the tape as a kid. Then had years of "aha!" moments, spotting the themes in various concerts I was at. Royal Philharmonia as a cover band...brilliant stuff.
Back in high school the music teacher got a copy of the Pop version of the Beethoven #5. Orchestral versions of Classical version have been around for a few hundred years. We're recycling the same pieces in new ways digitally to attract the younger audience.
The last piece I heard online was improv versions of the Corelli "La Folia" with short video clips of homemade videos. The music is not a recreation of the written score but with notes & embellishments added by each performer the way the piece was intended 300+ years ago...
your videos are all over the place, but in a good way, great content
Wow, I was at that show where Greg Lake wears a Canadien de Montréal shirt. Le monde est si petit. You got me hooked.
I loved it growing up and it probably gave me a great intro into many pieces I may not have known otherwise. As a musician, I greatly appreciate it and made sure to buy a used vinyl album for my kids to listen to. I know the whole album note for note and have so for 40 years.
I have wondered recently if I can add some simple beat to Chopin's nocturnes to make them kind of lo-fi hiphop.
Lmao you must update me on that if you ever do it
I recommend you all the album "Bach in Brazil" (Bach no Brasil), which is, as you've guessed it, music by Bach but set to brazilian music, like choro. It's wonderful and had a huge impact on me when I was growing up.
I personally love what Malcolm McLaren did with the Madama Butterfly aria and Waltz of the Blue Danube.
The record that hooked me on classical music was Cacophony's "Speed Metal Symphony".
Absolutely phenomenal talent, Jason Becker & Marty Friedman. I also remember hearing Chris Poland's _Metalopolis_ the first time & thinking I had never heard anything quite like it.
My adolescent days were filled with Classical remixes made by Banya Production, Yahpp, and other composers who had their songs featured in an arcade dance floor game "Pump It Up". Since then, I can feel my passion ignited to find out more about classics.
So, yeah. In short, adding drum beats to classical music to "modernize" them will do more good than harm.
Waldo de los Rios also seems to have a beautiful "tick-tock" bass. One of Nashville's best inventions.
Great video essay! You're very charitable.
The Shostakovitch quartet with drums is fabulous!
I remember "Hooked on Classics" well -- but I remember it from the piles of records I brought home from library-fundraiser booksales in college, where I was looking for anything that looked interesting. Same place I discovered Wendy Carlos, and Emerson Lake and Palmer's _Works_, and several other things mentioned here. Thank you for the Deodato recommendations -- more good stuff to add to my collection of rock/classic crossover!
Taking the crossovers in the other direction, in those bins I also discovered William Russo's "Three Pieces for Blues Band and Symphony Orchestra", which I am deeply fond of -- and which is perhaps a particularly early version of "1970s" classical music with an (occasional) beat, dating to 1968.
That Wendy Carlos sounded amazing! I'm going to have to check it out (from the library, lol). I like the idea that synths are like paintings and samples are like photographs.
I recently took down Beethoven op 132 *last movement* as a jazz waltz. Great work! Great video!!
Hi David, I've been hoping for the longest time that one of you great music YT'ers would do an episode on Bach reinterpretations and why his music seems so well suited for such a thing. Including but not limited to Jacques Loussier's amazing Play Bach records, Wendy (to whatever extent possible), Swingle Singers, MJQ's jazz impressions, etc.
I’m just here to say that your Bedroom Producer outfit in Tantacrul’s latest is super cool and you should always wear that, in every video
During your "rock covers" section, I couldn't help but think of the metal band Kamelot, and their song, "Forever."
It's essentially a reworking/cover of "Solveig's Song," from Grieg's Peer Gynt Suites.
I love Hooked on Classic, and Waldo de los Rios. This was my introduction to classical music. My dad used to have a tape in his car with Hooked on Classic and Waldo de los Rios on the B side and I would remain in the car listening to the end. Later I decided to hear the original versions and I that's how I got to know and appreciate classical music. So I have fond memories of both.
Loved the video! And reading the comments, I'm discovering new artists and performances to dip my ears into.
I've always loved seeing classical being interpreted in new and different ways- I have the CD set of Hooked on Classics in my collection, along with CD's of Jacques Loussier, the Swingle Singers, and LP's of Switched on Bach, Waldo de los Rios (I love the bass guitar line in Symphony Nr 40). I absolutely love new renditions, such as Max Richer, and also Hans Zimmer's Nimrod, from the end of Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk. And it goes the other way as well- I have CD's of the Beatles interpreted as jazz, dubstep and baroque, and there Classic Rock albums by the London Symphony Orchestra.
There's a few videos which highlights instances where modern performers and songwriters have interpreted (or just swiped) classical pieces into contemporary music (anyone interested should look up David Bennett), and thankfully this isn't one of them, but it adds to the library of how classical music is interpreted for our modern ears.
Love them. I still listen these albums weekly while doing sport!
I agree with your premise that adding rhythm to the classics can draw a modern ear into their charm. The album that did this for me was,"300 Year Old Goodies All Jazzed up!" by guitarist Franz Loffler and drummer Pierre Favre on Mercury Records. Hearing Bach on electric guitar seemed so right in 1970.
David, I take a dim view of most of these efforts to assemble classics into various kinds of mash-up, but there have also been some interesting efforts by creative people to create a sort of new thing by mixing the old with the new. One fairly early example is Berio's "Sinfonia" which collages Bach, Mahler, and I think Berg in ways that are utterly original. Surely you know of this work. It was a huge hit in the late 1960s (recorded by the New York Philharmonic) and led a lot of composers of that time to experiment with collaging existing works.
Another remarkable example is Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (complete!) rendered by the amazing jazz trio The Bad Plus. They've performed it live at least once (probably several times) -- from memory! It's been a while since I heard it, but if I recall correctly, I think they actually add something to the ending, extending it for a bit, which might seem sacrilegious, but it works. It's on UA-cam somewhere.
In more modern times, check out Jeff Beck playing Nessun Dorma. Beck is such an amazing musician that it makes it totally his own (like Jimi Hendrix did with the Star-Spangled Banner).
As Berio said, Keep going.
I absolutely adore Max Richter's Vivaldi remixed album. Mind you, I love the Four Seasons, so it's very much like the best kind of remix in any genre: it's instantly recognizable but throws in enough tweaks and twists to keep you curious. It's no longer about your "favorite bits", but the journey of seeing what's been done to them. And I find it hard to view anything like this as sacrilege when the originals are also right there. ESPECIALLY in an era of Spotify (et al.) where you have access to so much at your fingertips.
I think about the backlash against these sorts of pop/classical hybrids whenever I read the latest "Is Classical Dead???" articles. Because, as you say, these are great entry points for classical music if you embrace them. I mean, I got a lot of my love for classical music from a very worn LP of Switched on Bach as a kid so...
does anyone else remember Disney's Silly Classical Songs? as a small kid, that was my first introduction to classical music - disney characters singing about ice cream and technology over some of the hits of classical music, with the back half of the recording being the music itself without lyrics
oh my gosh. this was so good. any chance for a follow-up about the slightly more collage pieces, from berio’s sinfonia mvmt iii to the intricate pop mashups of the 00s by the likes girl talk and dj earworm?
I highly recommend the "worst beat ever created #23" - a filthy bass boosted, orchestra smacked Blue Danube. Been playing regularly the last few months 😂
I think it was fun and it may even draw some people in listening to more classical music. I am glad to hear that it even helped the Orchestra financially through a difficult time. Don't forget that some of these classical composers were writing to appeal to specific audiences and making bank on their music. I grew up in Winnipeg, home of K-Tel, so yes I bought many of their LPs and definitely listened to Hooked On Classics. When I went to Europe for the first time I was introduced to Rondo Veneziano, and my whole family loves them.
Great work, David! Being name-checked in your video is possibly my proudest media moment since the time I appeared on Blue Peter*. (Yes, I got a Blue Peter Badge for it.)
*British children's TV programme.
Growing up in rural Australia without any classical music resources (radio, library etc) this was like getting music sampler from heaven. Thirty years of serious classical music appreciation have come out of that.
I feel like growing up with symphonic metal has totally desensitized me to this kind of thing. I do remember my cello teacher being scandalized by Apocalyptica back in the day though :DD
Epica's "Classical Conspiracy", Therion's "Miskolc Experience" or, more recently, Wolf Hoffmann's "Headbangers Symphony" bring these classical works into such a different realm of music that simply putting a drum beat over them seems almost quaint in comparison. It's definitely fun though. I'm listening to it right now.
They took classical classics and tried to create kitsch, but you can’t remove the inherent artistic integrity of the melody and harmony. Wendy Carlos took Bach and gave it new life with with analog synthesizers underscoring with incredible clarity the interplay of individual voices. Only one expression I know can describe the collaboration of a skillful trap drum set player in this rendition of the Shostakovich string quartet: cool, very cool 😎
Yeah, back in the 80's it sure was fun being a percussion major digging deeply into Stravinsky, ELP, Jethro Tull, Zappa, etc., while at the same time having regular folks telling me I should check out this revolutionary new Hooked On Classics stuff that I could even play on my drum kit. Ugh...
In Italy, but then they expanded across Europe, in the late Seventies and early Eighties, Rondò Veneziano, a chamber ensemble who made (still playing, actually) baroque, classical pieces with a modern, pop twist, and who had an enormous success bringing "sophisticated" music to the masses.
Hell yes I remember it! As a piano student in the 80s, I played the piano reduction. Was not my favorite, but certain family members really liked to hear it.
A sidebar here: taking off on the term "hooked on". We also had "hooked on phonics" along with many other activities one could get hooked on. All of these cultural productions had reprises that were similar: "Joy of _________" (other than sex) and the "Zen of _____________". The most significant contribution to the latter was "The Zen of Motorcycle Repair" which was actually quite a worthwhile read. Well, in its own right, the "Joy of Sex" was worthwhile too, and I mean that in a psychologically friendly way as a sort of self-help manual for couples.
Meanwhile, back on my desktop, I'm hooked on using Digital Audio Workshops and not enjoying it a bit -hardly. I got started back with Cakewalk for the PC 1 and have not been able to move away from being a hooked user ever since. And I mean that with all of the pain of an addict who has psychological distress caused by the use.
The product involved, Steinberg's Cubase, is held together with duct tape and bits of paper-mache. But yet, despite daily struggles to make the thing work, I stay at my workstation, trying to produce music.
Why?
I went to Birmingham conservatoire with Louis Clark junior. Very sad that Snr passed away, (he was arranging and composing even in his hospital bed!) but he left a hell of a legacy all told.