Rock (3): When rock collides with classical

 

The fondest memories of my youth are of singing in our choir. Händel and Brahms? It didn't get better than that.  My listening tastes, by contrast, leaned to 60’s rock and early heavy metal, though I lost interest in metal as it devolved into a contest to be loud and abrasive.  

 

Decades later, I found a whole universe of music that combines classical structures and harmonies, with rock instrumentation.  Call it rock opera, or symphonic rock: you get the grandeur and intricacy of classical music, with the energy and drive, and the electric sound, of rock and roll.  It gets little exposure in the U.S., but is mainstream in Europe, Latin America and Japan. In the 1970s, people referred to Godspell, Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar as rock operas, but they pale in comparison to modern symphonic rock.  What they do have in common is frequent evocation of overtly political or spiritual elements.

 

This post contains only five songs.  The reason is that they are longer than standard pop songs. I hope you’ll make time for them.  If you have to pick two, I suggest Nos. 3 and 5.

 

 

Hymn to Common Sense

This piece, by a Dutch group, is heavily influenced by Händel’s Messiah, with a pointedly ironic twist: It is a criticism of religious hypocrisy, and specifically of the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. The Church tried to have this song banned (it didn’t succeed). The lead vocalist is 18-year-old Simone Simons. Her voice is still developing, and she doesn’t yet have the operatic throw-weight she will have later, but you can hear where things are headed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_3k-DD6Op4

No time for navel-gazing

To be taken seriously in American popular music, a song has to be about baring your soul and picking at your emotional scabs. Appreciating art is all about seeing yourself in it, about feeling that the artist somehow “got” you. Really? Since when is narcissism the point of art or music?  If that had always been the case, Rembrandt and Beethoven wouldn’t be a thing;  Shakespeare would only work if you identify with pre-medieval despots (in which case you have other issues).

 

Fortunately for art’s sake (maybe not so much for the people living there), there are parts of the world where people don’t have the luxury of being so spoiled and self-involved. They have other things to worry about.  Here is a band from Ukraine, singing about defending their homeland from invaders (guess who).  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KOXbzMRQHs

Nightwish:  Ghost Love Score

This is one of the most complete things I’ve ever seen or heard.  Think of a cross between a symphony and a movie score.  It has been compared to Bohemian Rhapsody, and Floor Jansen’s performance to Freddie Mercury’s.  Like Bohemian Rhapsody, it is true rock opera, but even professional opera singers don't have the range of vocal qualities called for in "Ghost Love Score".  Freddie was one of a kind, but there is no vocalist I can think of besides Jansen who could have pulled this off.  Side notes: The classical backing track was recorded by the London Philharmonic. The audience shots are eerily similar to the shots from Queen’s epic Live Aid performance at Wembley.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYjIlHWBAVo

Honor long overdue:

This song honors Eugene Shoemaker, the geologist and astronomer. He discovered several families of asteroids and comets (you may remember Shoemaker-Levy, whose collision with Jupiter got global coverage here on Earth).  He showed that craters on the Earth and Moon were caused by meteor impacts. He ran the Geoscience program at NASA, and was himself slated for an Apollo Moon mission. He was disqualified for medical reasons, which he admitted was the greatest disappointment of his life. After his death, his ashes were taken to the Moon on a NASA probe and laid to rest in a crater named after him—the only person to date interred on another planetary body. The capsule holding his ashes is inscribed with a passage from Romeo and Juliet, which you will hear in voice-over in this song.

My hat’s off to Nightwish for celebrating a scientist. It happens too seldom, and seems especially apt at a time when our leaders are waging a war on science. If you are not familiar with the group, I urge you to give this a listen, and play it all the way through—the ending is stunning.  “Human. :||: Nature" is already my pick for 2020 Album of the Year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rjp_DfvJimg

 

 

 

Is Classical music just an early form of metal?

Miyako Watanabe studied classical piano from the age of three.  At 20, she picked up a guitar for the first time, found a book of hard-rock guitar riffs, and taught herself to play.  She composes rock music using motifs from some of the great classical composers.  This song uses passages from Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude as an overture, and a theme adapted from Dvořák as the outro.  In between is something that incorporates elements of both, and could be the theme song of a romantic superhero movie.  The entire band are Jedi-level musicians.  I’ve watched this many times and never get tired of it.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gs89jkv411ssbhz/%2ALOVEBITES___Chopin%20etude%20%2B%20Swan%20Song.mp4?dl=0