LORD Concerto for Group and Orchestra
New recording for revised version of Lord’s Concerto
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Jon Lord
Genre:
Orchestral
Magazine Review Date: 12/2012
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 47
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 0208183ERE
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Concerto for Group and Orchestra |
Jon Lord, Composer
Jon Lord, Composer Paul Mann, Conductor Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra |
Author: Mike Ashman
In my college in 1969 the verdict was clear. The rock cognoscenti (who smoked strong cigarettes and at that time preferred their music to be from the West Coast of America) said it didn’t rock; the classical cognoscenti wouldn’t dream of listening to anything with a rock group’s name attached to it. Forty-three years down the line, the piece sounds lovable and punchy: Lord puts the two parts of his musical life into one frame – at first as rival opponents of the same musical material and then (after two conciliatory vocal passages in the second movement) coming to work together. The ‘classical’ side is dominated by his abiding affection for Sibelius – the melodic and formal homages to the Fifth Symphony are less quotations than wish-fulfilling attempts to write the piece again himself. The ‘rock’ side has plenty of the jazzy Hammond organ boogie in which Lord himself specialised and the blistering Fender Stratocaster solos of (originally) Ritchie Blackmore and here Darin Vasilev.
The Concerto crossover elements were influential in the rock world (hear Paul Buckmaster’s string arrangements for Elton John and the Rolling Stones’ ‘Moonlight Mile’, the Robert Plant/Jimmy Page ‘Kashmir’ on ‘No Quarter’ or Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s Pictures at an Exhibition). It still entertains, should get a more sympathetic hearing across the board today from our media-opened ears and, like several of Lord’s pieces reviewed in Gramophone, could make a successful return to the Royal Albert Hall in the Proms. And, guys of yesteryear, the guitar solos do rock, although I miss Ritchie Blackmore’s no-holds-barred Jeff Beck-style playing of them. As with the various versions of The Who’s Tommy, this might be a case, pace Lord’s retouchings, of the original-instrument version (conducted by Malcolm Arnold) still being the best performance.
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