Concerto For Group And Orchestra Forest Hills NY

Concerto For Group And Orchestra

Deep Purple

Tetragrammaton, 1969

REVIEW BY: Roland Fratzl

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 07/09/2008

The late ‘60s were fertile ground for progressive rock and its musicians, ambitiously seeking to introduce more complex, classical elements into rock music in order to be accepted as serious artists and, in their eyes, lend the genre more legitimacy. Deep Purple, who had exhibited some subtle progressive rock influences on their first three albums, jumped into the fold full on with their 1969 release, Concerto For Group And Orchestra, one of the first major attempts to fuse rock and classical music.

Only a few months prior, the first of many line-up changes to come had occurred with the firing of singer Rod Evans and bassist Nick Simper, who were replaced by Ian Gillan and Roger Glover, thereby creating the most famous formation of Deep Purple (a.k.a. “Mark II”). Needless to say, this mostly orchestral live release is a fairly bizarre way of debuting a fundamentally altered band.

Concerto For Group And Orchestra is the brainchild of keyboardist Jon Lord, who had introduced an increasing number of classical touches over the course of the band’s first three albums. Living up to its name, this disc represents a culmination of everything he had been striving for, with the actual band and rock style relegated to a mere afterthought in the face of his symphonic juggernaut.

True to the meaning of the “concerto” term, this grand composition features a large orchestral score in three movements (or distinct musical sections, for those not familiar with classical music), with much space given to a particular instrument (or in this case, a group, Deep Purple) to showcase its abilities in both lengthy solo passages and in duels with the orchestra. Amazingly, the entire fifty-three minute work was entirely composed and scored (no doubt with assistance from Sir Malcolm Arnold, who also conducted it on this live recording at London’s Royal Albert Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra) in only three months.