How many rock covers of "classical music" pieces can you name?

[BurtWorm]

I can't name many myself, but here are four to start:

PiL--Swan Lake (Tchaikovsky)

The Who--In the Hall of the Mountain King (Grieg)

ELP--Night on Bald Mountain (Mussorgsky)

Jethro Tull--Bouree (Bach)

[Richardo]

1. ELP - Pictures at an Exhibition (also Mussorgsky, IIRC)

[Twenty3]

23. and before that.... The Nice

Dylan's Country Pie/Bach's Brandenburg Concerto #6 (what a blend!) from the 5 Bridges album

[Mike Daniels]

39. The Nice did a piece by Sibelius as well - Karelia Suite

Have it on a "Best of" album.

[On the Road]

2. A Guess "A Fifth of Beethoven" Doesn't Count

because all they use is the first four notes.

Or "Classical Gas" for that matter. Don't think that one was written by any of the great composers.

[BurtWorm]

3. I'll count "A Fifth of Beethoven" even though it wasn't really rock

but that opens up a whole can of worms. I forget the name of the artist that performed "How Gentle Is the Rain" but that was based on a Bach Minuet (in G, I think).

Mason Williams wrote Classical Gas. It doesn't count.

PS: Who did a funky version of "Also Sprach Zarathustra?"

[kmla]

9. That was performed by The Toys, if I'm not mistaken...

I think it was called "A Lover's Concerto".

[BurtWorm]

12. I was actually thinking of

Deodato.

PS: Were you talking about the Straus or the Bach?

[kmla]

33. The Bach piece...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000003GXV/qid=1080682307/sr=1-9/ref=sr_1_9/104-4839057-3043151?v=glance&s=music

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

30. While we're breaking the "rock" rule, didn't "Night on Bald Mt." have

a disco version on the Saturday Night Fever album? "Night on Disco Mt." or something?

[BurtWorm]

31. Good point!

[trackfan]

44. Interestingly, the 3/4 time of the original minuet, is changed to

4/4 in the song.

[David__77]

5. Walter Murphy Discosymphony...

...did a lot of classical songs. I wouldn't call it "rock" but disco. Another disco group did a version of a Wagner song.

I don't know about rock songs... sorry, I only know about dance music I must say!

[Westegg]

4. ELP did a whole album! "Pictures At An Exhibition."

Also, Yes's "Cans and Brahms," from the "Fragile" album, based on Brahms' 4th Symphony, Third Movement.

ELP also did Copland's "Fanfare For the Common Man" on "Works Vol. 1" and Copland's "Rodeo," from the ballet "Billy the Kid" on their album "Trilogy."

Jimmy Page often incorporated Bach's "Bouree" into his "Heartbreaker" solos in concert in the '70s, and Page also very strongly referenced Holst's "The Planets"--specifically "Mars, Bringer of War" ---in the live renditions of "Dazed and Confused."

I'll think of more later.

[Rooktoven]

10. ELP did Holst's "Mars, Bringer of War" as well

OK, for _that_ album they were Emerson Lake and Powell, but still...

[Westegg]

22. I did NOT know that! But frankly...

...I gave up on ELP after "Works, Vol. 2."

[Mike Daniels]

34. EL and Powell also copped a piece from Vaughan William's

"Fantasia on Greensleves". Can't remember the ELP song but the intro is from the middle section from "Fantasia on GS". Of course the middle section from "Fantasia..." is a English folk song called "Lady Joan" which Martin Carthy does a version of on one of his albums.

[zauberflote]

47. The Barbarian

Off ELP's first album I believe, it's a note-for-note reworking of Bartok's piano piece Allegro Barbaro.

[Rooktoven]

6. Rainbow-- Difficult to Cure

also known as Beethoven's 9th.

[Rooktoven]

7. Prokofiev's Lt Kije Suite has been borrowed as filler--

By Sting in "Russians" and earlier by ELP in "Father Christmas" (uncredited).

[Westegg]

24. Did ELP really not credit Prokofiev for "Father X-Mas"?

...It wasn't just a reference. It was the whole goddamn song!!!

[Rooktoven]

45. If I recall correctly, no (correct me if I'm wrong, gang)

I actually like ELP. When I finally heard the REAL Lt. Kije I couldn't remember where I had heard it before, until one xmas season when I was listening to a classic rock station...

Lt. Kije has to be one of the coolest classical pieces ever...

[BlueEyedSon]

8. Manfred Mann Solar Fire album

used melodic themes from Holst's "the Planets"

[DieboldMustDie]

11. Blood, Sweat, and Tears:

Variations On A Theme By Erik Satie
(1st and 2nd Movements, Adapted from "Trois Gymnopedies")

[BurtWorm]

21. That's probably my favorite BST song.

(Seriously!)

[fudge stripe cookays]

13. Eric Carmen's "All By Myself"

borrows a piece from Rachmaninoff, but I forget the name.

[BurtWorm]

16. The Second Piano Concerto

The one featured in The Seven Year Itch.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

38. Another Eric Carmen..."Never Gonna Fall in Love Again"

Uses the slow movement from Rachmaninoff's 2nd Symphony.

I guess he had a thing for Rachmaninoff.

[MissMillie]

14. Rick Wakeman

Cans and Brahms

And ELO did "In the Hall of the Mountain King" as well.

[Rooktoven]

15. Deep Purple covered (or rather Jon Lord--keyboardist)

Beethoven's Fur Elise in the middle of "Knocking at Your Back Door" on the "Nobody's Perfect" live album...

[Rooktoven]

17. Countless Frank Zappa live albums a well...

Stravinsky, Ravel, etc...

[jpgray]

18. ELO - 'Hall of the Mountain King' and, God save us, ELP's 'Nutrocker'

I think Yes or someone did 'Pictures at an Exhibition'. I really think prog is goofy. :D

[Westegg]

26. John Paul Jones, of Led Zep, incorporated "Nutrocker"...

...into some of his keyboard solos during "No Quarter" on the 1977 Zeppelin tour.

(Shit, how esoteric can I be?)

[jpgray]

27. 'No Quarter' is noodling I actually find appealing

Can't explain it, but I was obsessed with Zeppelin in my teen days.

[Westegg]

36. No need to explain!

I was obsessed with Zep in my teen years and still am today, nearing 40!

[dwckabal]

19. Billy Joel used to do

"Flight of the Bumblebee" live while he was railing against rock critics who said his stuff sucked.

"Unable to understand how anyone could hear his music and not think it worthy of unadulterated praise, Joel began devoting more and more of his stage show to answering the critics. One journalist compared the introduction to a Joel song to "The Flight of The Bumble Bee", so for a time Joel would play the two back-to-back onstage and ask his audience what it thought. (Not that he would pay any heed if he didn't get the answer he expected.) Such babyishness also resulted in his shredding newspapers onstage if reviewers dared to give him bad reviews. That showed 'em!"

From The Worst Rock-And-Roll Records of All Time: A Fan's Guide to the Stuff You Love to Hate by Jimmy Guterman, Owen O'Donnell

[Coventina]

20. Madness did "Swan Lake" n/t

[mobuto]

25. The Doors also did the Albinoni/Giazotto Adagio in G

It sounds really bad.

[fudge stripe cookays]

28. Forgive me for even suggesting Barry Manilow was rock, but...

I think the beginning of one of his songs borrows from something classical, but I'm not sure what it is.

"Could This Be The Magic" sounds about right. Anyone have a secret Manilow vice that they'll admit to?

[fudge stripe cookays]

29. Aaah...here we go....Chopin's Prelude in C Minor...

from About.com.

[BurtWorm]

32. Ewwww!

You're right!

:puke:

[flamingyouth]

35. Electric Prunes - Mass in A Minor

Don't know if it counts as a "classical" piece or not...

[BurtWorm]

40. In a sense it is.

Classical acidhead rock!

[Mike Daniels]

37. Zappa used a fragment from "The Planets"

In his Call any Vegatable - Invocation and Ritual Dance of the Young Pumpkin from Absolutely Free. It was a fragment from "Jupiter-The Bringer of Jollity" if I recall properly.

[Tracer]

41. Procol Harum

"White Shade of Pale" uses a Bach piece.

[BurtWorm]

42. Wow!

I never realized that, but now that you mention it... Why didn't I think of that before?

[Aristus]

43. "This Night" by Billy Joel is based upon a Beethoven Clarinet

Concerto. And I thought the Doors cover of the Albinoni Adagio was actually pretty good. You have to remember, the Adagio is in 3/4 time, while the Doors transposed it into 4/4 time. 4/4 is Rock and Roll's time signature. Of course it would sound different. I thought it was a cool idea for them to do it. The Adagio was Jim Morrison's favorite piece of classical music. They actually recorded two versions; one was purely instrumental, the other was used to accompany Morrison's reading of his poem "The Severed Garden."

[TheMightyFavog]

46. More ELP....

The Barbarian and Knife-Edge from their self-titled realease are adpted from Bartok and Janacek pieces.

The Only Way (Hymn) rips from Bach's Toccata and Fuge in F Major S. 540, one of my favorite Bach organ pieces. In fact, If I ever get Married, I want this piece to be played.

[Norbert]

48. Still More ELP

Fanfare for the Common Man (Aaron Copland)
Hoedown (AAron Copland)
Maple Leaf Rag (Scott Joplin)

A Lovers Concerto by the Toys (set to music by J. S. Bachs Minuet in G Major)

[Sufi Marmot]

52. And even more ELP...

Isn't "Abaddon's Bolero" (from Trilogy) based on Ravel?

Plus "Jerusalem" (from Brain Salad Surgery) is a straight up cover of that famous hymn by William Blake and Sir Charles Hubert Parry

-SM, for whom ELP was a guilty adolescent pleasure...

[ironflange]

49. I have an album of Beethoven covers

Done by a really bad metal band, circa 1972. It's buried away somewhere, though.

Edit: It's called "Beethoven Bittersweet" by someone called Benninghoff.

[BurtWorm]

53. My really bad punk band did a song called "Destiny"

based on Beethoven's Fifth, First Movement. The opening chords were, of course, 3 G's and an E-flat.

[Norbert]

50. Slaughter onTenth Avenue by the Ventures (Richard Rogers)

Does this count.

How about the James Gang "Funk 49" the instrumental part Joe Walsh included his verson of Ravels Bolero.

Don't know if this counts either but Joy by Apollo 100 (J. S. Bachs Jesu Joy of Mans Desiring). I think they did Mendelsohns Ninth too.

B. Bumble and the Stingers "Bumble Boogie" (Flight of the Bumble Bee-Rimskey-Korsakov) and yet another "Nut Rocker" (Nutcracker Suite - Pete Tchaikovsky)

[Doc_Technical]

51. Bach door man...

...by Sugarloaf (Green Eyed Lady).
a variation of J.S. Bach's Toccata in Fugue in d minor.

[Mike Daniels]

54. Love Sculpture - Dave Edmund's old band

Did a couple of rocked up classical pieces - "Sabre Dance" and one other I believe.