Classical Music for Metalheads

[Conservationist]

Classical music offers what everyone secretly wishes metal would: an unbroken cultural tradition untamed by the modern *****, untouchable by the mediocre tools who seem to thrive in our industrial cities.

Here's a few favorites:

1. Brahms, Johannes - Get your Romanticism on. Flowing, diving, surging passages which storm through tyrannical opposition to reach some of the most Zen states ever put to music. 4 Symph. (2CD)

2. Respighi, Ottorino - Italian music is normally inconsequential. This has an ancient feeling, a sense of weight that can only be borne out in an urge to reconquest the present with the past. Pines, Birds, Fountains of Rome

3. Saint-Saens, Camille - Like DeBussy, but with a much wider range, this modernist Romantic rediscovers all that is worth living in the most warlike and bleak of circumstances. Symph. 3

4. Bruckner, Anton - Writing symphonic music in the spirit of Wagner, Bruckner makes colossal caverns of sound which evolve to a sense of great spiritual contemplation, the first "heaviness" on record.Romantic Symphony

5. Schubert, Franz - A sense of power emerging from darkness, and a clarity coming from looking into the halls of eternity, as translated by the facile hand of a composer who wrote many great pieces before dying young. Symph. 8 & 9

6. Paganini, Niccolo - Perhaps the original Hessian, this long-haired virtuoso wore white face paint, had a rumored deal with the devil, and made short often violent pieces that made people question their lives and their churches. 24 Caprices

Excerpted from one of my blog posts at Metal Blog. For more information, see the original metal/classical fansite, The Dark Legions Archive.

[Contratrombone64]

Conservationist - you are extraordinary, I would never have thought to make the comparison (at least not as elloquently as you have).

[Kromme]

You are a great fan of Herbert von Karajan it seems.

[Conservationist]

ContraTrombone64, thanks for the kind words. Classical and metal are two loves!

Kromme, -- gosh, in general for German and Austrian music, I really like him. I'm divided on how much I like his Italian interpretations.

[Kromme]

Well,i am divided on how much i like his music-making in general.I agree with you on his Brahms and Bruckner recordings you listed above are great recordings.However in my opinion Klemperer's and Jochum's recordings of all those symphonies are even better,i think Böhm also gets the best of him in first three Brahms symphonies(his fourth is quite four-square efficient but not inspiring) and his Bruckner fourth is the recording of this symphony for many.

About Schubert;I must disagree.I hear ordinary performances in both symphonies,i hear Herbert von Karajan at his worst.Muti,Tennstedt,Böhm,Giulini,Kleiber etc. all better.

[Trollheart]

Always said that Heavy Metal music was the closest in true form to proper classical. You only have to listen to some of the better metal to see the power and influence of the old (ancient?) masters looming out of the mists of history, ghostly disembodied hands waving ethereal batons as they conduct the "bastard children" of their most favoured creations.
Of course, progressive rock really taps into the power and creativity of classical music too, but for pure energy and honesty I think there's no greater nor more worthy successor to Classical than Heavy Metal --- when it's done well of course!
BTW OP your prose is unparalleled, and the images you evoke through your writing truly spectactular and impressive! Well done!

[Conservationist]

I went from being a metalhead who had a couple classical albums to a classical and metal listener. The two musics are really similar: like metal, classical strings together a series of riffs to tell a story.

My favorite composers are:

* Franz Schubert
* Ottorino Respighi
* Gustav Faure
* Anton Bruckner
* Camille Saint-Saens
* Ludwig van Beethoven
* Robert Schumann

All of these dudes are extremely "metal": stormy, powerful, dark and lawless music.

Some of my transition was inspired by the Talk Classical Forum: Non-Classical Music Discussion and "Classical Music for Metal Fans".

Anyone else listen to classical?

[mathetes1963]

Con,

I like your analogies.

If you like Respighi, you should check out Howard Hanson, perhaps his most famous American student; a true 20-century Romantic.

And I must say I'm surprised you don't list any of the Russians!

[Premonition]

just like in the movie "Metal A Headbangers Journey". i cant remember the exact quote but i believe it said that if Beethoven was still alive he would be in black sabbath or led zeppelin