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Music Out Now

Deep Purple - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Jon Lord, who studied classical piano as a schoolboy, apparently started thinking about fusing rock and classical styles during the middle Sixties, and indeed his band of the period incarnated as the Artwoods and metamorphosed into St. Valentine's Day Massacre did at one time plan to perform with an orchestra in Germany, but the band was already disintegrating and nothing ever came of it. Lord didn't let go of the idea, though, and he continued to work up rock/orchestral snippets after the formation, breakup, and reformation of Deep Purple, to the presumed despair of Purple manager Tony Edwards, who finally decided to force Lord to put up or shut up.

LP sleeve Malcolm Arnold became involved in the project after friend Ben Nisbet, whose publishing firm handled Deep Purple, showed him early pages from Lord's score. By all accounts he was enthusiastic about the work.

And Sir Malcolm, as it turned out, was right. Lord's first movement, moderato becoming allegro moderato, begins in a pastoral mode with a clarinet melody, followed by a five-note motif, variations on these themes, and finally, about seven minutes in, the band bashes its way into the proceedings: guitarist Ritchie Blackmore picks up the original clarinet tune, and the band settles into a groove. For the balance of the movement, it's Dueling Musical Forces all the way, and by the time the second movement, andante, begins, you get the feeling that the inevitable friction between band and orchestra has been duly dissipated. Two themes dominate this movement, one on cor anglais, a stronger one on flutes, and neither group or orchestra attempts to seize the upper hand; it's a fully-collaborative effort.

Nothing in the preceding two movements, though, quite prepares you for the aural fireworks of the third, allegro vivace into presto, in which the orchestra and the group are brilliantly intertwined and textures and timbres of every kind are woven into the high-velocity mix. Even the obligatory drum solo, in which Ian Paice tosses in every fill and roll known to mankind, fits. And finally, amid screaming brass, swirling strings, and Lord's whirling organ, it all comes down to one last chord, fortissimo.