Shostakovich Symphony # 8 & Emerson's Tarkus

Last night, we watched the Berlin Philharmonic’s performance of Shostakovich’s 8th Symphony. We viewed it online at digitalconcerthall.com. I was most impressed with the 3rd movement, the likes of which I have never heard from a symphony orchestra. It’s machine-like rhythm and stabbing brass & woodwinds and mounting percussion made me think that it was one of the greatest pieces of rock music I had ever heard. It was best when turned up very loud on a good sound system.
 
It sounded to me like a piece of music that Keith Emerson should have transcribed for Hammond organ and synthesizer, like he did so many other classical pieces. In fact, this thought evolved, and I now wonder whether this movement may have served as inspiration for “Tarkus.”  Tarkus also has a machine-like rhythm with stabs of synthesizer. The eighth symphony’s third movement now evokes images of Emerson standing between his two Hammonds and synthesizers, with his left hand on “automatic” playing the rhythm track (played by strings in the symphony), with him focusing in the opposite direction on his right hand, which played melody.
 
If you are curious, you can enroll in digitalconcerthall.com for free for one week. Select "composers > S > Shostakovich" and navigate to Symphony # 8. If you don't want to listen to the whole symphony, you can FF to the 3rd movement. (I am not associated with digitalconcerthall.com; I just think that it is the best home entertainment I have ever subscribed to and would give up Amazon and Netflix before living without digitalconcerthall. But then I like classical music, and watching musical virtuosos who have dedicated their lives to their instruments.)
 
There are certainly many other places that you can hear this movement, but watching the performance was additionally thrilling.

Hi,
 
The funny thing is that I have ALWAYS considered a lot of the longer cuts in rock music, the "classical music" of today, if we put it into the context of the great composers.
 
I happen to think of "Echoes", "Atom Heart Mother Suite", "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway", Tales of Topographic Oceans", "A Tab in the Ocean", "Solar Music Live", "Rockpommel's Land", "Yeti", "Dance of the Lemmings", "Phaedra", "Rubycon", Eruption", Tarkus", ... and a million other pieces the "classical music" of TODAY, by our generation ... and it is not necessary for you and I to have to go to Focus, or PFM, to hear their inclusion of classical music themes and not think that these compositions stand just as strongly along Strauss, Beethoven and Mozart, with one important detail ... you and I do not go around whistling any of those 3 folks except the opening of one symphony and one concert! And that's like 3 or 4 bars only!
 
It's kinda strange to hear this composer of that composer when in fact, if you and I were to sift through a lot of the more "progressive music", you would find at least 100 composers mentioned and worked into the piece in idea and concept.

jamesg1213

Moshkito
Hi,
 
The funny thing is that I have ALWAYS considered a lot of the longer cuts in rock music, the "classical music" of today,

I've always thought of contemporary classical music as the classical music of today.

How idealistic of you! 

Moshkito
Hi,
 
This is the only part that hurts for me. We do not 'elevate" the rock music to a better level and understanding of music. And this brings it down to the "street", so to speak, which is not what the history of music has been about ... with only a song or two remembered and lyrics carried over.
 
That's a sad fate for some of the things that we know so well ... that deserve a heck of a lot more than just a remembrance on the singles chart, and one lucky album that got a hit, that no one will remember 50 years from now.
 
If music lasts that long and longer, it is because it has some magic in it, and not just because it was a hit. It's context might not be visible or quite understood, but we say the same thing about all the symphonies by Mahler and Beethoven!

Doh! I'm not going to touch that!

Cue Strummy to discuss his 3rd movement in 5...4....3....2.....

Moshkito
Hi,
 
The funny thing is that I have ALWAYS considered a lot of the longer cuts in rock music, the "classical music" of today, if we put it into the context of the great composers.
 
I happen to think of "Echoes", "Atom Heart Mother Suite", "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway", Tales of Topographic Oceans", "A Tab in the Ocean", "Solar Music Live", "Rockpommel's Land", "Yeti", "Dance of the Lemmings", "Phaedra", "Rubycon", Eruption", Tarkus", ... and a million other pieces the "classical music" of TODAY, by our generation ... and it is not necessary for you and I to have to go to Focus, or PFM, to hear their inclusion of classical music themes and not think that these compositions stand just as strongly along Strauss, Beethoven and Mozart, with one important detail ... you and I do not go around whistling any of those 3 folks except the opening of one symphony and one concert! And that's like 3 or 4 bars only!
 
It's kinda strange to hear this composer of that composer when in fact, if you and I were to sift through a lot of the more "progressive music", you would find at least 100 composers mentioned and worked into the piece in idea and concept.

 
Art music is different from engineered music.  One the goal is transcendent or sublime the other is utility.  Can useful music be art?  Is home depot paint department an artist supply store? Anything can be art, but art can't be anything.  OTOH Van Gogh wore overalls so sometimes pedestrian people make great art.  Charles Ives was not pedestrian.  Aaron copeland was not pedestrian.  O just forget it.  Anything can be art, but art can't be anything.  (this is my nod to our leader as he picks his staff by how they look).