CONCERTO FOR GROUP AND ORCHESTRA

Spinal Tap could not have come up with a more ridiculous sounding project and the results is mostly as you would expect ridiculous. I remember well when this record was new, I bought it home full of eager anticipation for the "progressive music" it most certainly must contain. Well it was disappointing even to my 12 yr old ears it sounded silly. We are presented with an Orchestra and a group that are supposedly playing together what we get is a Orchestra playing followed by a group, then back to Orchestra then group and so on. When the two do come together its would seem that the Orchestra doesnt really have the skill or inclination to play the material properly. I get the impression that the rock stars were trying far harder to make this work than the so called serious musicians. Jon writing is often very good and when at time the whole thing comes together it hints at a work that could have been far better. It is not a patch on the work of the Nice for instance , but remains an interesting aside in the Purple Catalogue. It certainly sounds like a battle between the orchestra and the Band rather than a collaboration. The fact that this is a live recording is very obvious with many Musical mistakes and tuning errors mostly it must be said on the orchestras side. It has moments (many in fact) were the Guitar solos total overpower the music. A notable experiment and an interesting idea pitting an Orchestra against one of the heaviest live bands we have so far produced. In a way its a meting of two worlds the prodominatly working class rockers and the middle class musicians of the orchestra. In belongs in the Joke section along with Spinal Tap as it never really works. As it is this record has to many faults to recommend it, and remains a strange document of a time when Rock Star's started to take themselves seriously as composers. In many cases this was a good thing and even this strange record deserves to listened to now and then if only to remind us that Rock (even prog) is not classical music but is worthy in its own right of being considered fine art.