Igor Stravinsky - Prog? I think so!

Is this a joke? Could you please explain that?! I personally see no similarities between Beethoven and progmetal at all   Which metal band  used  motivic development in the way Beethoven did ( if at all)?

We all know Sergei Prokofiev invented prog metal. If you listen to the "Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution" you'll see what I'm talking about. There's a section  (actually, revolution) where chaos ensues and it really sounds like metal.. The same can be said of Shostalkovich's 11th Symphony; the second movement is just the doorstep to Meshuggah...

Edited by The T - May 23 2008 at 14:49

MikeEnRegalia wrote: Perhaps it would be interesting to compile a list of influential composers of classical music - with a small paragraph for each one which explains how they influenced prog - which artists/albums, and in what way.

This was an idea that was discussed some time ago, but as usual fell by the wayside. Pity, because it would really enhance the quality of the site as a cultural resource.

That said, Rite of Spring ROCKS!!! I heard it performed live in Rome a number of years ago, and I was utterly floored. The percussion parts alone are to die for, and I'm quite sure this composition (not to mention others by Stravinsky) influenced a lot of prog musicians.

The Rite of Spring and Symphony of Psalms are both totally prog metal. ISTR a band called Golem did a death metal cover of The Rite of Spring, but I haven't heard it.

Also, as for no prog metal being influenced by Beethoven... well, my band (working on a demo at the moment) has a song heavily influenced by the Hammerklavier sonata, which is really a pretty progmetal piece, for Beethoven.

I think that there was a lot of influence from the early twentieth century composers on both prog and metal. We know it outright in the case of prog, because lots of artists have directly acknowledged the influence of Stravinsky, Bartok, Debussy, et cetera. I sometimes wonder if some prog was kind of a result of people wanting to play music more like the early 20th century composers, while that style had gone out of vogue in the classical institution.

In the case of metal, a lot of mid-twentieth century ideas came filtered through sources like horror movie soundtracks, which IMHO seems to be where death metal gets a lot of its chromatic and atonal ideas. (I've always wanted to write some proper serial 12-tone death metal, just have to wait to find the right band to play it with. Along those lines, Lutoslawski and Rihm, among others, come to mind as having a lot of great death metal moments.)

I would compile such a list myself ... If my knowledge of classical composers wasn't that poor.

Question: If I added some tags to RF, would you help me tag some albums? I could then make a page which lists all the composers, and the albums which they influenced.

^ there wouldn't be much work involved ... I guess that most of us know a handful of albums which are influenced by a particular composer. But the resulting list compiled from our combined knowledge would be really interesting.

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: tokenrove wrote: The Rite of Spring and Symphony of Psalms are both totally prog metal. ISTR a band called Golem did a death metal cover of The Rite of Spring, but I haven't heard it. Also, as for no prog metal being influenced by Beethoven... well, my band (working on a demo at the moment) has a song heavily influenced by the Hammerklavier sonata, which is really a pretty progmetal piece, for Beethoven. Russian Nationalist music is ,much more complex than the Romantic music, has radical changes and is more aggressive, that's why some pieces like Pictures at an Exhibition or A Night in the Bad Mountain, can be played by Prog musicuians almost without being changed, while Baroque or Classical era pieces need totally new arrangements.

being bald myself I have to point out It is not the "bad mountain" though, it is the "bald mountain"

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: Well Tokenrovel, I dpn't doubt your band may be influenced by Rite of Spring or by Beethoven, but that doesn't make them Prog Metal, to be Metal, they need to have ROCK elements before, and that's just not real.

I'm in agreement with you -- I say that, for example, Shostakovich is death metal (at his most grotesque) only in jest (and, maybe, to encourage people into metal and prog to listen to some of these composers), but I do feel that the borders begin to blur as composers from the rock tradition start working in a motive-oriented manner rather than a riff-oriented manner. (Unless you feel that timbre is inescapably linked to the concept of genre... something that bands like Apocalyptica, to me, disprove. (I find it awfully frustrating when they're described as "classical".))

Cheers.

How has Stravinsky influenced prog? I'm not saying he hasn't or anything, I just want some specific examples. There isn't really any resources for this kind of thing. I'm not familiar at all with most classical (or whatever you want to call it) composers although I am really interested in those that influenced prog.

KeleCableII wrote: How has Stravinsky influenced prog? I'm not saying he hasn't or anything, I just want some specific examples. There isn't really any resources for this kind of thing. I'm not familiar at all with most classical (or whatever you want to call it) composers although I am really interested in those that influenced prog.

Just to note two bands off the top of my head... Magma have specifically cited him repeatedly as one of their main influences; there's a good interview on youtube with them saying this. I seem to recall an interview with Robert Fripp where he cites some influence from Stravinsky, although I remember him talking more frequently about Bartok and Schoenberg than Stravinsky.