CONCERTO FOR GROUP AND ORCHESTRA

I think this review will get some heat among progheads , but we have here a disaster at hand! Actually I was never fond of those groups seeking recognition of higher arts by playing to an orchestra as if rock was to gain nobility from this fact.

The Nice had already done this , and IMHO , they were never convincing! When The Moody Blues tried it on Days Of Future Past , they were actually fairly succesful (but hardly entirely either)! When Procol and Caravan will try it themselves , they will have more success of it (but Caravan's New Symphonia sounds cruelly under-rehearsed), mostly because they reworked their songs to include the Orchestra, so the task was quite different.

Actually what baffled me most is that the liner notes on the inside gatefold sleeves gives all the reasons why this record was a failure. And truely the writing job was insufficient , consisting of the band answering to the orchestra (or was it fighting!!). If John Lord had done a tremendous job of writing the centerpiece of the April suite in the previous album, writing for a full orchestra is something completely different, having so many musicians to write for. Obviously , the cooperation was not full and some orchestra members had contempt treating Purple as "Third Rate Beatles".

Hardly worth the investigation , but yet another piece in favor of the proto-prog or not debate! As for the two bonus tracks presented above , I have never heard them under that particular version.