# Classical influences in popular music



## Ephemerid (Nov 30, 2007)

Poster Lennon brought up something interesting in the "Best Bands" thread & I thought it was worth making a seperate thread. Here's what Lennon had to say:



Lennon said:


> Please correct me if I'm wrong, Violin_Frenzy, but I believe the "it will blow the classical music out of your butt!" was a direct quote from the film School of Rock, right?
> 
> I certainly know very little about classical music, though I'm not so deaf to the absolute excellence of it as some of my peers may be. Of course, most of my peers are even deaf to the kinds of music I enjoy so we can't depend on their opinions. I love the Beatles and the Who. There are many others, of course, but those are the two I don't think I could live without.
> 
> *For those who can appreciate the work of orchestras and whatnot, how do you feel about songs like Eleanor Rigby, A Day In the Life, the french horn solo in For No One, etc? Talking to other Beatles fans, we don't really get into the classical music elements of some of these songs and I would be interested in what the people here think or just about classical music in popular music in general.*


(emphasis mine)

~josh


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## Ephemerid (Nov 30, 2007)

The experimental side of *the Beatles *is one of the things that drew me into them, while still being melodic and in a pop format. But I think the Beatles were just interested in drawing from all different sources, not just classical-- vaudeville, Indian ragas, avant-garde, electronic, country, jazz was all fair game for the Beatles-- and they integrated all this in such a way that it actually made sense!

*The Moody Blues *were another 60s band that incorporated classical, though not as seamlessly, on their album _Days of the Future Passed. _

With progressive rock developing in the late 60s, you had groups like *Yes, Genesis, King Crimson *doing longer pieces of complex music... Ages ago I listened to these bands. I feel I've outgrown them since then and ELP I find to be utterly pretentious.

I feel that prog rock gets too far from the roots of rock, whereas the Beatles managed a UNITY between rock and other influences. It annoys me now to hear a band play in 7/8 really just to prove they can do it (which isn't to say that rock can't have unusual metres). I think there's a way of having classical influences in rock music in a way that rock is still tied to its roots and there's another way which gets too far removed from it IMO.

*Emerson Lake and Palmer *is an example of classical influence in rock music, but it suffers from horrible pretentiousness... Keith Emerson was a classically-trained pianist and it seemed he was determined to remind everyone of this on piano, organ, synth, and whatever else he could get his hands on. They've done a rock version of Copland's _Fanfare for the Common Man _and the "Hoedown" from _Rodeo, _ an entire album being a rock version of Mussorgsky's _Pictures at an Exhibition_, a loud and pompous version of Parry's "Jerusalem" and when they got back together around the mid-80s they tackled Holst's _Mars, the Bringer of War_. Emerson also did a full blown piano concerto in the late 70s (the only one I am aware of). The piano concerto was not so bad (being a piano concerto in the strict sense of the word), but I personally think their rock music was just BAD. ELP is an instance of a bad hybrid of classical and rock.

*Electric Light Orchestra *- particularly in the early 70s: they did a fun cover of Roll Over Beethoven also which incorporated Beethoven's fifth symphony in a humourous way) and I still think 10538 Overture is such a visceral song with all those grunting cellos. There was still a stronger ROCK element in their music with a nod toward classical-- it was used as a way of _enhancing _rock music. What ELP did was to basically take classical music and "rockify" it, whereas the Beatles and the Electric Light Orchestra utilised classical textures and sounds as a way of enhancing rock music, or to give a song a unique atmosphere.

This is a topic that interests me greatly-- my first love is classical but I also grew up listening to rock (especially the Beatles) and ages ago I pursued a music composition degree (and even had a few chamber works performed) but I do rock music now (and dabble in some ambient electronic stuff). But the classical and rock sides of me rarely coincide, except insofar as enhancing music (I've recorded a handful of songs with strings but not in any elaborate way-- just standard strings you get in pop music).

~josh


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## Lennon (Dec 17, 2007)

I'm actually starting to get into ELO. I know Jeff Lynne was a good friend of George Harrison and when I found out he was in ELO I thought I'd give them a shot and I'm quite happy I did. 

I'm drawn to the rock bands that do have that classical or instrumental element (e.g. Chicago and Blood, Sweat, and Tears) in their music. Not always, of course, but I feel it adds something special, something different from the constant formula of guitar, bass, and drums. It also shows that these musicians were willing to think outside the rock box and maybe, in their own way, show respect to these great classical artists. We always say that the new bands would be no where without bands like the Beatles, the Beatles would be no where without Elvis, Elvis wanted to be Dean Martin and so forth and so on until it all leads back to the beginning of music.

At least with rock music they tried to make it their own in some way for the most part. I actually have a few songs where it's (mostly) the original classical pieces just with an added element. I'm thinking of "A Fifth of Beethoven" and "A Night on Disco Mountain" from Saturday Night Fever, but there are many more out there that do the same. Does it just make you cringe when you hear stuff like that?

What about the Trans-Siberian Orchestra? It's the other side of the coin. A classical orchestra using rock to enhance the music they perform. Is the rock thing just a gimmick or does it truly add something to the piece?

This music thing is rather complicated, isn't it?


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## Ephemerid (Nov 30, 2007)

I'm not really happy with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra personally because I think its cheesy rock music. The same would go for the two Saturday Night Fever tracks, where classical music has merely been adapted to a drum beat. Classical music and rock music BOTH suffer for it where classical music is merely "rockified."

Where classical influences are used to enhance rock music, it usually works, whereas taking a classical piece of music and adding a rock band to it almost always fails. Even as much as I like Bernstein's "Mass" (which is not an actual mass, but a musical about a mass) there are huge sections that just don't really work-- it comes off sounding cheesy.

I would say this goes for a lot of classical "tribute" albums over the years (Pink Floyd, Yes, Alan Parsons, Genesis, Radiohead).

But when classical elements are ADDED as enhancement to rock music, I think its very effective-- I think its all a matter of balance.

A really great example of striking just the right balance would be Mason Williams' "Classical Gas"-- the song rocks (there's some really good drumming on it), but the orchestra really adds something special to it.

*Sigur Ros *is a band that has incorporated string quartet in the studio & in live performances, but even without the string quartet (or orchestra which they sometimes also use), their music somehow has a big symphonic sound to it. Its clearly rock music, but has the kind of "bigness" you would expect from an orchestra. Hoppipolla is a brilliant song of theirs.

*Godspeed You Black Emperor! *is a great instrumental band which has varied in members (at one time having 17 players) which includes violin, cello, bagpipe, trumpet, a variety of other things (including, like Sigur Ros, bowed electric guitar). Their music reminds me a lot of old Pink Floyd, how their music moves at a glacial pace and then builds up dramatically. HERE is a great example of their music (sound quality isn't good) and THIS is a really good track of theirs. This to me is really just the incorporation of classical in a punk context (GYBE! isn't exactly punk, but that's where their roots are).

For something on the more avant-garde classical side, there's also *Scott Walker's *stuff since the 80s-- his albums Tilt and The Drift has a LOT of orchestra on it, and Scott Walker still croons like he always did since the 60s, but-- let's just say that his stuff is WAAYYY darker than anything NIN or Marilyn Manson could ever dream-- without any distorted guitars. Its amazing stuff (though you have to be in the right mood for it!). This track (about Elvis' twin brother who died at childbirth) has lots of Penderecki-like strings (this is a great song, but not the best example of his use of orchestra). God, this song still gives me chills at the end. There's other stuff he's done that has even more orchestra than this though...

I'll come up with more examples later...

~josh


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## Ephemerid (Nov 30, 2007)

Oh, how dare I forget this EXCELLENT song, the "Baroque rock" band the Left Banke? I love the strings on this, the harmonies...

I'm not much a *Gentle Giant *fan any more, being part of the whole prog rock scene, but its still better than most-- here's a demonstration of counterpoint in rock music with Knots and THIS has some unusual instrumentation for rock as well. But my problem here is that it really gets TOO far away from the roots of rock music IMO. There's something overly calculated about prog rock that seems antithetical to rock music.

Its a mixed bag!

~josh


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## BuddhaBandit (Dec 31, 2007)

One of my favorite bands, The Band (the group that played with Bob Dylan during his first days of electriying folk), has a great song called "Chest Fever" that has an organ intro inspired by the Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Garth Hudson, the organist, for The Band, is classically trained and fairly impressive.


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## tenor02 (Jan 4, 2008)

though it's terrible on the ears (imo), if you actually take the time to dissect many "hard core" bands/scream-o bands, many of the guitar parts appear very similar to any fugue. Though, they'll never admit it.


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## CHasR (Dec 10, 2007)

tenor02 said:


> though it's terrible on the ears (imo), if you actually take the time to dissect many "hard core" bands/scream-o bands, many of the guitar parts appear very similar to any fugue. Though, they'll never admit it.


yes they do STEAL so deliberately...Paganini, Bach cello suites, Vivaldi violin licks, etc...
BUT just throw some Segovia at them...

the old joke is "how do you get a guitar player to shut up?" Put a chart in front of them.

I have grown a greater respect for Clapton's work over his carreer, he seems to really have DUG IN and got a masterful hold of the delta blues genre; elevating the same to an almost 'composed' artifice; 
but the whole 'prog-rock', 'classical-rock' ideal just seems so ...yesterday...to me.
It's just no special thing today to hear a searing guitar solo on top of full orchestra.


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## Beethoven (Oct 19, 2007)

The Banya remixes of classical music are great


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## Sanctus493 (Mar 15, 2008)

A huge amount of heavy metal is influenced by classical music, particularly black metal (Emperor), Power Metal (Therion), NWOBHM (Iron Maiden), and bands like Metallica and Opeth (I think there's a madrigal on one of their albums). On the album "How The West Was Won" by Led Zeppelin, during Jimmy Page's solo on the song 'Heartbreaker', he plays a bit from one of Bach's Lute Suites.


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## Sanctus493 (Mar 15, 2008)

*Bump*. About that Opeth song, it's called simply 'Madrigal', and it's on their album "My Arms, Your Hearse", if anyone's interested.


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## Sanctus493 (Mar 15, 2008)

*Bump again - I seem to be the only person posting on this thread at the moment!*

I was just thinking again about the influence of classical in rock music. There's a german acid/psych rock band from the 70's called Amon Duul II who have a great violin player called Chris Karrer - he's especially good on the song Soap Shop Rock. 

Frank Zappa did a great big band version of the Royal March from Stravinsky's "L'Histoire Du Soldat", as well as the theme from Bartok's Piano Concerto No. 3. He also recorded an entire album with the London Symphony Orchestra, and several other orchestral albums of his own work. On the sleeve notes to his debut album "Freak Out"in 1966, he listed among his many influences Maurice Ravel, Arnold Schoenberg, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez (who conducted one of his orchestral albums), Anton Webern, and Edgar Varese.

Steve Hackett from Genesis has apparently just released a classical guitar album.


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## Methodistgirl (Apr 3, 2008)

Speaking of Electric Light Orchestra. Did any of you notice how Mr. Blue Sky
had some Beethoven in it and also another composer in it? I noticed that 
when I was listening to some organ music earlier this morning. A lot of your
70's rock had classical influnce.
judy tooley


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## Conservationist (Apr 5, 2007)

Ephemerid said:


> With progressive rock developing in the late 60s, you had groups like *Yes, Genesis, King Crimson *doing longer pieces of complex music... Ages ago I listened to these bands.


This was really where I saw the influence the most.

Until I encountered the indie underground metal that was clearly classically inspired, and borrowed from classical and modernist (Wagner, Bruckner) themes.


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## Yagan Kiely (Feb 6, 2008)

A large amount of the classical influence on the Beatles was due to their producer George martin who was himself classically trained.


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## Mayerl (May 5, 2008)

Thank you, Yagan Kiely, it's way past time that due credit was given to George Martin, and not just for the Classical influences found in Beatles music.
Without him --- well who knows?


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## kiwipolish (May 2, 2008)

> Classical influences found in Beatles music.


The Beatles *are* classical music. When visiting a few music CD shops worldwide, I saw them classified under "Classical". Admittedly, these shops had no (or very little) music older than the Beatles'.

Quotations of earlier music or use of earlier styles had always occurred and will always be occurring, because this is what music is about. Some musicians like to give sometimes a touch of "old" in order to sound interesting or to prove that they know their classics. That happens in any type of music.


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## natas (Jun 29, 2008)

Beatles classical?

King Crimson or The Doors are much more classical than beatles, they are just hippies


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## Mark Harwood (Mar 5, 2007)

There are many people who are entirely unaware of any distinction between the terms "classic" and "Classical". The filing of Beatles records under "Classical" is a clear example. People watch Classic FM TV and expect Classical music; they will usually be disappointed.
Prog Rock may have generated some long and quite scintillating pieces - ones that spring to mind are "Supper's Ready" by Genesis, "Lizard" by King Crimson, "Echoes" by Pink Floyd, "Passion Play" by Jethro Tull, "The Gates Of Delirium" by Yes, and "Eruption" by Focus - but they are not organised in a Classical manner. Plus, many of us have heard pieces of flashy, pretentious, shallow, overblown widdling that sounds a bit like something by Bach, who didn't write Classical music. Very sad.
BUT there is one piece that I know of that comes close: King Crimson's "Starless" on the "Red" album. It loosely conforms to sonata form. Rather than straining for effect, it achieves an intensity, a kind of bleak majesty, that is exceptional in the rock idiom. It does this by means of a roughly Classical way of using its themes.


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## kiwipolish (May 2, 2008)

The truth is that the English language (as French or Italian, to my knowledge) lack a proper term to describe accurately what most of us mean by "classical music".

In Polish (which I happen to speak as well), there is a great expression: _muzyka powazna_, which means *"serious music"*. That's what we should be using in English, and it would avoid any misunderstandings.


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## Mayerl (May 5, 2008)

Couldn't agree more, Kiwipolish. Over the last few years, particularly since the advent of Classic FM in the UK, the words classic and classical have been subjected to serious misuse and abuse.
I tend to use the word "serious" instead of classical, but just to play Devil's Advocate, it could be said that most "composers" of any age were perfectly serious when they put pen to paper, whatever the end result may have sounded like. The word is however, a more acceptable alternative.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

I personally find the term "serious music" ridiculous. I mean, classical music can be lighthearted too, sometimes even humorous - most symphonies afterall have a "joke" movement (scherzos don't need to be lighthearted or humorous but often are, as the name scherzo implies). Mozart actually made a composition he called "A Musical Joke" and Haydn was known for his musical humor as well. And on the other hand, popular music (widely understood) can be deadly serious at times.

However I must admit that the other alternatives aren't much better. Classical music is very confusing term - it can be music from the classical era, it can mean music from baroque, classical plus romantic era, it can even include modernism there. Probably someone even uses it to refer to "classics" of music, in which case they would probably include some popular music and exclude some normally understood as "classical" music. 

The term "(western) art music" is pretty bad too since it would imply that popular music (in the wide sense again) cannot be art. I find that kind of thinking arrogant, elitist and simply false.


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## Conservationist (Apr 5, 2007)

kiwipolish said:


> In Polish (which I happen to speak as well), there is a great expression: _muzyka powazna_, which means *"serious music"*. That's what we should be using in English, and it would avoid any misunderstandings.


Absolutely. But it offends our sense of class independence here in the united states. After all, some idiot who knows three chords is _serious_ too, and equally so because he's equal and free and stuff.


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## Landon (Sep 7, 2009)

Yagan Kiely said:


> A large amount of the classical influence on the Beatles was due to their producer George martin who was himself classically trained.


Could we end this myth please. I respect George Martin but as George Martin has manhy times the Beatles were the greatest songwriters ever. Yes at the start George Martin influenced them to think classically but not when it came to Classical Indian and Avant Music. The only reason there is strings on "Yesterday" is because George Martin noticed "Yesterday" sounded classical at first. There are so many songs that have classical influence that George Martin had nothing to with like "For No One", "Martha My Dear", Blackbird", and "Because".


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

As someone who has crossed back and forth and now straddles the classical and pop divide, I'm particularly interested in artists of today that show a real understanding of classical music in their rock and pop output. Not surprisingly you find these are at least part classically trained.

*Rufus Wainwright* is the first name that comes to mind. Sophisticated melodic lines, all kinds of classical pastiches and homages in his songs. It's well-known that Verdi is his musical hero. He's the essential artist if you want to explore classically-tinged pop music. His latest offering, premiered this year at the Manchester Festival was a 19th century-style French opera.

Perhaps lesser known but with a huge cult following, is *Sufjan Stevens*. His varied output combines folk and pop with meticulous arrangements of strings, horns, background vocals. Great polyphony on some tracks. His Illinois CD is endlessly inventive and richly rewarding. His next work is his first almost-classical piece, due out in October.

As with Rufus Wainwright's opera, I don't think Sufjan's first classical effort will _rock_ the classical world in the slightest, but in both cases, these are talented multi-faceted composers, seemingly too artistic for mainstream rock and pop.


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

Surely, the majority of pop music is influenced by classical music in some way, in that most music in the charts is built on the foundations of diatonic harmony and melody-dominated homophony. But both the terms 'classical' and 'pop' are very vague.

The most obvoius influence of classical is in stuff like Yngwie Malmsteen and Jason Becker and other neo-classical shredders who basically played Bach licks on distorted guitars. I find this kind of thing very cheesy.

As people have said a lot of the prog rock bands consisted of musicians from classically trained backgrounds and many of them releases purely classical work as solo artists. E.g. Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe from Yes. But many prog bands were equally influenced by jazz and folk, like Soft Machine, Caravan, Jethro Tull and loads of the Canterbury bands.

Frank Zappa is a good example of someone mixed a lot of influences into his work and he composed some proper classical work as well. He was heavily influenced by Varese and his rhythmic experimentations alongside Stravinsky. I do like FZ but I'd would have liked it if he wrote more instrumental pieces, a la Hot Rats, over his comedy rock stuff. I remember hearing he did a version of Ravel's Bolero as well.

I disagree with notion of classical music being referred to as 'serious music'. It's no more serious than any other form of music. There may be less outright crap music in the classical realm than the pop, but its no more serious or higher art. Actually, I struggle to think of any great composer with _no_ good works whereas I can think of plenty of big bands that I pretty much hate like Keane, Linkin Park and a host of others.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Dim7 said:


> I personally find the term "serious music" ridiculous. I mean, classical music can be lighthearted too, sometimes even humorous - most symphonies after all have a "joke" movement (scherzos don't need to be lighthearted or humorous but often are, as the name scherzo implies). Mozart actually made a composition he called "A Musical Joke" and Haydn was known for his musical humor as well. And on the other hand, popular music (widely understood) can be deadly serious at times.
> 
> However I must admit that the other alternatives aren't much better. Classical music is very confusing term - it can be music from the classical era, it can mean music from baroque, classical plus romantic era, it can even include modernism there. Probably someone even uses it to refer to "classics" of music, in which case they would probably include some popular music and exclude some normally understood as "classical" music.
> 
> The term "(western) art music" is pretty bad too since it would imply that popular music (in the wide sense again) cannot be art. I find that kind of thinking arrogant, elitist and simply false.


I guess you wouldn't call it "serious" music, then. How about "actual" music? That's basically the difference between Marc Andre Hamelin and Gene Simmons.


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## Herr Direktor (Oct 18, 2009)

Simply put - there would be no "rock" or "popular" music today without Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, et al. Surely the Beatles were greatly influenced by classical music, as were many other bands.

Since the Beatles have been discussed to death in this topic, how about we all give a listen to the Symphonic Music of Yes. Great stuff.

http://www.amazon.com/Symphonic-Mus...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1256354783&sr=8-1






HD


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

Herr Direktor said:


> Simply put - there would be no "rock" or "popular" music today without Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, et al. Surely the Beatles were greatly influenced by classical music, as were many other bands.


Although some Beatles and post-Beatles music would have been different without classical music, there would have been rock music anyway. Rock is influenced/based on the blues, black gospel, r&b (not the schlock that is called r&b today of course) and even country music which have little (if anything) to do with classical music.

And although classical music no doubt has had a major influence on some rock music (especially prog-rock) - if one accepts that folk music was the pop music of old one can also argue that "pop" has influenced classical since so many composers have integrated folk tunes into their compositions.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

> Although some Beatles and post-Beatles music would have been different without classical music, there would have been rock music anyway. Rock is influenced/based on the blues, black gospel, r&b (not the schlock that is called r&b today of course) and even country music which have little (if anything) to do with classical music.


Blues, black gospel, r&b and country music especially wouldn't have been what they are today without the golden years. It's just a fact. Classical music also wouldn't be quite the same if it weren't for the folk music of the Greeks (especially the Greeks), Hebrews, Egyptians, Moors (early Islam people who conquered Spain and introduced many stringed instruments and several trademark concepts of Spanish music), Spaniards, Dutch, and Russians.

We wouldn't even have much of an idea of a universal scale, a mode system, chord progressions, chromaticism, and compositional elements without classical music. Just because it sounds different upon a first hearing, and archaic in a bad way (in my opinion), it doesn't mean that current pop music doesn't owe it's sense of form, compositional methods (things as simple as dynamic shifts) to it's predecessors (and superiors).


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Have any progressive rock or similar kind of bands used the sonata form in their music? Anyone know any examples?


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

Dim7 said:


> Have any progressive rock or similar kind of bands used the sonata form in their music? Anyone know any examples?


I can't remember if they actually used sonata from but British prog rock band *Egg* used classical forms and were very classically influenced, just a look at the titles of some of their tunes gives this away. _Wind Quartet 1_, _Symphony No 2_, _Long Piece No 3_ and _Fugue in D Minor_. The latter being a take on the famoue Bach piece.

Also, check out *Giles, Giles and Fripp* especially _Suite No 1_. They are quite eclectic but there is definetely a classical influence there.


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## Texas Chain Saw Mazurka (Nov 1, 2009)

Dim7 said:


> Have any progressive rock or similar kind of bands used the sonata form in their music? Anyone know any examples?


Weezer's song "Dreamin'" is written in sonata form, although I don't suppose they're "progressive rock or similar".


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

I said "progressive rock or something similar" basically because I thought if "popular" (=non-classical) music band use sonata form they are almost automatically progressive rock or something like that. I'm just looking for sonata form in non-classical music, so thanks for the example.


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## ConcertVienna (Sep 9, 2009)

I think of all those remixes on youtube - from mozarts requiem to beethoven's 40. 


Lots of "singers" got on the radio by just chanting to a remix of classical music - 

Swan Lake or Prince Igor come to my mind.


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## Romantic Geek (Dec 25, 2009)

Hey, someone was dissing Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Yeah, it's cheesy, but they lace their music with classical snippets and make it accessible to the masses. I went to a concert around Xmas time...the first half was their Xmas music, but their second half was literally taking classic rock songs and lacing them with music. There was one point where I heard the exposition to the first movement of the Pathetique Sonata and I was about to scream and turned around and started telling people...sadly then realizing no one knew what I was talking about. 

The turned the Queen of the Night Aria into heavy metal. 

I'm sure there were more snippets I missed or don't remember, but it was really cool...cheesy or not.


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## Bgroovy2 (Mar 27, 2009)

There seems to be a lot of opinions on this thread and it's subject. I will offer this: It seems to me that when hollywood wants to make a band sound good and trully musical, they always through an orchastra behind them!


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

kiwipolish said:


> The truth is that the English language (as French or Italian, to my knowledge) lack a proper term to describe accurately what most of us mean by "classical music".
> 
> In Polish (which I happen to speak as well), there is a great expression: _muzyka powazna_, which means *"serious music"*. That's what we should be using in English, and it would avoid any misunderstandings.


"*Serious Music*." I like it, but am afraid it might reinforce the image of classical music lovers being snobbish.

I found a site discussing all the classical influences in many pop songs:

pop songs and instrumentals that (allegedly!) draw on classical music

And here is one addressing a small list of 10 songs:
10 Classical Pieces Behind Modern-Day Songs


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## EarthBoundRules (Sep 25, 2011)

Dim7 said:


> Have any progressive rock or similar kind of bands used the sonata form in their music? Anyone know any examples?


Yes' song _Close to the Edge_ is similar but with a B section instead of a development section. Well, there is a short development section but it's more of a moment.


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## acitak 7 (Jun 26, 2016)

I started a thread about pop songs with great orchestral arrangements, but got no takers. I can recommend The Days Of Pearly Spencer, by Marc Almond, and If You Could Read My Mind, by Gordon Lightfoot.


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## Jay (Jul 21, 2014)

The Police's "Every Breath...." is in rondo form.


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## Xenakiboy (May 8, 2016)

I haven't read through all the thread but I'll just drop the name "Emerson, Lake and Palmer"


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## zhopin (Apr 7, 2016)

Romantic Geek said:


> Hey, someone was dissing Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Yeah, it's cheesy, but they lace their music with classical snippets and make it accessible to the masses. I went to a concert around Xmas time...the first half was their Xmas music, but their second half was literally taking classic rock songs and lacing them with music. There was one point where I heard the exposition to the first movement of the Pathetique Sonata and I was about to scream and turned around and started telling people...sadly then realizing no one knew what I was talking about.
> 
> The turned the Queen of the Night Aria into heavy metal.
> 
> I'm sure there were more snippets I missed or don't remember, but it was really cool...cheesy or not.


I've always loved their cover of Carol of the Bells...


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## Retyc (May 10, 2016)

If the definition of "pop music" simply is "non-classical music", then I'd say Krallice. Their newer material (since Ygg Huur) has moved towards a kinda late-romantic/early avantgarde string quartet idiom (don't quote me on that, I'm not a musicologist)...
The other projects of the two guitarists(Mick Barr and Colin Marston) do have a heavy classical influence as well.

Krallice(sparse harsh vocals):
- Engram from Ygg Huur
- live recording of new material(+Ygg Huur and Hyperion material) 

Ocrilim(Mick Barr solo, most albums are purely instrumental)
- Annwn Part 6 
- Through

Behold... The Arctopus(Colin Marston + others, purely instrumental):
- Transient Exuberance
- Annihilvore

Dysrhythmia(Colin Marston + others, purely instrumental):
- In Consequence
- live footage of their new material (some more)


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