# Modernized classical music



## Caesura (Apr 5, 2020)

Recently, I came across this "modernized" version of Handel's Messiah. What do you think of it?




I was wondering what you guys think of doing this to baroque and classical music. Do you think it is needed, or not?

Feel free to post other modernized classical music that you think is worth sharing (including operas in modernized sets/costumes).


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Not at all necessary to me. I find even rearrangements of Classical music like Chopin's Nocturne on instruments other than solo piano hard to swallow.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I once imagined in my head a jazz/pop arrangement of Britten's Serenade with a sax replacing the horn. One of the vocalists (there were several) was Sinatra. Another was Ray Charles. I would have loved to produce it!


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

In general, I find these "modernized" arrangements disgusting. Like the Duke Ellington Nutcracker which is just awful. I was in the gym several weeks ago and on the sound system was some horrible rap song using O Fortuna from Carmina Burana. Horrible. I don't like jazzing up classics one bit. It shows the poverty of invention by modern "artists" who can only stand on the shoulder of much, much bigger giants.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)




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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Caesura said:


> Recently, I came across this "modernized" version of Handel's Messiah. What do you think of it?
> 
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> 
> ...


People who do these modernizations take great music and reduce it to crap. I'll pass.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Phil loves classical said:


> Not at all necessary to me. I find even rearrangements of Classical music like Chopin's Nocturne on instruments other than solo piano hard to swallow.


Have a listen if you can to some Bernhard Lang's monadologie series. There's one based on Winterreise (The Cold Trip) and one based on Haydn's Seven Last Words (The Anatomy of Disaster) and ParZeFool. I prefer the Haydn one to the original by far!


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## erki (Feb 17, 2020)

I like it sometimes. There are very good examples doing it that add something to the original. Especially if you know the classical version it kind of expands it. Some are rather lame obviously specially when they just add pop music rhythm and electronic instruments. The one you present is really bad. I would say these are not so much as of modernised than "americanised". There was(is) a trend to bring elite(classical) music to the masses - to the lowest common dominator.
"Jazzing up" can be very good if you think of adding the element of improvisation to it. Too often sticking to the original score doesn't produce the most enjoyable result.
I like Loussier Trio playing Bach but do not care much for Carlos, Hankinson. Bach and Beethoven must be the most used and abused composers.






And there is ELP "Pictures at an Exhibition" that is not bad at all


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Traditional Japanese "Enka Style" arrangement on Chopin Etude Op.10 No.3:























Bulldog said:


> reduce it to crap.


Bullcrap, you mean


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)




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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)




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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Great collection Hammeredklavier! Some pretty interesting and fascinating contributions and some kitsch/theft. I loved it to go through them.

If the arrangement was tasteful and adds something with true musical spirit, I am interested. If there is only a commercial reason, a lack of artistry and the music is degenerated, I detest it. Remember that the great composers listened to and built on music of predecessors, otherwise we would still be in the troubadour's age. 
The Young Messiah in the OP belongs to my second category, terrible.

Here are a few very interesting modernifications:













and a reverse option:





and now for a second rate, in the 'terrible'class:


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

mbhaub said:


> In general, I find these "modernized" arrangements disgusting. Like the Duke Ellington Nutcracker which is just awful.


weird, I haven't listened to it for many years but I remember it as been made in a very tasteful manner (and it's Ellington after all, a man known for his refinement and taste).






and indeed it's beautiful and made with great taste... I wonder what you thought was awful in this piece


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_I was wondering what you guys think of doing this to baroque and classical music. Do you think it is needed, or not?_

I tire of saying this but the reason things like this occur is because there is little or nothing written in our time worthy of the effort. This is also why Beethoven's 5th symphony was turned into a disco song in the 1970s, a time when the fruits of classical music were much greater than they are today -- but still empty by historic standards.

This happens to the greatest of composers, as you see -- Handel, Beethoven and even Mozart in the film "American Gigolo"


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## DaddyGeorge (Mar 16, 2020)

I think these "adjustments" lack any meaning. Handel's music won't gain new fans and it will irritate most classical music lovers...


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

I really don't understand why people meddle with things - 'modernised' is perfectly fine.


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## Simplicissimus (Feb 3, 2020)

_De gustibus non est disputandum_, but there's also also such a thing as poor taste, kitsch, OTT, and debased. To me, the OP's example is obviously in poor taste, but it is also an hilarious example of 1980s style. I mean, look at that hair! I appreciate that members of this forum are keeping it classy and not putting this example forward as evidence for the depravity of American culture, as _der Spiegel_ and their ilk are apt to do, because it is so easy to trot out individual and isolated examples of poor taste for chauvinistic chest-thumping purposes.

What constitutes acceptable or tasteful modernization of older music is not an easy question to settle, I think, even if we can nearly unanimously agree on the awfulness of a 1980s pop rendition of the Messiah. Playing Bach or Rameau on a modern piano is modernization, playing Mozart symphonies using somewhat large orchestras with sections arranged in a 19th Century fashion is modernization, but we're inured to these approaches and those who harshly condemn them are seen by most as extremists. Members of this kind of forum can amicably maintain different preferences, such as mine for period instruments and HIP, while recognizing when a performance approach veers into kitsch. I'm not offended by Stokowski's orchestrations of Bach organ works, but I would absolutely walk out on the "Young Messiah" after 30 seconds. Still, there are gray areas, aren't there?


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

norman bates said:


> weird, I haven't listened to it for many years but I remember it as been made in a very tasteful manner (and it's Ellington after all, a man known for his refinement and taste).
> 
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> ...


I've always found it funny and entertaining most of all. More like a parody. But at the same time, I also felt a bit uncomfortable when viewing it beside the original. A mixed experience.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Nothing new here.

In the '50s "Strangers in Paradise" from Borodin; "Hot Diggety Dog Diggety" from Chabrier. '60s and '70s Hooked on Classics, Top 40 hits based on Beethoven 5, "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring," opening of Also Sprach Zarathustra, Emerson Lake and Palmer basing rock numbers on Janacek, etc. Virgil Fox and Lorin Hollander swooping around in capes, Boulez's "Rug concerts" with the NYPO, Ken Russell films . . .
The attempts to make CM "relevant" to young people are legion and not new.


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

MarkW said:


> Virgil Fox swooping around in capes


I went to a Virgil Fox "Heavy Organ" concert. He played Bach unaltered. He merely added a "Light Show" to keep the "uneducated" entertained. No harm. Lots of fun as he talked to the audience in between selections.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

I see nothing wrong with it.

You don´t have to listen to these versions.


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## Simplicissimus (Feb 3, 2020)

MarkW said:


> Nothing new here.
> 
> In the '50s "Strangers in Paradise" from Borodin; "Hot Diggety Dog Diggety" from Chabrier. '60s and '70s Hooked on Classics, Top 40 hits based on Beethoven 5, "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring," opening of Also Sprach Zarathustra, Emerson Lake and Palmer basing rock numbers on Janacek, etc. Virgil Fox and Lorin Hollander swooping around in capes, Boulez's "Rug concerts" with the NYPO, Ken Russell films . . .
> The attempts to make CM "relevant" to young people are legion and not new.


True, but I would say that in the case of the unfortunate video from the OP, the attempt was to make CM relevant to old, benighted American ********, not to young people. The latter would laugh and depart.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Phil loves classical said:


> I've always found it funny and entertaining most of all. More like a parody. But at the same time, I also felt a bit uncomfortable when viewing it beside the original. A mixed experience.


I'm quite sure there isn't any parodic intent and honestly I don't see Ellington as the kind of musician who liked to do parodies. He wasn't Frank Zappa. Jazz has always taken pieces everywhere and transformed, sometimes in very radical ways... altough I don't think this is the case, since for all the differences it's quite respectful. 
It's an impression of the original material that Ellington clearly liked, and it's made with taste and refinement. Just compare it with the majority of the things posted before (some are seriously awful) and the difference in quality is clear.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

I'm actually fine with it. I think it works out fine fairly often, although there are some attempts that misfire horribly. Some are just a matter of taste, like when some cheesy singer manages a hit with a melody from a *Chopin Prelude* (I'm looking at _you_, Barry).

I thought that the *"Hooked On . . . . "* series of records was pretty nifty when they first started coming out, but I don't think they've aged all that well. I'd put *Tomita*'s *Planets* in that basket as well. Even so, they're still a fun listen every once in a while.

I really enjoy most of the re-imagining that *Keith Emerson* and *The Nice* & *ELP* did.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

*A Whiter Shade of Pale* by *Procol Harum* (1967) uses the melody of Bach's "Air" from his Orchestral Suite #3.

The first of many to do so.


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

Corona Quarantine version of Turkish March...


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

*The Nice*

Keith Emerson plays a brief quote from Bach's *Toccata and Fugue in D minor* during extended keyboard solo in the middle of their Dave Brubeck inspired *Rondo* on their first album *The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack* (1967), back when they were a 4-pc. band.

They returned for their second album without the baggage of a guitarist. The fourth track is their interpretation of Intermezzo from *Sibelius*' *Karelia Suite*. There's two versions, the studio version recorded for their 1968 album *Ars Long Vita Brevis*, and later, a live version with Sinfonia London in 1969.










On this album the entirety of Side Two is taken up by a 6 movement work titled *Ars Long Vita Brevis* (Well, a Prelude, 4 movements, and a joke "Coda")

The third movement is titled *"3rd Movement - Acceptance "Brandenburger""* and cleverly interpolates the Allegro from *Bach*'s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3.


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## tortkis (Jul 13, 2013)

Rachmaninoff: Prelude in C# Minor, Sun Ra





Debussy: Clair de lune, Wallace Roney





I like to listen to creative musicians playing arrangements of or pieces inspired by classical works. Jacques Loussier's Bach album was my favorite and I listened to it repeatedly. I think Concierto de Aranjuez (adagio) by Gil Evans and Miles Davis is a masterpiece, although the composer didn't like it.


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## erki (Feb 17, 2020)

Vasks said:


> I went to a Virgil Fox "Heavy Organ" concert. He played Bach unaltered. He merely added a "Light Show" to keep the "uneducated" entertained. No harm. Lots of fun as he talked to the audience in between selections.


As an artist I like visual - also with music. Considering this was made in 1974 with available technology it is amazing. However I absolutely can not stand playing silly with audience. Pretty much all big names have done this and they have lost my respect right there.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

tortkis said:


> I think Concierto de Aranjuez (adagio) by Gil Evans and Miles Davis is a masterpiece, although the composer didn't like it.


on Sketches of Spain there's also this gorgeous interpretation of the Cancion del fuego fatuo written by Manuel De Falla


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

I don't believe anyone mentioned jazz flutist's Hubert Laws album "Rite of Spring". Here's an excerpt


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## Harmonie (Mar 24, 2007)

I got just a minute into that performance of the Messiah that the OP posted and I heard synths and had to turn it off.

This doesn't mean I can't handle modernization of anything, I listen to some modernized medieval tunes, afterall. The thing is I'm just really opinionated about instrumentation. I especially like the instrumentation of the Baroque, and when you take that away, I'm not happy.


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## DaddyGeorge (Mar 16, 2020)

Youtube (now) and music throughout history in general is full of "covers". Often, the authors themselves have adapted their works for e.g. other casts. The famous motives were used by many composers as a theme for variations. New instrumentations have arisen and arise. Nothing against it. In such cases, however, I consider it necessary to make such an adjustments by someone knowledgeable and talented, which unfortunately doesn't happen in most cases...


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