Classical Ruination

I said this year I wouldn't post as much, last year it was over a post a day, but this is post 188 so that is still and average of a post every two days, although some gaps between postings have been bigger than that , and obviously this is a post straight after yesterdays post.

I've listened to a chepo compilation called "Rock Instrumental Classics: Volume 3 - The Seventies" which barring Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein" , Electric Light Orchestra's "Daybreaker" and "Apricot Brandy" by Rhinoceros , is made up of funk and pop. There is "Rock and Roll Part 2" by Gary Glitter (and yes Paul Gadd , is an evil , vile person quite rightly behind bars, but should that stop us from appreciating the work of the rest of the band and his cowriter Mike Leander?) which it compares to "Tusk" by Fleetwood Mac , in that there's no real tune just a relentless sound with primeval calls and is still, in my opinion and impressive pop record , but I hope Gadd's royalties have been sequestered to help the sort of people the vile man abused.

Anyway in the songs on th ealbum are "Joy" by Apollo 100 a take on "Jesu Joy of Man's Desire", one of my favourite Bach pieces , "Also Sprach Zarathustra(2001)" an jazz take on the Strauss piece by Deodato , and "A Fifth of Beethoven" by Walter Murphy , all of which are more than enjoyable , especially the Deodato one. That's three classical lifts on one single disc compilation.

Manfred Mann's Earthband got permission from Gustav Holst's estate to use the composer's theme from "Jupiter" in "The Planets" suite in their single "Joybringer" . Keith Emerson with The Nice and Emerson Lake and Palmer plundered the classics  impressively over the years , with Mussorsky and Copland featuring highly in the band's repetoire.

Lots of pop songs left classical themes and melodies , Pachelbel's "Canon" reappearing so many times in the charts in various guises.

I've hardly scratched the surface on this, but will leave it here for now.

Listen Now

We often do things that may become monotonous if they are seemingly long tasks. I like walking , but the nature of walking means it takes time , and in this lockdown often the paths I take are repetitive. It's the same with work, you often have to do repetitive tasks or do tasks that require repetition.

Although your mind needs to be on the task it also wants (or mine does) something to break up the repetition , and I find listening to music is a great way of making repetitive things fly by. I had been walking but not listening to music and this week (because it's cold and my headphones keep my ears warm) I goy out the headphones and have listened to Roxy Music and Janelle Monae , and given that it's only 2°C outside I will need them today.

Workwise , working from home, enables me to listen while I do work , and share what I'm listening to on my Instagram channel. My Rhino box sets (when they came out it was roughly five albums for a tenner) have provided a lot of listening, recently that has been Grunge , Jean-Luc Ponty , Cockney Rebel and De John,

Each day I don't know what I am going to listen to , and this actually means I am not listening to the radio , but sometimes your own choice is a good thing to trust . During th eseventies there were two instrumentals that I loved , one was Deodato's take on Richard Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra" the the theme from Stanley Kubrick's "2001" , and  Roger Williams take of Bach's "Toccata" used as the them to "Rollerball" in 1975 , so I will share both of those with you , which you may or may not enjoy on this cold Friday Morning.

2001

Like the 1999 post the 2001 post will go the same way except not with the Prince song but the Arthur C Clarke book and the Stanley Kubrick film which still look jaw droppingly awesome now, fifty years sich it was brought to us in the days before CGI, and thank god no one has decided to to ty and remake it for a modern audience.

The original main theme is "Also Spake Zarathustra" (there are various alternate spellings and wordings by Richard Strauss , also used to open Elvis Presley's '68 Comeback Special , but remember being shouted down in a pab discussion when the shouters said it was Holst, proves that shouting louder does win the argument.

Johann Strauss was the composer of the "Blue Danube" for the docking scene included below.

So this is post 2001 with some appropriately great video and musical accompaniment. I know there's not many words but it is good to be able to share this film and book and if you haven't read the book or seen the film do yourself a favour and make time to do it now.