Prog Bands With Strong Classical Music Influences

Necrotica wrote: Plus, there's also Gentle Giant, Le Orme, Van der Graaf Generator, and Banco del Mutuo Soccorso

GreatBeyonder wrote: Check out Frank Zappa, who was a legitimate classical composer. He tended to favor extremely complex arrangements influenced by Stravinsky, Varese, and Webern.

I recommend a compilation:

Strictly Genteel - A Classical Introduction to Frank Zappa.

I hate to talk about Egg all the time, but well... Anyway, there is that work of their's "Symphony No. 2". The 3rd movement of the piece was not released, because one of the producers noticed a too strong of a Stravinsky "Rite Of Spring" quote. They replaced the movement with a weird, unmusical electronic work-out called "Blane". This 3rd movement was re-released many years later. It is not on YouTube, I'd love to be able to share it with you. Maybe sometime I will take my time to upload it from my account. As for now however, there is a cover of the piece by my internet-buddy Gietek, a big Egg nut.

Have a listen! The main themes are from Stravinsky's "Rite Of Spring" and what appears later is a part of Holst's "The Planets" suite, "Neptune, the mystic" to be percise.

This is really classical-inspired prog in a very clear form.

presdoug wrote: ALotOfBottle wrote: I listened to some Beggar's Opera today. I remembered I really liked it when I had listened to it about 2 years ago. Man, was I blown away? "Raymond's Road" on their first album is delicious! That's really cool! Their debut is chock full of great classical music references; I also like "Light Cavalry" very much from their debut.

Yes, that one is a great track. Also, kudos for a Bruckner quote. He is a criminally underrated figure in the world of classical music!


Edited by ALotOfBottle - April 01 2016 at 10:43