Monday, May 31, 2010

Magma Rocks

Magma is one of the most unique and amazing group of musicians ever, featuring dense, lenthy, complex classical/jazz/rock compositons with operatic vocals sung in the fictional Kobaian language. Two videos for you of this amazing band: a live performance of material from their latest album, as well as a segment from a live DVD recording.



Saturday, May 29, 2010

Glass Hammer

Modern proggers Glass Hammer released a new album in November of 2009 entitled "Three Cheers for the Broken Hearted." I've attached a video for one of the songs, as well as a video trailer for the excellent DVD "Live at Belmont."



Friday, May 28, 2010

Stay Focused with a bit of Hocus Pocus!

One of my favorite videos. The song has been covered by a number of other bands, but you just can't beat the heavy metal yodeling found in the original. This performance from 1973 is just plain amazing, and the video quality is superb given its age. Enjoy! I know I've watched it over and over since I found it a few years ago.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

More Richard Harvey & John Williams

I could not resist posting some more wonderful music videos featuring the compositions of Richard Harvey. Enjoy! I'm just including links in this post as some of the videos could not be embedded.

These could not be embedded, so here are links to selections from Plague and the Moonflower:

Lots more is available on youtube search for "Richard Harvey."

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Guitarrist John Williams and Richard Harvey

Most of you will be familiar with the famous classical guitarrist John Williams. You may not be as familiar with the multi-instrumentallist/composer Richard Harvey. Harvey is a graduate from the Royal College of Music and was a co-founder of the '70s classical/folk/rock band Gryphon. Since then he has composed for and peformed on many television and film scores. Harvey is proficient on a wide range of instruments, as can be seen in the two attached videos.

Richard Harvey and John Williams have worked together on a number of projects in recent years. In 1995 Harvey composed the Concerto Antico for Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra. Harvey contributed to William's "Musical Box" album. More recently, The two musicians recorded a live concert in japan that will soon be released on DVD. These two clips are from that concert.



Tuesday, May 25, 2010

The Gryphon Soars Once More

Gryphon was a mostly instromental Renaissance/folk/rock band in the 70's. Their first album was entirely acoustic, with a number of of traditional songs mixed with original compositons. Their albums became progressively more rock-like, but always retained a very strong connection to early classical music.

Over the last few years its members have been working together on new material. In June of 2009 they put on a revival concert at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. This video is from that performance. Unfortunately the camera is panned out too far to really see the various instruments that they play, but it's great to listen to.

Tomorrow I'll be posting some great footage of one of Gryphon's members, Richard Harvey, performing with guitarist John Williams. The music of Gryphon and Richard Harvey were featured on episode 24 of the Classical Connection.

Monday, May 24, 2010

On Reflection of Gentle Giant

Recently I've been listening a bit to one of my favorite '70s prog bands: Gentle Giant. When I first discovered this band as a college student I went out and bought every one of their albums in 3 weeks (and it only took that long because I had to special order most of them). The band members all sang and played at least 30 different instruments between them, often trading mid-song! Music was diverse, ranging from Renaissance to 20th C. classical to hard rock ... and beautifully complex. You can find many great videos of theirs on YouTube. Here is one of my favorites: On Reflection, beginning with a rather classical arrangement, then a capella singing, then a good hard rock treatment of the same themes.