Classic rocker tries his hand at classical

Starting with hit albums like 1970's In Rock and 1972's Machine Head, Deep Purple became nearly synonymous with hard rock.

While the critical response to Deep Purple keyboardist Jon Lord's Concerto for Group and Orchestra, as performed at the Royal Albert Hall in 1969 and at the Hollywood Bowl in 1970, was far more mixed than that to the subsequent rock albums, Lord never lost his classical dream.

Over the following decades, Lord continued his classical experimentation, including a spin into the Baroque in the late 1970s with the album Sarabande and a pastoral soundtrack co-composed with Alfred Ralston titled "The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady."

With 2010's To Notice Such Things quickly taking fourth spot on the UK classical music charts after its spring release, it's clear Lord's persistence to build on the legacy of British composers like Purcell, Elgar and Vaughan Williams while still keeping one pedal to the metal is as popular as it is interesting.

"I bought Bernstein Plays Brubeck Plays Bernstein with the Dave Brubeck Quartet playing with the New York Philharmonic and loved it," Lord told The Prague Post from his home in Oxfordshire about an early 1960s venture into classical fusion. "It didn't all work, but I was taken by it. When I was first becoming a professional musician and began studying music theory and orchestration, I always thought, 'One day.' "

That day would come, in April 1969.

"My manager asked me, 'Are you serious about that idea for a group and an orchestra?' And I said, 'Sure.' And he said, 'Well, you better get working because I've booked the Albert Hall and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for September,' " Lord recalls.

Since 2003, from London to Brazil, Lord's revised concerto has been well-received by audiences the world over. On Sept. 21, Lord's Concerto for Group and Orchestra will make its Prague premiere with Hungary's Györ Philharmonic Orchestra. The event promises to give concertgoers a chance to enjoy the ongoing progress of Lord's classical-rock fusion. Not only have Lord's composition and orchestration skills improved, but as he says, "Today, orchestras are more open to playing this sort of thing than they were in 1969."

Whether reworking the concerto, presenting new original classical works or mining rock gems from the past, Lord admits there are traps to be avoided.

"I don't like using the orchestra as a backing group," he said. "I like to use the orchestra as a living full entity in whatever I do. It's sometimes difficult for me to find the right way to present a Deep Purple song with an orchestra, so I work very hard at it so that it does not appear the orchestra could be replaced, for example, by a giant synthesizer."

Also accompanying Lord will be Hungarian heavy metal band Cry Free.

"I've worked with them six or seven times performing the concerto - in Hungary, Russia and Vienna," Lord said. "Purple is one of their passions, and they understand the concerto and what I want from it."

Purists will likely shun the mix of classical and hard-rock influences, but as one music critic concluded in the liner notes of the 1999 re-release of Lord's Sarabande:

"It's just goddamn fun music."

Darrell Jónsson can be reached at
features@praguepost.com