Title : The Queen Symphony
Author : Kashif, Tolga
Release Date : 20030107
Binding : Audio CD
Regular Price : $17.98
Amazon.com Price : $12.99
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Editorial Reviews : Tolga Kashif is a London-based composer, and for this CD he has orchestrated some of the rock group Queen's songs into a six-section symphony. The effect is definitely more classical than popular. Kashif sometimes uses almost entire songs as the basis for a section, while at other times he takes a piece of a song here, a piece of a song there. He builds on these melodies in his own symphonic voice, which is closer to the Romanticism of the Russian composers than to anyone else. Queen relied on a certain outrageousness, and merely by doing what he's done here, Kashif is sure to continue in that tradition. It's hard to tell for whom this CD is meant: Queen fans will be either delighted or horrified by 'Who wants to live forever?' without either a guitar or Freddie Mercury's seductive whine; newcomers won't care much. If lush orchestral writing (and interjections, equally lush, by a chorus) is something that fascinates you, this might just work. There's nothing of 'greatness' here, but it's not a bauble to be thrown away either.
Buyer Reviews : Reviewer Robert Levine says 'It's not a bauble to be thrown away.' yes it is. There's not an original musical thought in this pretentious 'I-wanna-be-as-legitimate-as-a-classical-composer-but-I-don't-want-to-really-study-the-classics' album. Why do so many anging rockers think the road to 'legitimacy' is to put their tunes in a medly and orchestrate them (or hire someone to orchestrate them) like 2nd class Rachmaninoff. That's what we have here, from first track to last. If the strings got any more lush, the English Horns any more thick, the chorus any more 'John Williams,' I think I would choke on my own vomit. The sad thing is, many middle class boomer households, anxious to show the neighbors and relatives they're educated and have a toe-hold on the upper middle class, will throw this on the stereo instead of exploring really interesting music by Ravel, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, or Sibelius.
What's also sad is interesting things could undoubtedly be done with this music, with novel orchestrations that explore the hartmonic and textural relations among the various lines, rather than opting for orchestral cliches. In the 1960s there was a serious effort to do with with jazz, the so-called 'Third Stream' movement. While the experiments didn't always work, they did result in some new effects, fresh ways of looking at old music, when they did. But no one is that daring anymore. It's safer to make music you could play in a K-Mart and not raise an eyebrow. What happened to rock and roll being the music of rebellion and not adult diapers?
Hey, boomers. Get yourself some *modern* music for a change. I realize it may be pretty new to you, but you can start with stuff that's only about 100 years old: Debussy, Sibelius, Mahler, Delius and D'Indy.
