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| Concerto for Group and Orchestra | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Live album by | ||||
| Released | December 1969 (US) January 1970 (UK) | |||
| Recorded | 24 September 1969 | |||
| Venue | Royal Albert Hall (London) | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 59:26 | |||
| Label | Tetragrammaton (US) Harvest (UK) Polydor (Canada) | |||
| Producer | Deep Purple | |||
| Deep Purple chronology | ||||
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Concerto for Group and Orchestra is a live album by Deep Purple and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Malcolm Arnold. Recorded at London's Royal Albert Hall in September 1969, it consists of a concerto composed by Jon Lord, with lyrics by Ian Gillan.
The first full length album to feature Gillan on vocals and Roger Glover on bass, it was released on vinyl in December 1969. It was also the last Purple album distributed in the US by Tetragrammaton Records, which went defunct shortly after.[citation needed]
The original performance included three additional songs: "Hush", "Wring That Neck", and "Child in Time". These were added to a 2002 reissue.
Long planned by Jon Lord, the project was not very successful in the United States but helped restore Purple's reputation and image in the United Kingdom. [1]
The 1969 performance is considered "groundbreaking" because it was the first time that a major rock band recorded a live album with a full-fledged orchestra, cementing the "then odd but today very common" relationship between heavy rock and classical music. [2][Note 1]
"I thought it was a total gimmick," observed guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. "I told Jon I'd be prepared to try it, but that I had a lot of heavy rock numbers I wanted to put on an LP, and we'd see which one took off. I didn't want to be involved with the concerto because of the novelty effect, and the press we were getting out of playing it at the Royal Albert Hall. But I said that if the next LP didn't take off, I was prepared to play with orchestras for the rest of my life."[3]
The original score for the concerto was lost in 1970. However, it was performed again in 1999 with a recreated score, and has been performed several times since.[citation needed]
- ^ "Music Review: Deep Purple - Concerto for Group and Orchestra", by David Bowling. Published by the Seattlepi.com on January 18, 2012. Link: https://www.seattlepi.com/lifestyle/blogcritics/article/music-review-deep-purple-concerto-for-group-2612534.php
- ^ "Concerto For Group And Orchestra: Deep Purple Marry Rock And Classical", by David Bowling, published by UDiscoverMusic.com on September 24, 2024. Link: https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/deep-purple-concerto-for-group-and-orchestra-album/
- ^ Black, Johnny (February 2014). "The birth of heavy". Classic Rock. No. 193. p. 63.
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