Canon Rock
I tell you the truth, Google Video is the biggest time-sucking pit this side of the Internet. After being directed to an old news story about the “Internet“ (which discusses “emoticons“ and explains how :-( translates to I'M SERIOUS). Sure enough, I came across another gem showcasing some real-world karma, and eventually to a really amazing guitar performance by some guy named JerryC doing a rocking rendition of Pachebel's Canon in D. Now, I just need to find an MP3 version of this song!
I'm a big fan of classical music, especially Romantic period piano pieces (Chopin, Schumann, Schubert, Beethoven and the like), and went through a bit of a classical techno phase several years back after finding this great techno version of a Mozart Piano Concerto. (I post the file here assuming that it's free for everyone, seeing as I downloaded it for free from the artist's site on MP3.com back when they existed; no luck finding any information about the author or his other pieces. Interestingly, I did contact him through MP3.com, back in the day, asking him about other songs of his, but (at the time) he said this was his only classical piece, unfortunately.)
I've not really explored rock versions of classical pieces, although many pop and rap songs “borrow” from classical pieces rather unabashedly. The Blues Travelers one big hit, The Hook, has under its covers the Canon in D melody, and then there are rap songs galore that take classical pieces, add a beat and some lyrics, and then sell like crazy (such as Nas's song “I Can,“ which hopefully introduced Beethoven's Fur Elise to a new generation).
All this thinking/reminiscing about music brings to mind the desert island game. If you were stranded on a desert island (and somehow, miraculously, had a working, solar-powered CD player), but could only have three songs, what would they be? It may be cheating choosing a concerto or symphony as a single song, since they can last anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour, but so be it. Anywho, I think these would be my three:
- Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 3 - this was “the piece“ in the movie Shine. Since Rachmaninov was an early twentieth century composer, there are (albeit scratchy) recordings of him playing his own pieces. A few years back I actually got for Christmas a box set of CDs of pieces played by Rachmaninov. While the recording quality is pretty poor, it's neat to hear the composer himself play his pieces, and hear how he intended them to sound. (Perhaps this piece is unfairly on my list at this time, seeing as my wife and I have tickets to hear this at the symphony in May, so I'm a bit jazzed about this piece.)
- Mozart's Piano Concerto No 21 or No 23, it's a toss up. These are, in my opinion, Mozart's two best piano concertos, each with three wonderful movements. I like both so much, it's a tough call which of the two to take. It would probably come down to a coin flip.
- And for my third and final choice, I'd mix it up a bit, something to add a little bit of a pip in my step for those mind-numbingly boring days, which probably are quite common on a desert island. Scott Joplin's The Easy Winners. Not the ragtime master's most well-known piece, but one of the best ones, if you ask me. Yes, The Entertainer is swell, and Maple Leaf Rag sure is catchy, but I think The Easy Winners can liven up my day in a way that his other rags cannot.
What's on your list?