| Concerto for Group and Orchestra | |
| Type: | live |
| Artist: | Deep Purple & The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Cover: | Concerto Deep Purple.jpg |
| Released: | December 1969 (US) January 1970 (UK) |
| Recorded: | 24 September 1969 |
| Venue: | Royal Albert Hall (London) |
| Length: | 59:26 |
| Label: | Tetragrammaton (US) Harvest (UK) Polydor (Canada) |
| Producer: | Deep Purple |
| Chronology: | Deep Purple |
| Prev Title: | Deep Purple |
| Prev Year: | 1969 |
| Next Title: | Deep Purple in Rock |
| Next Year: | 1970 |
Concerto for Group and Orchestra is a live album by Deep Purple and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Arnold, recorded at the Royal Albert Hall, London, in September 1969. It consists of a concerto composed by Jon Lord, with lyrics written by Ian Gillan. This is the first full length album to feature Ian Gillan on vocals and Roger Glover on bass. It was released on vinyl in December 1969. The original performance included three additional Deep Purple songs, "Hush", "Wring That Neck", and "Child in Time"; these were included on a 2002 release. This was the last Deep Purple album distributed in the US by Tetragrammaton Records, which went defunct shortly after.
This album, a long planned project driven by Jon Lord, was not very successful in the United States but helped to restore Deep 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]
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.
The piece was first performed and recorded on 24 September 1969 in the Royal Albert Hall, London, by Deep Purple and The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Malcolm Arnold. The programme consisted of:
| Concerto | |
| Subtitle: | for Group and Orchestra |
| Composer: | Jon Lord |
| Period: | Contemporary period |
| Form: | Concerto |
| Composed: | 1969 |
| Duration: | About 50–55 minutes |
| Movements: | Three |
| Scoring: | Orchestra and group |
| Premiere Date: | 24 September 1969 |
| Premiere Conductor: | Malcolm Arnold |
| Premiere Location: | Royal Albert Hall, London |
Concerto for Group and Orchestra is split into three movements.[3]
The Concerto was first performed at the Albert Hall in London on 24 September 1969 with Deep Purple and The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Arnold. It was performed at second time at the Hollywood Bowl on 25 August 1970, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Lawrence Foster, after which the score was lost.
Concerto for Group and Orchestra was released on vinyl in December 1969 in the United States (Tetragrammaton) and in January 1970 in the United Kingdom (Harvest). These releases contained only the "Concerto", with the second movement broken in two-halves. Copies of the original US editions are rare as Tetragrammaton went bankrupt while the album was still being issued. In the following year, the Concerto became the only Tetragrammaton release to be reissued by Warner Bros., Deep Purple's new US label. On 4 April 1970 the Concerto was shown on British television as The Best of Both Worlds. The 1990s saw a CD release including the songs "Wring That Neck" and "Child in Time". In 2002 EMI released special edition DVD-A, SACD and two-CD sets of Concerto for Group and Orchestra, featuring the entire programme of music played that night. In 2003 a video recording of this concert was released on DVD. However, four and a half minutes of the 1st Movement are missing in this video, as it was taken straight from the BBC's 4 April 1970 broadcast of the event (see above). The edit was in the original BBC broadcast.
| Concerto for Group and Orchestra | |
| Type: | video |
| Artist: | Deep Purple & The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra |
| Cover: | Concerto For Group And Orchestra.jpg |
| Released: | 4 April 1970 (TV), 6 May 2003 (DVD) |
| Recorded: | 24 September 1969 |
| Genre: | Classical crossover, progressive rock |
| Length: | 52:30 The Best of Both Worlds |
| Label: | Eagle Vision |
| Chronology: | Deep Purple video |
| Next Title: | Live in Concert 72/73 |
| Next Year: | 2005 |
On 25 and 26 September 1999, thirty years after its initial performance, the Concerto was again performed in front of a live audience in the Royal Albert Hall. To make this performance possible, a new score was created by Lord with the assistance of Paul Mann and Marco de Goeij by listening to the recording and watching the video of the 1969 performance.[4] Performers were:
organ guitar vocals bass drums |
|
bass
drums |
trumpet and flugelhorn
|
The programme consisted of:
A recording of the concert was released on a double CD as Live at the Royal Albert Hall. A cut recording of the performance was also released on DVD, entitled In Concert with the London Symphony Orchestra.
Encouraged by the success of the 1999 performances, Deep Purple took the Concerto on tour, first performing it in South America with local orchestras, then in Europe with the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra, in Japan with the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, all conducted by Paul Mann.
On 24 September 2009 Jon Lord joined the RTÉ Concerto Orchestra in the National Concert Hall, Dublin, Ireland to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first performance of Concerto for Group and Orchestra.[5] [6] Also performed, were pieces from Jon Lord's solo career and a number of Deep Purple songs including an orchestral version of Child In Time.
The score of the concerto having been recreated, groups and orchestras across the world were free to perform it:
| Dates | Venue | Performers | |
|---|---|---|---|
| January 2003 (3 performances) | Sydney Opera House, Australia for the Sydney Festival | George and The Sydney Symphony Orchestra | |
| March 2003 (2 performances) | Perth, Australia | Jon Lord, George and The Western Australian Symphony Orchestra | |
| July 2006 | Henley Festival, England | ||
| 7 October 2007 | Malcolm Arnold Festival, Northampton, England | Jon Lord and The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra | |
| This festival in memory of the late Malcolm Arnold also included Arnold's Symphony No. 6 and Lord's Masque, a work dedicated to Arnold. | |||
| 27–29 March 2008 (3 performances) | Adelaide, Australia | Jon Lord and The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra | |
| 11–12 March 2009 (2 performances) | Bratislava, Slovakia | Jon Lord and The Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra | |
| 2 May 2009 | São Paulo, Brazil | Jon Lord and Orquestra Sinfônica Municipal de São Paulo | |
| 1 September 2009 | Plovdiv, Bulgaria | Jon Lord with singers Doogie White and Kasia Łaska, Darin Vasilev (guitar), Ivaylo Zvezdomirov (bass), Venko Poromanski (drums) and Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Nayden Todorov | |
| 5 November 2009 | Bucharest, Romania | Jon Lord and Rousse Orchestra | |
| 16 May 2010 | Newark, Delaware, United States | Brian Stone and the University of Delaware Symphony Orchestra | |
| 16 June 2010 | Liverpool, United Kingdom | Jon Lord and The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra | |
| 28 April 2011 | Palermo, Italy | Jon Lord and The Vincenzo Bellini Symphony Orchestra | |
| 6 June 2011 | Mulhouse, France | Jon Lord with singers Steve Balsamo, Kasia Łaska and Patrick Rondat (guitar), Patrice Guers (bass), Steve White (drums) and the Orchestre Symphonique de Mulhouse. Musical direction by Gwennolé Rufet. | |
| 21–22 November 2019 | Palais Montcalm, Québec, Canada | 50th anniversary performance and Canadian premiere featuring Iron Maiden lead singer Bruce Dickinson, The Paul Deslauriers Band and the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec. Musical direction by Paul Mann. | |
| 5 November 2021 | Audi Aréna, Győr, Hungary | Hungarian premiere featuring Iron Maiden lead singer Bruce Dickinson, Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover, and the Győr Philharmonic Orchestra. Musical Direction by Paul Mann. | |
| 15 March–25 April 2023 | Bucharest, Sofia, Sarajevo, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Sao Paolo, Rio De Janeiro and other cities | 11-date European and Brazilian tour featuring Iron Maiden lead singer Bruce Dickinson, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo (OSESP), Kaitner Z Doka (guitar), Bernhard Welz (drums), John O'Hara (Jethro Tull) (keyboards), Tanya O'Callaghan (Whitesnake) (bass) and Mario Argandoña (percussion). Musical Direction by Paul Mann. | |
In October 2012 a studio version of the Concerto for Group and Orchestra was released. The recording features the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Paul Mann. The soloists are Jon Lord (organ), Darin Vasilev (guitar in the 1st movement), Joe Bonamassa (guitar in the 2nd movement), Steve Morse (guitar in the 3rd movement), Steve Balsamo, Kasia Łaska, and Bruce Dickinson (vocals), Brett Morgan (drums), and Guy Pratt (bass). The orchestral parts were recorded at the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool on 1 and 2 June 2011. The band parts were recorded in August and October 2011 and also in May 2012. The album was mixed at Abbey Road Studios in late May 2012. According to Paul Mann, Jon Lord heard the final master of the recording a few days before his death on 16 July 2012.
In an interview for hospital radio in Huddersfield in 1970, shortly after the Royal Albert Hall performance, Arnold provided a positive take on the experience:[7]
In a 1979 interview with Sounds magazine[8] Blackmore said:
The cover art of the Swedish heavy metal band Opeth's 2010 concert DVD In Live Concert at the Royal Albert Hall is intentionally similar in layout, colour and motive to that of Deep Purple's Concerto for Group and Orchestra, "underlining Opeth's longstanding love for their prog-rock roots".[9]
Vincent Budd, The Gemini Man: an Introduction to the Orchestral Works of Jon Lord, 2003, Gnosis Press