The Beatles Wrote Classical Music
The Beatles were a well known English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960 with members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. The Beatles became regarded as the foremost and most influential act in the rock era who were experimenting with several musical styles including pop ballads and Indian music. In the past decade or so, individual members of the group have branched out into music which corresponds to classical music, such as concerto form. In 1977 Beatles-lover John Rutter, a highly successful and talented choral music writer and arranger, realised that several of the beautiful melodies that The Beatles had written and recorded had the potential to be developed further within
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Like most classical composition this is not set in stone. This modern concerto has only three but the finale is in an unrelenting presto which opens in a style of a modern composer such as George Gershwin and his Rhapsody in Blue. The tune is one of the earliest recorded by the Beatles, not the likeliest candidate for inclusion in a concerto, which is probably why it was chosen. It proves beyond doubt that even in its crudest form, popular music can be transformed into something divine by a clever arranger and inspired performance. The movement quickly resolves into the more lyrical song, The Long and Winding Road, which incorporated in its original form all of McCartney’s wish list. Rutter and the two pianists augment McCartney’s vision but very quickly return to the opening tune, paying homage as they do to the classic concerto style. Strains of Rachmaninov in particular make an appearance, with short appearances by Tschaikovsky and Greig to emphasise the connection between this work and the great classical