Remembering John Lennon and the rest of the Fab Four

Much has been written and spoken in the days leading up to the October 9th birthdate of John Lennon, the late, lamented singer/songwriter and former member of The Beatles until 1970. If he had lived, he would be 70 today, and that is certainly pause for thought for aging baby-boomers everywhere. Who knows what he might have created and/or accomplished in his life had it not been cut short in 1980 by Mark David Chapman, who remains behind bars for his crime.

But rather than write another retrospective on the life and career of John Lennon, I want instead to write about a less-obvious connection between The Beatles, quite possibly the most influential band of the 20th century, and classical music, which underwent significant changes during that same century. Truth be told, they are not strange bedfellows, mutually exclusive of influence on each side.

When The Beatles formed in Liverpool, England, in 1959, they began by covering pop tunes of the day at first, but quickly graduated to performing their own material. Much of that early material came from the songwriting team of Paul McCartney and John Lennon, two of the most gifted young songwriters of their time. Although huge hits such as She Loves You and Hard Day's Night owe little if anything to classical music. some of their other, and later material, did. One has only to listen to one of the most-recorded songs of any era, Yesterday, written by Lennon and McCartney, to notice the use of a string quartet, quite rare for the music of the time. I have no idea whose idea that was, be it from The Beatles themselves or perhaps their producer, George Martin. But the end result is so beguilingly simple as to be too obvious to comprehend. The song, simple in sound, is quite complex in its construction, and that is the genius of The Beatles: they could take a complex idea and boil it down to a level that would be accepted by the mainstream pop audience of the day, yet all the while mainting the music's integrity.

Other songs made effective use of strings: Penny Lane, for example, in the late 60s, which also employed a baroque trumpet to great effect. Eleanor Rigby, with those pulsing strings, is a classic example of pop meeting classical and both sides benefitting from the marriage. The jury is still out on the large orchestral forces employed in The Long And Winding Road, however. While powerful in a way, most today tend to think it was over-produced and over-orchestrated. Be that as it may, even that song showed a strong connection to classical roots.

On the other side of the coin, many classical composers and performers embraced The Beatles' music from early on, employing the tunes into large montages or writing variations on one of those famous themes. Perhaps the grand-daddy of all these adaptations is the Beatlecracker Suite, recorded in the mid-1960s with the Arthur Wilkinson Orchestra on Capitol Records. Although the suite, taking up a whole side of the original LP, is only a smidgen over 10 minutes, It is the sheer brilliance of the arrangements, melding The Beatles' tunes with the Nutcracker Suite by Thaikovsky that make the work still sound fresh and vital today. Unfortunately, that original recording on Capitol remains unreleased, and a newer recording on a collection of familiar classical themes was only discontinued this past year. It was great to hear the recording, though, and I proudly own both versions in my personal collection.

In the late 70s, dual pianists Rostal & Schaeffer joined forces with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra to record The Beatles Concerto, a three-movement work along standard classical lines recorded for Angel Records. It was a tasteful take on the music of The Beatles, but sadly has never made it to CD to the best of my knowlege. But again, I own the original LP in my collection, and might even get around to transferring it to CD in the near future. There have been lots of similar recordings since then, of course, with varying degrees of success, but these I've listed are the classic recordings to have in your collection if you're so inclined.

On my website, which you can find at www.finemusic.ca, I include a long list of 'Mike's Picks', interesting recordings you might want to own. Last year I featured that now-discontinued recording of The Beatlecracker Suite, recording by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. Later this month, when I put together my monthly newsletter, the Fine Music Newsletter, I'll include those two iconic two-LP sets of Beatles hits: the two that are now simply known as the Red album and the Blue album. The red album chronicles the early years of The Beatles, while the Blue album does the same with the later years. The two are available again on single discs, and now specially combined into a deluxe CD package for the casual Beatles fan or the die-hard Beatles affionado who for some reason doesn't own the original albums after all these years. There is also a deluxe version combining both sets, which I think would be the way to go if you want a great collection of Beatles classics. Look for those sets on the website later this month.

Of couse, you can always visit my website, at www.finemusic.ca, for a complete list of available recordings as well as a complete arts calendar for the area and beyond. Can't find what you want? No problem; just email me your queries at music@vaxxine.com and I will see what I can do about locating that elusive piece of music you remember hearing years ago.

Beyond their own material, many of the classic Beatles tunes have been done so many ways over the years, including clever classical arrangements such as those heard on Peter Breiner's recording of Beatles Go Baroque, still available at a bargain price on the Naxos label, that I think we'll always be listening to their material for years to come. And why not? Lennon and McCartney, along with George Harrison and Ringo Starr, defined an age and changed how we look at popular music. That's a pretty good legacy to keep with you, wouldn't you think?

October 9th, 2010.