Pete Tong plays Schubert on Radio 1
mainThat’s what it says here:
DJ PETE TONG PLAYS SCHUBERT REMIX ON BBC RADIO 1
The greatest classical composers meet the world’s most innovative electronic music artists.
And this is what it sounds like.
Re:works is the result of a groundbreaking project that sees the rich catalogue of Decca Classics being opened to some of the world’s foremost electronic producers, including Mr Scruff, Starkey, Henrik Schwarz, Fort Romeau, Patrice Bamuel, Martin Buttrich and Kate Simko. Their classical remixes are already being played in clubs from XOYO to DC10 in Ibiza.
Over the last few years, the lines between classical and contemporary electronic music have been blurred more than ever before. High-profile orchestral collaborations from some of the scene’s leading figures have brought the compatibility of these seemingly disparate genres into sharp focus, opening doors to new avenues of musical exploration.
Re:works seeks to further establish the common ground between the historic and modern day aspects of musical composition, opening the hallowed Decca vaults to a selection of seminal electronic artists.
Composers including Bach, Beethoven, Rachmaninov, Satie and Reich created some of the most timeless classic music ever made: remixing these compositions is no small undertaking, but the results are nothing short of breathtaking.
Take my breath away.
I am quite broad-minded when it comes to musical arrangements, and I really tried hard to like this “remix” of Schwanengesang. And when those electronic percussive drum noises (as unrelenting a set of sounds as ever there was) stopped for a few moments, we could then hear some of the other ideas, some of which (despite the boring tone colours that synthesised sounds give) were at least mildly interesting. But therein lies my personal problem with this “new take” on this music. There is just too much going on – the arranger seems not to trust themselves, nor the music, to stay in one place, even for a moment. Instead there is non-stop shifting, everything piled on top of everything else, frenetic foot-hopping. It’s like a stew where the cook feels that one meat might not be interesting enough: so they throw in chicken, pork, beef and lamb on top of all the vegetables: the final result has no discernable character.
They could at least have got the title of the original piece right:
Satie: Gnoissinnes No. 4… and then
Satie: Gnoissiennes No 1…
Not seeing the Peter Tong one anywhere, either