Sending classical music into Orbit

Almost imperceptibly, Decca have sneaked out a second volume of William Orbit's 'Pieces In A Modern Style'.

This may not seem like a massive event, but I remember the furore over the first album when Orbit was on Warners. Copyright issues prevented its release for a long time, and when it did finally come out in 2000 the reaction amongst many of the classical press was one of horror. It sold well, though, and introduced a lot of people to new music in the process.

Especially successful was his arrangement of Barber's 'Adagio for Strings' was hugely successful, a sort of cloudy synthesized registration that stayed faithful to the original, like a mottled Wendy Carlos. Orbit maintains this second volume is more to do with his love of the music rather than a desire to turn more people to classical music, which I firmly believe having interviewed him twice in recent years, but it may have the same effect once again.

It's fair to assume the classical press will continue in their indifference, especially when there are arrangements such as Elgar's 'Nimrod' to be heard. It seems here that Orbit has drawn from the success not just of Barber's 'Adagio' but also its remix by Ferry Corsten, who turned it into a floor filling trance music monster.

'Nimrod' ends up pitched some way in between, with some odd sounding bleeps and atmospherics that break down to a slightly psychedelic bit in the middle. Unfortunately the impact is harmed somewhat by the piece ending that bit too fast. Listening to it I was reminded of the time I tried to write a piece of trance music lifting the chords from Elgar's Cello Concerto, which was certainly unusual but petered out all too quickly once it had run its course.

Some of Orbit's arrangements stand the music on its head. 'Morning' from Grieg's 'Peer Gynt' has a very strange emphasis rhythmically, and while it loses a lot of its charm it benefits from an interesting choice of instrumentation. Likewise 'In Paradisum', which leans on Fauré's beautiful harmonic sleights in the last movement of his Requiem, while Bach's 'Arioso' tries some neat spatial tricks. Unfortunately Saint-Saëns' 'Aquarium', from 'Carnival of the Animals', is not so successful, laced liberally with cheese.

While the above proves is that these arrangements won't please everybody familiar with the originals, and might even annoy, but at no time is Orbit trying to preach from a soapbox. He simply loves the music, and wants to use his abilities in the studio to present it in a different light.

Even if the only thing to come out of the listening experience is a greater respect for the original, that surely has to be a good thing too.