OCTOBER 19, 2010 12:07PM

Frank Zappa's Classical Music

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Those of you who have never seen this artist perform this song, I envy you your delight and surprise on seeing Zappa with "Peaches in Regalia" for the first time:
 
 
I think classical musicians should all watch this video and recognize that Frank Zappa is what future generations are largely going to mean when they say "classical music in the late 20th century".
 
The road to the 4-dimensional crystalline perfection of Phillip Glass was paved by the LSD-crazed Let's Make the Water Turn Black by Frank Zappa.
 
It was Zappa (and hundreds of others like him less known) who stated artistically, a la Carly Simon that "these are the good old days" and decided that the music of their times was The Music, despite its clash with received European values.
 
Zappa made that music and portrayed with it not the Ideal which European classical music often portrays, but the Real, the gritty, cement-paved cultural wasteland of neon instant gratification that he saw around him in the Los Angeles and the America of his era.
 
I write this as I practice up Brahms 1st Symphony for a tuxedo-constricted rehearsal on Thursday. My intellect and skill are in Brahms this week, but my heart's in the modern stuff, the Classical Music of my era and ear.
 
Update:  I should have made clear that Dweezil is the Zappa playing in these performances.  There are also Frank performances of the same pieces on YouTube. After Peaches in Regalia you might also watch the two YouTube tranches of  Inca Roads {1,2} which is also a masterpiece. 

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