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ASO Plays Deep Purple
Jon Lord / Benjamin Northey / ASO
Adelaide Festival Theatre
Fri 28 March
Season closed
The Adelaide Symphony has presented a number of cross-over rock programmes to date with varying degrees of success. However these performances with legendary keyboard exponent, composer and Deep Purple member Jon Lord immediately set these shows apart. And it was the quirky yet strangely satisfying Concerto for Group and Orchestra - originally written by Lord in 1969 - which finally proved that these crowd-drawing concerts could actually work if the musicians involved were given material that would satisfy all involved.
There is little doubt the reason for the success lay within the Concerto with Lord's avuncular presence and brilliance as a Hammond organ virtuoso of the highest order to the fore. For after a rather cheesy taped Beeb radio introduction - made no doubt at the time of the work's premiere performance - all involved gave an impassioned account of the three movement work which Lord had described as a battle between musical forces and styles, before reaching lyrical acquiescence in the finale.
The concerto has had a rather troubled history in that after its initial performances in London and at the Hollywood Bowl, scores were lost, and it was only in the late 'nineties that the work was satisfactorily reconstructed. Since that time in the late 'nineties, the work has received over fifty orchestral performances.
Vince Contarino's Zep Boys proved to be up to the task; however for most of them it was apparent that they were coming from an opposing perspective to that of Lord's magisterial 'blues meets baroque' approach that had set such a stamp on then contemporary rock music. The Zep Boys played very well but musically it was a look backwards... Vince Contarino sang beautifully, sparking well-deserved comparisons with Ian Gillan.
The second half of the concert was devoted to the usual run of Deep Purple's hits (Black Night, Highway Star, Smoke On The Water...) in usual arrangements. However, it's amazing how a great soloist can lift a performance. And this Lord certainly did when returning to play Hammond on the epic Child In Time.
Brett Allen-Bayes
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