Analysis: Jon Lord's Concerto for Group and Orchestra (1969)

Jon Lord (1941-2012) was one of the most fascinating musicians of the 20th century. Classically trained but widely heralded for his groundbreaking role as organist for Deep Purple, Lord had a unique voice combining the worlds of rock and classical music— a voice that he channeled through his output of works for "group and orchestra."

Lord's technical ability and onstage antics on the organ firmly places him in a Great Triumvirate of '70s rock keyboardists— considered equal in stature to Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman— all of whom were key figures of the flourishing British progressive rock movement. But while Emerson's and Wakeman's attempts at blending rock and art music were often perceived as self-indulgent and met with ridicule (contrary to a general indifference that plagued the reception of Lord's work), Lord's work seemingly comes from a place of sincerity. His comments on the premiere of his first large-scale work, Concerto for Group and Orchestra, reflects this:

"What puzzles me, is that an evening which was intended to be, and in fact (as witnessed by a very large and glorious audience) turned out to be, FUN, should be treated by some of the critics with such long-faced seriousness.”

I think that, despite the intended "FUN" nature of Lord's work, it's worthy of serious study. And I'm not the only one who thinks this. After all, it wasn't every day in 1969 that Malcolm Arnold chose to conduct the premiere of your work. Yeah, THAT Malcolm Arnold.

So, for my personal edification, I've decided to commit some time to researching Lord's work. My ultimate hope is that by becoming a passing expert on Jon Lord and his compositions, I can bring more attention to the unique and irreplicable body of work that he gave to the world.

Picture on right: Malcolm Arnold and Jon Lord at the premiere of the Concerto for Group and Orchestra, from the 1969 filmed performance.

A Study of the Concerto for Group and Orchestra

In my sophomore year for my Honors Musicianship & Analysis 3 course, I chose to study the full score of Lord's Concerto for Group and Orchestra. In this study I analyzed the score in the context of traditional concerto structures, the rising English progressive rock movement of the late '60s and early '70s, and Lord's penchant for motivic economy.

StudyOfConcertoForGroupAndOrchestra.pdf

Future Work

Currently (as of December 2024) I'm working through an analysis of Sarabande, Lord's Baroque-inspired suite for group and orchestra. This piece highlights a key part of Lord's playful approach— a liberal use of references and quotations from composers that inspired him. By catching all the "easter eggs" Lord lays in the score, you get a better sense of the kind of complete musician he is.

Pictured on the right is a page from the Finale movement of Sarabande. Really fascinating performance directions! The original studio recording of this piece used tape delays to achieve this effect, so it'd be interesting to see how this gets executed live.

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