Prior to high school, I had not formed a particularly strong set of interests outside the ones my parents had or were willing to let their kids experience. My life was still dominated by PG movies, soccer, sitcoms, and 70s soft rock (with some Motown thrown in). Dating Shannon my senior year opened up a much larger, less safe, world of entertainment. We watched The Exorcist, listened to Zeppelin and the wailing of Sinéad O'Connor, and painted my fingernails black. I began to consume more art that wasn't just trying to make you feel good. Much of it was actively trying to make you feel bad - and amazingly, that felt even better.
One night, she took me to an all-age show at the now defunct Thirsty Whale, in River Grove outside Chicago. I was already familiar with the term "headbanger" via MTV's titular Ball, but I never thought much about what that meant outside of liking heavy metal music. This was eye-opening. A couple dozen people closest to the stage, taking in the live band, all stood perfectly still except for their heads slamming up and down in perfect unison to the power chords screaming back at them. It was fascinatingly beautiful and bizarre and cultish to watch.
I didn't participate. It seemed to require a lot of practice. I couldn't do it for more than a few seconds without getting dizzy, much less a whole song - ultimately I ended up preferring the chaos of the 90s-era mosh pit - but that image is a looping gif, burned into my brain.
Shannon and I also had a shared interest in classical music. We started our relationship as duettists at school performances, she on the violin and me on the piano. Of course much of the classical music canon is lighthearted and simpering, and dull as sticks, but still the best have the power to move me to every extreme of human emotion.
Recently I got to thinking about how some of my favorite classical pieces might play at the Thirsty Whale. There are several, in fact, which might have enough energy (and bombastic pulsating rhythm) to set those heads a-bobbing; so I made a playlist. This is from my current collection, and surely misses most of the breadth of music available roughly from the 1600s to the early 20th century, but it's what I can do with what I know. I welcome any suggestions for further additions in the comments below.
Capriccio Italian - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Tchaikovsky is a safe place to start. If you are at all familiar with the "1812 Overture," it's clear he knows where the volume knob is on the orchestra. Just to be sure, he'll happily throw some cannon fire into the mix. "Capriccio Italian" is also a good starting point, because it works as a warmup. At sixteen minutes long, it's padded with quite a few slow parts. As a general rule, I am avoiding this kind of "story" song in the article, because there is way too much variation in the music to fit the headbanger bill; however I am making an exception for this one because the ending is so intense.
It helps tremendously that the particular recording I'm referencing was conducted by Leonard Bernstein. There aren't many who compare to him in sheer passion. You can typically hear him stomping his foot just as a major burst of music is about to begin, and he never fails to hit the fast parts with the right level of speed and precision. I suspect it must have been draining to play for him. Again! Faster!! Not perfect enough!!!!
The song begins with what is likely the minutes before sunrise, until at minute 3:40 it appears in a wash of ecstatic sustained strings. The music then alternates between lively folksy sounding dances and languid depictions of southern Italian summer heat, getting some early drum bangs in around 7:35. Finally, after at least the third time through it's main theme (now more ominously than before), at 12:00 the music begins to rotate, slowly, then with more speed, until it is a frenetic tarantella. Skipping strings and staccato horns lead into full orchestral bursts. Once more the main theme appears, as loud and thumping as possible, followed by a final "run to the end" which must have had all the musicians growing sweat stains on their starched white shirts.
Carnival of the Animals: Persons With Long Ears - Camille Saint-Saëns
"Carnival of the Animals" is an odd piece of work. The collection contains one of my favorite songs of all time, "Aquarium," and many others that fail to make an impression on me. It varies wildly from spare piano to luscious orchestra with no sense of unity. Even the overarching theme feels like it was cast aside randomly, as actual animals like elephants and swans give way to "Pianists" and this particular song. Apparently Saint-Saëns found people with long ears terrifying, as he depicts them with shrieking strings that could plausibly have served as the inspiration for the score to Hitchcock's Psycho.
Carmen: Bohemian Dance - Georges Bizet
Certainly the theme from The Bad News Bears (I mean the "Intro to Act I" of Carmen) has its headbanging bonafides, shot through as it is with cymbal crashes. I think this "Bohemian Dance" from Act II does a better job, though. It starts at a moderate pace, gradually building in intensity until by the 3:00 minute mark it's clear it's just going to keep ratcheting up. It's supposedly just a dance, but these people are seriously losing their shit. The entire last thirty seconds are total hysteria. The violins try to keep up while the percussion bangs incessantly, until a flurry of horns signals the end, and everyone drops dead, I assume.
Carmina Burana: Ego sum abbas - Carl Orff
Was Orff a Nazi? I don't know. He most likely was another scared citizen who preferred survival over standing up against the regime. At least I find no traces of Riefenstahl-esque propaganda in his seminal work, Carmina Burana. Well known for it's starting/closing piece "O Fortuna," the lyrics throughout range from laments about the cruelness of fate to celebrations of getting wasted at the pub.
The entire middle section is literally "In the Tavern" and includes my selection of "Ego sum abbas." In it, a solo baritone moans about his lousy life while an all male chorus shouts back at him, and the musicians thrash away with mostly percussion instruments. Just try to stop your head from it's desire for jerky vertical movement. Really, how many ways can I describe headbanging in one article?
Fêtes - Claude Debussy
Known mostly for soft luscious melodies like "Claire de Lune," Debussy also knew how to bring on the dark. His "Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea" is one of those long story songs that hits every emotion on the scale between serene beauty and wild abandon. I highly recommend it, although I don't feel it fits this article's theme.
Instead, "Fêtes," which simply means "parties" in French, comes running out the gate with a relentless rhythm. Passing it's jittery nervous background riffs back and forth between the strings and woodwinds, it lays a mostly cheerful melody on top, in keeping with the celebratory theme. Like most parties, it is at it's best in the middle, when the music suddenly quiets at 2:19. Then as the harp impatiently lays down a beat, the horns herald the arrival of what can only be the ultimate party animal. The energy crescendos to a string whirlwind about 3:22, backed by machine gun drums.
Once that excitement passes, the song sort of peters out while the host waits for the stragglers to sober up enough to get them off the couch.
I was disappointed that I could not find my recording on Spotify, as it does a better job of maintaining the pace in the middle section and has some of the angriest harp playing I've ever heard. If I ever find it, I will replace it in the playlist.
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C sharp minor - Franz Liszt
In some ways, this is an easy choice, since Franz Liszt was as much a rock star as anyone of his time could be. He was known to play the piano with mesmerizing fury, and I imagine if he was capable of swinging his instrument over his head and smashing it onto the stage, he would have done so, at least a few times.
Eventually, The Monkees would figure out a sledgehammer can do the job nicely, thanks to a very game Liberace. I still need to watch Behind the Candelabra, but if this scene is not depicted, I'll be seriously disappointed.
However, piano as a solo instrument is still difficult to work into headbanger territory, and as this is probably the best known piece on my list, I've had a hard time choosing a recording from the glut available. I stuck with Phillipe Entremont's version for many years. He had the right level of energy and played the piece more or less traditionally, but he inserted too many pregnant pauses into the second (faster) half of the song, which irritated me. I considered Arthur Fiedler's orchestral version, since it pumped up the volume, but it also exaggerated the song's cartoony aspects too much, dulling its impact. I finally settled on a recent recording by Lang Lang, which takes great liberties with the source material, steering it into bizarre and dissonant territories that scratch that itchy part of my brain.
Like many of my favorite classical pieces, it takes it's time getting going. You could always skip to the second half at 4:32 if you're impatient, but I think it is ultimately more rewarding to listen to the entire buildup.
If that doesn't work for you, there is always the cartoony.
Etude in C minor, Op. 10, No. 12 - Frédéric Chopin
Speaking of the piano, Chopin does his best here to overcome it's volume limitations. The pulsating rhythm hardly lets up, as does the continuous running of the left hand up and down the keyboard to maximum dramatic effect. The world's original Polish wonder is at the top of his game with this Etude, which is technically just a finger exercise. He is likely my favorite classical composer, and this is exhibit A.
Badinerie from Suite No. 2 in B minor - Johann Sebastian Bach
Yes, it's a flute song. So what? It has a relentlessly propulsive rhythm, and the emphasis on the strings in this recording darkens the music to intriguing depths. I like to imagine an audience of bewigged Boroque era patrons, stifling yawns from some now-obscure opening act, cheering when Bach takes the stage and leads with this number, the shaking of their coifed curls and ponytails raising clouds of white powder to fill the room.
Concerto in F: III. Allegro Agitato - George Gershwin
The third movement of Gershwin's Concerto in F starts off running. André Previn's piano playing is deliriously frenetic, and Gershwin seems intent on featuring every single instrument in the orchestra. The piece is melodically scattered, incorporating pleasant jazzy ditties with blasts of cacophonous sound in a way that seems random (which is itself exciting). With the crash of a gong at 4:52 the music turns to high melodrama, dripping with exaggerated sorrow. Whatever precipitated that struggle, it is resolved suddenly at 5:47 as Gershwin returns to his beginning theme, throws in a final piano-dominated run to the end, and a wild blast of horns to finish.
Romeo and Juliet, Act I: Dance of the Knights - Sergei Prokofiev
Looking at the playlist for this ballet, there are clearly a lot of dances thrown in that Shakespeare failed to include in his original manuscript. Such is the need when you build a ballet around an existing work, but I wonder really how this "Dance of the Knights" could be made to figure into the plot. Then again, choreographing multiple death scenes has to be a greater challenge. Can Romeo and Juliet do a final pas de deux from their coffins?
Anyway, regardless of the significance of these mysterious knights, their song kicks ass. Danny Elfman is surely envious that Prokofiev got to this oompah backbeat before he did, while the danger-infused violin music again makes me wonder if a well-known movie theme did not find some influence here. In this case, I am consistently reminded of the The Empire Strikes Back.
While not headbangy, the flute interlude at 3:10 is hauntingly beautiful on its own, and ultimately gives way to the terrorizing main theme one more time before the end.
Symphony No. 9 in D Minor: II. Scherzo - Ludwig von Beethoven
Fittingly, my recording of Beethoven's ninth symphony was a birthday gift from Shannon the summer before we left for college. Already a work of incredible emotional power, this performance is compounded by the fact that is was recorded upon the fall of the Berlin Wall, which had only just happened the year before. The final movement's choral "Ode to Joy" was reworded as an ode to freedom, a creative decision that infects every turn of the music with added weight. As if that isn't enough, Beethoven himself never heard it performed. Despite being present at its premiere, he had already lost too much of his hearing.
The "Ode to Joy" theme itself is so ingrained in our culture that I have no idea when I first heard it, but by the time I listened to the full orchestral version, it already seemed cliche. That sentiment was erased by its very first appearance as it is introduced by the cello and bass strings in a hushed reverential tone. But I'm being distracted by the symphony's most famous part, and neglecting the second movement, which is the reason it's on this list. The full performance is in the video below. If a piece of music the length of a typical feature film seems daunting, believe me, it's more exciting and rewarding than most Hollywood fare; but you can go straight to the second movement on my playlist. Of course Leonard Bernstein conducts.
This second movement, the Scherzo, is the fastest, most intense part of the symphony. It varies tremendously in volume, but rarely slows down for anything. Any time it does, it is expertly teasing the heightened drama to come, often throwing in a few thumps of the timpani. The rhythm is a very repetitive restless skipping until minute 4:00 where it shifts gears into its smoother middle section. At 6:40 it returns to where it began, again waxing and waning from feather light stringwork to repeated climaxes of headbanging intensity. Just when you think it is going to repeat the middle section's alternate melody, it ends in an abrupt flourish.
The Four Seasons: Concerto No. 2 in G minor (Summer), III. Presto - Antonio Vivaldi
I've always loved the third movement of Vivaldi's "Summer" concerto, but the Josh Bell performed and conducted version, recorded in 2008 with Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, is a revelation. The Four Seasons certainly rivals Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody" for familiarity, and there is no shortage of recordings to choose from; however, this choice was easy. It is enthralling from start to finish.
Bell's take on the "Summer" Presto is by far the fastest I have ever heard, but speed alone is not the determining factor. Many of the slower movements are more leisurely paced than I am accustomed to, and in fact, the movement that precedes this one is a perfect depiction of thick summer humidity, punctuated by the rumblings of the storm to come.
And what a storm. Strings dominate the Baroque orchestra, and here they are called on to depict all the tremendous power of a sudden downpour, threaded throughout by the roar of thunder. The pace is breathless and exhilarating and I'm sure would have elicited cheers even in Vivaldi's day. There's no play by play breakdown I can add to enhance the listening experience, but I have put it together with the preceding movement because it is the best way to appreciate the full effect. And hey, it's only an additional two minutes of your life.
Let her rip.