Awesome Classical

The musicians of GlasBlasSing use glass bottles as their instruments. One of their members shows off his talents with a brief performance of In the Hall of the Mountain King on a wall covered with Jägermeister bottles. Each green bottle is filled with a different amount of liquid to create a note when struck with a mallet. Want more? They also bottled some Bizet.

This enormous pipe organ is located at the Atlantic City Convention Hall, and is not only the world’s largest organ, it’s the world’s largest and loudest musical instrument according to the Guinness World Records. Turn up the volume and enjoy as musician Felix Hell performs the haunting Toccata and Fugue in D Minor for Organ by Johann Sebastian Bach.

The musicians of 40 Fingers have wowed us with their Disney medley and Dire Straits covers, among others. You’ll want to put your headphones on and crank up the volume for this incredible multi-guitar performance of the Overture from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, which we also know well as the opening theme music from Trading Places.

Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik was written for a string ensemble. But violinist Roman Kim is an overachiever. His solo arrangement has him performing multiple parts on a single violin. He’s also done the same with Beethoven’s 5th. He says those prismatic glasses help him focus, but he can clearly play without them.

The electric bass guitar is one instrument that almost certainly wasn’t in Ludwig van Beethoven’s mind when he composed his music. Bassist Charles Berthoud proves that the composer’s melodies are so solid they work on any instrument. So click play and enjoy this funky bass arrangement of Bagatelle in A Minor, WoO 59, “Fur Elise.”

Look Mum No Computer is known for building some crazy electronic music makers. He’s also a master of wiring and programming modular synthesizers. He put together this fantastic arrangement of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons that’s every bit as good as Wendy Carlos’ analog synth classic Switched-On Bach.

We know from our past encounters with musician Carolina Eyck that she’s one of the world’s greatest theremin players. In this clip, she amps up the pace to that of a buzzing insect with a captivating performance of Flight of the Bumblebee on the gesture-driven electronic instrument.

A few years back, musician Alexandr Hrustevich wowed us with his mad accordion skills. Now sit back and fill your ears with this nearly 30-minute classical solo concert that includes music by Bach, Sibelius, Vivaldi, and Albinoni. All we can say is he must have some serious calluses on his fingertips.

A harpsichord requires a similar skill set to a piano, but it does need some additional knowledge to become an expert player. Vinhetiero has been playing the baroque keyboard for a long time, and he shows us the progression one might experience from the day they play their first note until they master the instrument.

Guitarist Cole Rolland and drummer Kristina Schiano teamed up for this high-energy performance of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata (3rd Movement) that gives the classical piece new life as a hard rock song. Their other collaboration is entirely on the other end of the spectrum – Eiffel 65’s 1998 Europop hit Blue.

Guitarist Marcin Patrzalek is back with another fantastic acoustic performance. His arrangement of Für Elise might not be the most traditional take on the familiar tune, but it’s the most dynamic and vibrant version of the Beethoven classic that we’ve ever heard.

The Flight of the Bumblebee is one of the most notoriously fast pieces of music you can play. Despite performing just a 1-minute excerpt of the classic, Vinheteiro spent 36 hours editing this video to make it look like his keyboard is doing all of the work, and his finger is standing still.

It used to be if you wanted to play piano, you needed an actual piano. But with modern synthesizers, software, and controllers, you can play pretty much any instrument without having one. Composerily proves that point with a performance of Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turca on an MIDI Fighter 64 8×8 controller.

While they might not use all seven octaves, piano arrangements are generally designed for an 88-key piano. Musician Nahre Sol wanted to see what would happen if she condensed famous songs down to a single octave and played them on a toy piano. She then proceeded to rank them based on quality and effectiveness.

Musician Nahre Sol performs a unique classical piano arrangement of The 12 Days of Christmas in which each verse gets progressively more and more modern. The performance starts out with the early 18th-century sounds of J.S. Bach and ends with an abstract 21st-century MIDI composition.

Musician Marcin Patrzalek has some of the most nimble fingers on the planet. Here, he absolutely slays it with a performance of Paganini’s Caprice no. 5 on his Ibanez guitar. Even if you’re not a classical music fan, it’s definitely worth a listen.