Awesome Classical

Jacob Koller goes by the nickname “The Mad Arranger” because he loves to take relatively straightforward pieces of music and amp up the difficulty to 9000. Here, he takes Rossini’s familiar William Tell Overture and turns it into a supremely tricky jazz version. His arrangement of Mission Impossible is worth a listen too.

In a bold leaf of faith, Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu opera house staged its first concert since the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown… to a full house of houseplants. The UceLi Quartet performed Giacomo Puccini’s “I Crisantemi” for 2,292 plants, one in every red velvet seat. Conceived by Spanish artist Eugenio Ampudia.

Musician Florent Ghys isn’t what you’d call your “average” classical musician. After all, he’s played music with a game of Pong and a weather forecast. So it’s not exactly surprising that he made a virtual choir out of cats, goats, and cows, then made them perform a rendition of Erik Satie’s Gymnopédies.

Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee is known for its rapidfire sequence of notes, composed to conjure the image of a buzzing insect. The Melodica Men are here to show us how well the buzzy sounds of their mouth pianos suit the song.

Facing confinement at home, musicians continue to look to streaming video as a way to get their music out to audiences. Like other orchestras around the world, the National Orchestra of France did their part with this energetic performance of Maurice Ravel’s Boléro. The music starts at 0:49.

Way back when, there was a Tom and Jerry cartoon that featured Tom cat attempting to to play a concert while Jerry mouse tried to nap inside of his piano. CANACANA pays tribute to Hanna Barbera’s melding of music and animation by performing Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 synced up perfectly with the cartoon.

Mongkol the elephant has had a rough life. His 61 years included a brutal captivity hauling trees in Thailand. But he’s since been rescued by Elephants World, and gets to live out his days enjoying visitors like musician Paul Barton, who performed this heartfelt concert for an audience of one.

DoodleChaos has an obsession with making visuals that time perfectly with music. In this clip, he built a virtual roller coaster that syncs up beautifully with the finale of Tchaikovsky’s epic 1812 Overture, complete with cannon blasts. Want to build your own coasters? Check out the software he used – Planet Coaster.

Pierre Fontenelle and Cristian Perciun of accordion/cello duo Made in Belgium turn in an energetic and powerful medley comprised of three tracks from the James Bond universe – John Barry’s original theme, Adele’s Skyfall, and Sam Smith’s Writing’s on the Wall.

Archaelogist dusted off Claude Debussy’s famed classical piece Arabesque No. 1 and reworked it as a masterpiece of prog rock, giving it a powerful edge we’re certain the composer could have never envisioned back in the late 19th century when he wrote it.

Listen up as NPR’s offices are filled with rich and vibrant sounds made by musician Kian Soltani and his rare Giovanni Grancino cello, made way back in 1680. The tracks are Hungarian Rhapsody by Popper, Nacht und Träume by Schubert (arr. Soltani), and Persian Fire Dance, by Soltani himself. That’s Christopher Schmitt on piano.

Musician Grant Woolard follows up his previous two classical music clips with a new medley of 70 tunes performed on piano, as more heads of composers bounce their way across the musical staff. Many of the greats are represented, from Beethoven, to Bach, to Strauss, to Mozart, to Chopin, and more. Rick Roll at 0:39.

Look at the stars. Look how they shine for you. Musicians Marnie and Patrick Laird aka the Brooklyn Duo are back with another heartfelt performance, this time bringing their piano and cello talents to the Coldplay track Yellow. Even if the original didn’t give you the feels, this version surely will.

Watch and listen in awe as musician Maurice Steger uses every last little bit of breath in his lungs to crank through Antonio Vivaldi’s extensive and at times frenetic Recorder Concerto RV 443 during a performance with the Cappella Gabetta at the Hochrhein Musikfestival.

Enjoy two strange musical bedfellows, Europe’s 1986 hit The Final Countdown and Dvorak’s 9th Symphony, melded by the Papageorgio String Quartet a. Be sure to listen to their Beethoven vs Metallica and Led Zeppelin vs Bach and My Chemical Romance vs Pachelbel too.

A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty “Hi Yo Silver!” – the Melodica Men are here to save the day from bandits and other Wild West baddies with their frenetic rendition of Rossini’s 1829 overture, most frequently associated with The Lone Ranger.

There are lots of instrumental pieces we’ve heard over the years, but don’t know the names of them. Pianist Vinheteiro decided to play a whole bunch of these pieces to help us connect these melodies with their names and composers. See how many you know.

His piercing glance burning a hole through the lens, pianist Vinheteiro performs a brief snippet from 26 different classical pieces of music, each starting with a different letter of the alphabet. We never knew what Gymnopedie No. 1 was called, but we recognized it immediately.

You’ve probably heard most of these pieces of classical music at some point in your life, but had no idea what they were called. Pianist Vinheteiro takes this opportunity to educate us, while at the same time showing off his impressive ivory tickling skills.

A wonderful classical arrangement of the 1985 a-ha pop classic Take on Me, as performed by the musicians of Brooklyn Duo and Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect. We especially love the way they worked in the nod to Flight of the Bumblebee on the grand piano.

Most of us know it better as the opening theme from The Lone Ranger, but whatever you know the finale of Rossini’s energetic William Tell Overture as, you’ve probably never heard it played using a model train and a bunch of bottles. Hi-ho Silver, Away!

Electronic musician Kaskobi brings classical music into the 21st century with a seriously danceworthy arrangement of Beethoven’s 19th century classic, in a battle between his Novation Launchpad and Launchkey digital music controllers.

The consistently captivating Tina S shreds an insane rock rendition of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata (3rd Moverment) on her Vigier electric, her fingers flying across the strings and frets at supersonic speeds. Arrangement by Dr. Viossy.