Thread: Frank Zappa

This thread is purely for Frank Zappa as a classical composer.

Zappa produced a lot of his most interesting works as a composer of art music. The pieces with large spoken word sections (like "Food Gathering In Post-Industrial America" from "The Yellow Shark") are not among my favourites. I think he's at his best in smaller scale pieces like "Get Whitey", "Outrage at Valdez" (both from The Yellow Shark) and "Amnerika" (from "Civilization Phaze III"). I really like the fragile harmonies and rhythmic variations of those typical Zappa pieces.

There are the so called pure orchestral/chamber music recordings including The Yellow Shark, and London Symphony, but Zappa not being a purist included a lot of fine orchestral writing on many more eclectic recordings.

I recommend Orchestral Favorites for starters. There are some electric instruments, and FZ plays and electric guitar solo on one track, but overall it's a satisfying collection of material.

There's also The Perfect Stranger conducted by Pierre Boulez. It features three classical pieces, and the album is filled out with some synclavier synthesizer pieces which may or may not appeal to some listeners?

One of his final albums is the very ambitious Civilization Phase Three. This features some very sophisticated compositions play by the Synclavier, and the Ensemble Modern who are featured on the Yellow Shark. Just beware that the music is very dark, in case that's not your bag.

There are some very interesting albums from the early days, and I strongly recommend Uncle Meat, Lumpy Gravy, and 200 Motels, if you don't mind the eclectic approach. Zappa was very good at arranging these types of recordings, so it never sounds half baked. I think it's brilliant stuff, and is should appeal to those interested in the avant garde and musique conctrete. If you like rock and roll and you have a warped sense of humor, that helps too!

Frank Zappa was a brilliant composer. He didn't dumb his music down when he was composing for his "rock/jazz" groups, and he didn't excise his quirkiness or his sense of humor when writing for orchestra. Even when he's writing RnB tunes, I think of him as a composer in the extremely broad western classical tradition. His ideas expand upon the ideas of other great composers like Bartok, Webern, Stravinsky, and Varese. Frank is the reason I am a composer.

How about some music?








This is a fantastic documentary on modern composition, and includes some footage of FZ's visit
with Xenakis and Boulez.

Frank Zappa: Great composer, or greatest composer?

Originally Posted by BurningDesire

Frank Zappa: Great composer, or greatest composer?

Not greatest, but certainly great.

FZ was one of the only musicians from the rock world who could conceive, compose, and orchestrate modern music at the same high level as the great composers. For this reason he was respected by Pierre Boulez, Zubin Mehta, the London Symphony, and others from the "serious" music world.

His situation was highly unusual, because he was self taught. And he was already doing very advanced stuff in his early 20s. See the Mount St. Mary's Concert 1963 on YouTube. This is a very interesting piece of musical history including a Q&A session after the chamber music concert of his original music.

I don't think there's really a distinction to be made between his rock and pop music and his orchestral and chamber pieces. No matter what he was doing, he was doing it with attention to detail far beyond the average rocker, and many of his pop songs feature a depth and complexity in the mix that is rare even with the far more advanced technology available today.

I might add, even on primitive synclavier works like Jazz From Hell, he is such a fine composer that the music is still very convincing. It only got better with time, Civilization Phaze III being one of his greatest works.

I just wish Frank's scores were published so students could buy them and study them.

It's a shame that the ZFT (or rather, Gail) is so up its own arse about that stuff, and you can only rent copies from them, for quite a hefty price I believe. Back when I was a regular on the official Zappa forum I went back and forth on this with many other members, and I still can't wait for the day when Zappa's body of work becomes public domain. Gail's draconian nonsense - including suing tribute bands, attempting to litigate against fan based projects like Zappanale, and banning people from the Barfko Swill online store for questioning her actions on the forum - needs to stop.

Originally Posted by Crudblud

I don't think there's really a distinction to be made between his rock and pop music and his orchestral and chamber pieces.

And of course several of his pieces were arranged and performed by both rock and chamber/orchestral music ensembles.

Yes, even a baroque chamber ensemble!

img.Zappa-Orchestral Fav235.jpgimg.Zappa-EnsmbAmbrosius243.jpgimg.Zappa-CivilizationP3244.jpg

Well I was speaking to the recordings FZ did himself (some of which were never commercially released like Sinister Footwear orchestral) but the Finnish album is pretty nice.