The December 2008 issue of Strings magazine features virtuoso violinist Rachel Barton Pine on its cover. For some reason, it reminded me of the first album of hers that I ever heard: Stringendo: Storming the Citadel. Do you know that one? It’s her metal album.
It was released in 1997, the year after Apocalyptica’s debut album, Plays Metallica by Four Cellos. However, Barton’s recording includes more than just Metallica covers (not at all to say that an album of Metallica covers is bad!). Her range of selections is large, covering classic rock, thrash metal, speed metal, grunge and pop. She even includes two classical pieces just to drive home her point that metal and classical music are not as different as people (from both genres) think. The tracklisting is below:
- The Star Spangled Banner (Hendrix)
- Thunderstruck / Back In Black (AC/DC)
- Sunday Bloody Sunday (U2)
- Cowboys from Hell (Pantera)
- Blow Up the Outside World (Soundgarden)
- Paranoid (Black Sabbath)
- Fade To Black (Metallica)
- Caprice No. 24 in A minor (Paganini)
- Heartbreaker / Black Dog / Stairway To Heaven (Led Zeppelin)
- Symphony of Destruction (Megadeth)
- All Apologies / Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana)
- Passacaglia for violin and cello (Handel, arr. Halvorsen)
- The Spirit of Radio (Rush)
- One (Metallica)
Also worth noting is Pine’s 1998 album, Instrument of the Devil, which follows the path of comparing metal to classical that Stringendo blazed. However, Instrument is an all-classical album focused on destroying the stereotype that the violin plays only pretty and sweet music. This is an album of the music that associates the violin with evil, much like the Satanic reputation that the electric guitar has gained from blues, rock and heavy metal.
I’ll admit that I have not been following her since these two albums came out, so I’m very impressed to find that in addition to her busy concert schedule, she’s maintaining a large and professionally-done web presence. Kudos to her! She has embraced the “Web 2.0” culture and adapted to the new model of music business.
Her homepage is divided into three parts, one for her classical fans, one for rock music (with a motive for turning life-long metalheads on to classical music, of course) and a third part for music business. She is currently making two podcasts, one for classical music and the other for metal, has a blog, a myspace, twitter, flickr, facebook and a YouTube page. Talk about keeping in touch!
More importantly, she understands that music is about taking little parts and building big things with them. Not just making notes and motives into phrases, phrases into sections and sections into pieces of music, but putting music into a social context. It’s as though she asked herself “what’s bigger than ‘art for art’s sake’?” and thus started her musical ambassadorship between genres and the Rachel Elizabeth Barton Foundation for classical musicians in need.
She doesn’t need me to talk about how accomplished her career is, so I won't. However, I do want to draw people’s attention to the fact that she is a socially-aware artist who’s not afraid to break down preconceptions about seemingly disparate styles of music, thus hooking people on music they might not have otherwise heard. That she can throw down a bitchin’ solo on top of it all doesn’t hurt either.
;)
(Photo courtesy of flickr.com/photos/rachelbartonpine)
