You could blame (or praise) the Beatles for merging orchestral sounds with rock and roll in 1966, but the concept was taken a step further a couple years later by Deep Purple.
In 1969, Purple released the album, ‘Concerto for Group and Orchestra,’ which featured the hard rockers and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performing Jon Lord‘s three-movement composition.
Thus, the idea of rock and roll bombast being married to classical bombast was born. In 2011, Deep Purple revisited that idea with a concert at the Arena di Verona, a Roman amphitheater originally built in 30 A.D. That concert has now made its way to DVD as ‘Live in Verona.’
