I was listening to William Orbit's Pieces in a Modern Style recently, which, if you aren't aware, is a compilation of short classical pieces redone with synthesizers and a barely imperceptible trance-ish beat. Anyway, one of my favourite tracks is Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, which incidentally is one of the main themes for Homeworld, one of the truly fantastic PC games.
On a whim, I downloaded from Napster a NYC Philharmonic Orchestra version of the actual piece, and I was absolutely blown away by what I heard. The tepid melody in Orbit's remake pales a whiter shade of pale in the presence of the orchestral version. There's a particular sequence of ascending, climaxing emotion - for mere music it was not, but pure emotion - and I swear I've never been so astounded by what I heard.
Imagine, if you will, a visual metaphor for Romeo and Juliet, where their respective families are pulling them away from each other. And yet they strain, and strain, and they nearly touch... ever so close, but they are ripped apart. Imagine the emotion you'd feel if you were Romeo or Juliet in that scenario. That's what the music emotes. I sat at my computer for ten minutes, stunned by what I'd heard.
This message has been edited by Vulu on May 09, 2001 at 11:47 AM
