Beggar’s Opera – Act One

Prog rock always held close ties to classical music, with a good deal of the musicians involved having been classically trained and using the disciplines of the form when it came to ideas and song structure. The Nice, Rick Wakeman, E.L.P. and to a certain extent E.L.O., sit as some of the more famous examples of this crossover between the two genres, and Procol Harum maintained the symphonic edge throughout the course of their original ten albums and onwards to this day.

Not so well known, but possibly one of the strongest demonstrations of the merger between classical and prog, is the 1970 album Act One, by Glaswegian band, Beggar’s Opera.

Sporting a surreal cover that just smacks of late sixties and early seventies wonderland-esque mind alteration, Act One sets the Beggar’s Opera stall out right from the very off, weaving the work of various classical composers into their Hammond organ marinated sonic stew.

The first of five tracks, ‘Poet and Peasant’, lifts heavily from the overture of the same name by Franz Von Suppe, and is a bracing introduction to the album’s, then, uniquely original twist. It winds and turns, shifts tempo and generally makes for an all around exhilarating listen – an absolutely cracking start to an album.

It’s an interpretation of another Von Suppe overture that closes the album, with the twelve minute ‘Light Cavalry’ putting the lid on things in suitably dramatic style.

In between, ‘Passacaglia’ and ‘Memory’ tick along nicely in a similar vein, leading into the Act One showpiece, ‘Raymond’s Road‘. This lengthy instrumental workout throws in a whole host of classical snippets, some more recognisable than others, played as though the musicians’ lives depended on it at a speed guaranteed to give anybody hitting the pause button a nasty dose of whiplash. The Hammond organ-led renditions never once threaten to derail this locomotive of interchanging sound, and as an example of the musical invention demonstrating what was becoming possible at the beginning of the seventies, it’s up there with the best.

As is this opening salvo from the Beggar’s Opera canon. Act One has been criminally overlooked in the intervening years, rarely, if ever, featuring on any lists associated with progressive rock. The 2004 Repertoire reissue did little to remedy this but features two bonus tracks, both sides of the Act One era single, ‘Sarabande’ and ‘Think’.

The fact they never appear to take themselves too seriously, in a genre often derided for some of its more po-faced and pretentious exponents, also deserves plaudits. In fact, was I to draw up a list right now of a top 10 of prog albums, Act One would be a strong contender to feature. And there’s no better endorsement than that, even if I do say so myself.

Act One by Beggar’s Opera is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

Don’t just read and applaud. Subscribe to the rather splendid RSS Feed

album reviews, prog rock