WTF: The Portsmouth Sinfonia balls up the classics

Photo Music/Not Music

Ever heard of the Portsmouth Sifonia? They were the experimental orchestra that emerged from the Portsmouth School of Art in the 1970s. But experimental how? Players were either non-musicians, or musicians playing new instruments. The point was to see if an "average impression" of a piece could be achieved by the players all non-deliberately fucking up at different junctures. Groovy.

Here they are playing Richard Strauss' 'Also sprach Zarathustra', which you might know as the opening theme of 2001: A Space Odyssey. YouTuber jpedrotti1977 notes that it sounds like "...an orchestra on drugs killing elephants. LOL." Actually it sounds more like elephants on drugs killing an orchestra.

Note the original first, in case you need a refresher:

Now the glory:

Now listen to a whole medley ('Classical Muddley') and note that Portsmouth Sinfonia even managed to score a UK Top 40 hit with this one:

Thanks to junk reader Nudie Bear for this piece of news.