Which classical composers influenced The Beatles?
Bach, Berio and Beethoven all made a contribution
None of The Beatles had a background in classical music. It was not played in their homes — indeed it was actively discouraged in the McCartney household. Paul tells how his father, ‘a jazzer’ would pointedly turn off the radio when a classical piece was broadcast. His son metaphorically followed suit, as did his bandmates. Too posh, too boring, too difficult.
The grammar schools that John, George and Paul attended offered formal music classes. This had been George Martin’s route from a poor background into a musical education. They were not interested.
Ringo basically didn’t go to school — and there was no musical tuition during his long hospital stays. He has spent his entire musical career ignoring formal time signatures. George Harrison once confused him by describing the 11/8, 4/4, 7/8 sequence in the chorus of Here Comes the Sun. This was ‘ancient Egyptian’ to Ringo but once he heard it, he could play it.
Put crudely, The Beatles were initially incurious about the classical tradition. They never considered this a shortcoming — their interest was in working out chord progressions rather than learning how symphonies were constructed. There was an element of inverted snobbery in this: of Lucky Jim’s hostility to ‘filthy bloody Mozart’.
Yet for all their indifference, the classical tradition would have an impact. Beethoven, Bach and company would have their say.
Bach
George did learn one classical 'party-piece' in his early teens, which he taught to Paul. Neither knew the title but they had the vague idea that it was by Bach. A decade later Paul learned it was was Bourrée from the E Minor Lute Suite — and that they had been playing it inaccurately.
This discovery lead him to work on a variation that would lead to one of his most admired compositions.
No strings?
Ian MacDonald suggests that it was the recording of Yesterday that marks a key moment in the musical evolution of The Beatles. The melody famously came to Paul in a dream and he initially was unsure of how to develop it.
George Martin saw that what became Yesterday that would be limited by a conventional rock group arrangement. When he offered to write a string part, McCartney was uneasy and initially resisted the suggestion. When he did agree he tried to ensure that the song did not stray out of its rock and roll lane (‘No vibrato, George. I don’t want to sound like Mantovani!’).
Realsiing this would be unnatural for a modern string player, Martin asked McCartney to help supervise the arrangement, knowing that this would demonstrate the issue.
‘As a result of which,{McCartney} added the cello phrase in bar 4 of the middle eight (1.25–27) and the first violin’s held high A in the final verse.’ Macdonald
YESTERDAY was the first song The Beatles recorded without their standard line-up — only McCartney performs alongside the string players.
Perhaps even more importantly, the song revealed new compositional possibilities. Ian Macdonald descrbes this as George Martin’s disclosure to them of a hitherto unsuspected world of classical music colour.’
Classical pick and mix
A year later this would be taken a stage further with ELEANOR RIGBY. Here it was Paul conceived of the string part, instructing Martin that he wanted a ‘stabbing’ sound, perhaps influenced by Bernard Hermann’s scoring of the the notorious shower scene in Psycho.
With increasing boldness, Beatles records began plucking elements from the classical world George Martin’s piano solo on IN MY LIFE, for example, is clearly modelled on Bach. Piccolo trumpet appears PENNY LANE after McCartney saw it being used (by the same musician) in a TV broadcast of the Brandenburg Concerto.
Nor did they confine their plundering to the established canon. The influence of experimental composers like Cage and Berio looms large in A DAY IN THE LIFE, while samples of Schumann, Beethoven and the Sibelius Seventh are stuffed into Revolution 9.
Beethoven
The Beatles cheerfully sang ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ in their pre-fame stage show. The Chuck Berry anthem also appears on their second album. But if Ludwig was not safely out of copyright, his legal team would most likely have a solid royalties claim.
In one of his last interviews, John Lennon revealed how the great German composer provided direct inspiration:
I was lying on the sofa in our house, listening to Yoko play Beethoven’s — Moonlight Sonata, on the piano. Suddenly I said, ‘can you play those chords backwards’.
The Beatles version retains the key and key change, plus the pattern of arpeggios. Lennon also added some bass notes and of course and a lyric which he claimed was ‘clear, no bullshit, no imagery, no obscure references.’
You won’t find that kind of language in Fidelio but there is arguably a similarity of intent across the centuries.
Recently, McCartney has suggested that being unschooled in musical theory had a positive creative impact. Put simply, they broke the established rules because they were unaware of them. Occasionally this could lead dangerously close to cacophony — Revolution 9, for example is not for everyone. But it was Leonard Bernstein was already observing in 1966, crude musicianship proved no barrier to astonishing creativity.
