SYMPHONYFUSE /// VOL. 001

Steve Hackman’s
RADIOHEAD X BRAHMS

Friday, June 28, 2024 at 8:00PM
Orpheum Theatre, Los Angeles

Steve Hackman, conductor and creator
India Carney, vocalist
Andrew Lipke, vocalist
Khalil Overton, vocalist

Brahms, Symphony No. 1 in C minor (Op. 68)                     

Radiohead: OK Computer

BRAHMS Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68
Movement 1: Un poco sostenuto     

RADIOHEAD   Airbag   

BRAHMS Movement 1: Allegro (Exposition)       

RADIOHEAD   Paranoid Android   

RADIOHEAD   Climbing Up the Walls   

BRAHMS Movement 1 (Recapitulation)   

RADIOHEAD   Karma Police   

BRAHMS Movement 1 (Conclusion)    

RADIOHEAD   Subterranean Homesick Alien

BRAHMS Movement 2: Andante sostenuto     

RADIOHEAD   No Surprises

BRAHMS Movement 2 (Conclusion)

INTERMISSION

BRAHMS Movement 3: Un poco allegretto e grazioso     

RADIOHEAD   Let Down

BRAHMS Movement 3 (Conclusion)   

BRAHMS Movement 4: Adagio – Più andante     

RADIOHEAD   Exit Music (For A Film)

BRAHMS Movement 4: Allegro non troppo, ma con brio     

RADIOHEAD   Lucky

BRAHMS Movement 4 (Recapitulation)

RADIOHEAD   Electioneering

BRAHMS Movement 4 (Coda)

Notes on Brahms V. Radiohead:

Brahms V. Radiohead is an orchestral synthesis of the Brahms First Symphony (1882) and Radiohead’s OK Computer (1997), wherein ten songs from Radiohead’s seminal album are experienced through the lens of Brahms, drawing upon the latter’s harmony, form, counterpoint and motives. This was the first large-scale work of this type that I endeavored, and what a thrilling process of analysis, discovery, de/re-construction and creation it was.

These two works share striking and defining characteristics; the most significant is their mood of anxiety and brooding pathos. Brahms, unendingly plagued by the shadow of the great Beethoven, took more than a decade to write this symphony, for fear of not living up to his predecessor. That pressure is felt in each tightly-wound measure. For Radiohead, the themes of social alienation, consumerism, emotional isolation, and political turmoil are channeled electrically through every anxious note and lyric of OK Computer.

Secondly, both pieces represent ‘invention within convention’- adhering to existing structures but innovating within them (in Brahms’ case, the symphony form, and in Radiohead’s, the concept album).

Finally, they have distinct musical similarities; beyond the fact that both are dense, substantive and full of rich counterpoint, I heard unmistakably similar melodic and harmonic devices. For example: the iv-I chord progression of ‘No Surprises’ is used by Brahms (with an added 6th, in inversion) in the final moments of the 2nd movement; or the fact that ‘Subterranean Homesick Alien’, like the Brahms first movement, is in 6/8 time (rare for an alternative rock song).

I took advantage of those similarities in the synthesis, and it is those moments that I am most excited about. We hear ‘Subterranean Homesick Alien’ over an undercurrent of Brahms' pedal tones; the stark opening music of the symphony adding to the frenzy of ‘Paranoid Android’; the final lyric of ‘No Surprises’ floating over the gorgeous conclusion of the second movement; themes of the third movement evoked in the distance during the experimental middle section of ‘Let Down’; and the ostinato bass figure of the fourth movement coda providing the rhythmic motor of ‘Electioneering’.

A final note: some may purport that these two pieces are separated by more than just time. They may seek to label and categorize them, and perhaps judge their respective and comparative values accordingly.

I believe that the more we truly understand the creative and technical processes that result in any kind of art- regardless of genre or category- the more similarly they may reveal themselves to us. 

- Steve Hackman, May 2018