Classical Wolf Hoffmann

Wolf Hoffmann is back with his second solo offering many years after his first solo record ‘Classical’. And much like the first, he tries to explore the idea of classical arrangements interpreted as metal…

Guitarist Wolf Hoffmann, formerly of the underrated German heavy metal band Accept, focused his love of classical music into a fascinating instrumental solo album, Classical. Yngwie Malmsteen is probably the only other metal guitarist who has tackled classical music in a serious way. A marriage of metal and classical, Classical includes interpretations of famous compositions by Georges Bizet, Edvard Grieg, Peter Tchaikovsky, Bedrich Smetana, Maurice Ravel, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Edward Elgar. Hoffmann plays all the guitars and he's joined by a handful of guests like Damn Yankees and Lynyrd Skynyrd drummer Michael Cartellone, Giant and country music session bass guitarist Mike Brignardello, keyboardist Al Kooper, and bass guitarist Peter Baltes, a former Accept bandmate. In the liner notes, Hoffmann explains that he gives his versions a twist on the originals. Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King" is transformed into flowing hard rock. Bizet's "Habanera" (from "Carmen") effectively weaves classical guitar and meaty electric guitar lines.

Some folks are just too mean to die, right? For German heavy metal veterans Accept, the title of their upcoming sixteenth studio album isn’t just a badass statement, it’s a declaration of principles…

~ The ultimate “Living Stereo” Collector’s Edition – A celebration of high-fidelity analogue recording ~ All 60 CDs newly remastered from the original 2- and 3-track master tapes using 24 bit / 192 kHz technology ~ First ever release of 48 “Living Stereo” LPs on CD ~ Hardcover bound book with a new introduction by discographer Michael Gray, full discographical notes and content listing ~ All albums with facsimile LP sleeves and labels About “Living Stereo”: Early in the fall of 1958, the world of high-fidelity music reproduction changed forever.

On this unique and originally programmed journey, the violist Massimo Piva takes the kind of fantasy journey (Fantasiereise) that forms one of the cornerstones of German Romanticism. It is in the context of highly wrought, fantastic tales that Schumann’s style is formed from a literary point of view: Hoffmann's short stories and Jean Paul's novels, inhabited by bizarre characters and surreal situations, are his polar stars. On the musical side, he had an 18th-century heritage of fantasies by composers such as Mozart or C.P.E. Bach to draw upon, in which the notion of the fantasy is still linked to the Baroque idea of improvisation.