Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Museo Rosenbach is an Italian progressive band, best known for their 1973 release Zarathustra, a concept album freely inspired by the controversial works of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’. Unfortunately, at the time of its release, the album was widely disregarded because of the far right-wing views found within the Nietzsche-inspired lyrics. The band suffered for their political ideals, which prevented them from getting the kind of attention they deserved. Museo’s musical palette contained a dash of Banco, ELP and Van Der Graaf Generator. Comparisons to early King Crimson are also inevitable; this is symphonic progressive rock with a rough edge. While the group’s particular brand was less experimental than a lot of Italian prog, their compositions were equally challenging constructions, filled with time changes and eccentricities. Something is always happening.

Essential: A masterpiece of prog-rock music collection.
What a wonderful way for me to get started on the Italian prog scene. It was 1993, I was 20, I was getting pretty much fed up with anything mainstream.

The compact disc, as a sound carrier, was still on the horizon when Herbert von Karajan urged his record company to utilize the new digital technology in his recordings. Consequently Karajan's Magic Flute, recorded in 1980, became the first release of a Deutsche Grammophon digital production and was first released on LP.