– I want it to sound absolutely spot on!

In this previously unheard March 2011 interview, Jon Lord speaks enthusiastically of his plans for the new studio recording of Concerto for Group and Orchestra, that is coming out at the end of this month.

He explains his thoughts behind using different players across the movements, and how years of honing the score coupled with modern studio technology would now allow him to produce the most perfect recording of the Concerto possible.

– I’ve worked so hard on the score that it’s now in as good a state as it can possibly be in, and therefore I would like to have it recorded, so it can go down in posterity. I’ll do it with a hugely respected orchestra and with Paul Mann, who knows it inside out. There couldn’t be a better conductor for a studio recording of the Concerto.

– I would like to have a different guitarist for each movement, because they are so different in style; the kind of hard rock in the first movement, the blues inflected second movement and the more free style almost jazz rock moments that come into the last movement. I’ll give each movement to a guitarist that touches that style, so it’ll be cast in a different way to the Purple recordings.

– I want it to sound absolutely spot on like a great classical orchestral recording sounds. And, God willing, it will sound pretty much like it must have sounded in my head 42 years ago.

The recording sessions with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra began in June 2011, three months after this interview.

Click on the image to listen:

The standard CD edition and CD+DVD-audio (with 5.1 mix) editions are now available for pre-order. Release date: September 28.