Five Bridges - THE NICE***

Five Bridges Suite/Intermezzo Karelia Suite/Pathetique (Symphony No. 6 Second Movement)/Country Pie- Brandenburg Concerto No. 6/One Of Those People

Five Bridges was an unsuccessful attempt by progressive group The Nice to fuse rock and classical music. There appears to be far too much classical stuff here to retain the interest of rock music fans. (US:197 UK:2)

"Keith Emerson and his cohorts (try to) intellectualize their rock circus. This record is an early, very British, example of how rock doesn't gain anything by simply adding elements from concert music - themes, motifs, orchestra - to a rock band. They are just rattled off successively without transforming any of the elements. Pompous, hollow, pathetic stuff."

"It's simply another early rock/classical fusion attempt. Like most of these efforts it either goes one way or another i.e. classical music with rock bits or rock with classical bits but never really a successful blend. This one goes the first route with mostly uninteresting results. I think most prog fans could safely pass this by."

"The symphony orchestra is full of clichéd bits that sound like the soundtrack to a Disney movie, and they just don't seem necessary at all other than to fill time. Outside of small amounts of piano playing, the full band doesn't arrive until about six minutes in, and the result is about as formless as the stuff on the last album."

"Their attempts at fusing rock and classical music were ambitious and rather novel at the time. In my opinion, mixing oil and water is far easier, and about as satisfying. These heavily orchestrated passages, blended with Emerson's keyboards, require an extremely curious frame of mind to stick with. With few exceptions, I just zoned out."

"It seems that this is a vainglorious attempt at a novel approach for the arts in bringing a progressive rock band together with an orchestra via the mechanism of Keith Emerson. He is clearly a talented and gifted musician but lacks the requisite skills of composition to do a significant portrayal of the city of Newcastle."

"As Keith Emerson was emerging from The Nice to go on his own, the group released this very fine, mostly live, album performed with a symphony orchestra. It was a successful experiment. Not for all rock fans, but those with eclectic tastes will probably get a kick out of this one. And you get a taste of what would come later with ELP."