The classical music Roger Waters couldn’t live without
An undisputed British musical icon, Roger Waters found fame as a founding member of the pioneering progressive rock band Pink Floyd. Forming in 1965, Pink Floyd became one of the world’s biggest rock bands, with a career spanning multiple decades. Their unique and ever-changing sound has made the group a worldwide rock phenomenon, yet Waters cites one piece of classical music as essential to his life.
Originally the bassist for Pink Floyd, Waters moved to the forefront after the departure of Syd Barrett in 1968. During his time as the primary songwriter for Floyd, the band witnessed its most successful period. Writing fantastic, groundbreaking concept albums such as the iconic Dark Side of the Moon, Waters repeatedly proved himself to be one of the most stunningly original songwriters on the scene.
In the group’s early days, under Barrett’s leadership, the band became leading figures in the emerging psychedelic and acid rock scenes. As the group progressed, however, Waters was effectively able to adapt to each new project with apparent ease. Undoubtedly one of the best progressive rock bands of all time, Pink Floyd, with Waters at the helm, cemented themselves as a leading voice in British rock music.
Back in 2011, Waters was invited on the long-running BBC Radio Four show Desert Island Discs to list the eight tracks that he would take with him if castaway to a desert island. Among his choices were some seminal tracks by the likes of Chet Baker, Billie Holiday and Neil Young.
The influence of prog rock contemporaries, or indeed rock contemporaries, was noticeably absent from the songwriter’s list, leaning more towards folk and jazz music. This is perhaps unsurprising. Waters has always drawn from a broad range of influences. More surprisingly, he selected his favourite track as the fourth movement from Gustav Mahler’s ‘Symphony No. Five in C sharp minor’.
Mahler is a noted romantic composer from Bohemia, who later moved to Vienna where he created most of his best-loved work. Although a well-respected composer during his life, he found newfound success after his work was rediscovered following the second world war, during which time his music was banned in Nazi Germany due to his Jewish ancestry.
Waters talks on the programme about his appreciation for Mahler’s work, particularly his fifth symphony. Although you might not automatically associate Pink Floyd with Bohemian classical music, the frontman’s work outside the group has touched on classical roots multiple times. His work on the 2005 opera Ça Ira is perhaps the best example of this, but it has been pertinent in many of his projects throughout the years.
