Led Zeppelin drew on Penderecki

Forty years after its premiere, the “Physical Graffiti” reissue has just toped the U.K. album chart. When commenting on the album’s exceptional sound, Jimmy Page told “Rolling Stone” that he was inspired by Krzysztof Penderecki’s music when putting the guitars together, writes Jacek Cieślak in “Rzeczpospolita”.
“This breakthrough album might have never happened. The group could have disbanded. Bassist and keyboardist John Paul Jones was so tired with the hundreds of concerts that he decided to part with his friends and become choirmaster at Winchester Cathedral. Luckily this never happened; the band’s manager advised the musicians to give Jones a bit of a breather”, recalls Cieślak.
“The album was recorded at the 18th-century Headley Grange estate, where Led Zeppelin had recorded ‘Stairway to Heaven’. The oriental ‘Kashmir’, the phenomenal ‘In the Light’, the hit “Houses of the Holy” and the rock and roll ‘Boogie with Stu’ have achieved legend status.
‘Kashmir’, with John Bonham’s monumental drums, was recorded first. It was complemented with a full orchestra at the end of the session. It was a breakthrough: before that, only subtle arrangements for strings could be heard in Led Zeppelin.”
The group were inspired by the music of Krzysztof Penderecki. “He would have liked that. [Our album] was a monumental piece of work, just because of the various paths that we’d trodden along to get to this: It was like a voyage of discovery, a topographical adventure,” says Jimmy Page, the group’s producer, composer and frontman.
For the entire article, see: www4.rp.pl