From the devil’s violinist to devil’s horns - why classical and heavy metal are a natural pairing

With ear-splitting excess, flamboyant virtuosity and a talent for transgression, where classical music has led, metal has followed. Let’s hope the Philharmonia’s Metal Orchestrated concert turns it up to 11 The question is not why, but why has it taken so long? Putting heavy metal and classical together that is, as the Philharmonia are doing next week in their Forged in Sound: Heavy Metal Orchestrated gig, part of the Southbank Centre’s Multitudes festival. There’s more that connects metal and classical music than sets them apart. A love of volume, turning the noise up to 11? From Black Sabbath to Stravinsky, check. A worship of virtuosity, of speed, technique and orgiastic instrumental excess, from Vivaldi to Van Halen? Absolutely. An all-too easily parodied sense of grandiloquence, pseudo-seriousness and expressive pomp and circumstance? I give you Richard Wagner and Iron Maiden. An addiction to flamboyant spectacle, a PR-driven flirtation with the dark side to build the mythology of the music and the performers? That too. Nineteenth-century violin superstar Paganini was rumoured to have struck a deal with Lucifer such was his virtuosity. The morality police of 1980s America imag

Apr 15, 2026 → Apr 15, 2026