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On January 29 and 30, the world premieres of Voivod Symphonique take place, a rare public event that juxtaposes classical \u201chigh culture\u201d with the underground world of metal. Yet there are many links between these two European traditions, both in terms of music and history. Nevertheless, even the most erudite of scholars, and orchestral musicians in particular, remain largely unaware of this connection. To demystify the context in which this extraordinary collaboration culminates, our collaborator and musicologist Laurent Bellemare offers a brilliant comparative overview of the similarities between these two worlds. This is the second part of his excellent dossier.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Back to complexity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n For composer and conductor Pascal Germain-Berardi, also founder of the metal band Archetype, this belonging to the classical world can be explained by a cultural counter-attack:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[Pop] was a reaction to trying to make simple music that everyone could listen to. A few years later, from the descendants of pop music, metal emerged as an ‘anti-pop’ current.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an environment where commercial music was seeking to break away from the elitist culture of classical and its contemporary forms, there was a natural attraction in drawing on complex, hermetic music to transgress new popular genres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, Germain-Berardi underlines the impact of the socio-economic context in the equation: \u201cMetal music emerged above all in the poor, proletarian districts of wealthy societies, where there was enormous economic effervescence. We were right in the middle of the ‘thirty glorious years’ in the United States and the English-speaking world. In the middle, we had poor neighborhoods where people didn’t touch this at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The aura of revolt that runs through metal culture is said to be rooted in this sense of economic insecurity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n