This salsa-fied Beethoven video has been making the rounds lately -- a very spicy arrangement of the opening movement of the Fifth Symphony.
ButSverre Indris Joner and company certainly aren't the first to put an uncommon twist (an infectious mix of mambo and son rhythms) on Beethoven's famous symphony, or the classical canon in general for that matter.
Back in 1837, Franz Liszt got a hold of the 5th symphony and scaled it down for solo piano. Fast forward about 100 years and you've got a swinging jazz version of the symphony by singer Dolly Dawn and her Dawn Patrol orchestra. And who could forget Beethoven in a lime green leisure suite -- Walter Murphy's disco edition, called "A Fifth of Beethoven," was a number one single in 1976.
And Beethoven is just the beginning. From "Bach on Wood" (a marimba, that is) and Vivaldi on the Japanese Koto, to Schubert on a wood-cutting saw and Wagner on power tools, dozens of classical composers have been subjected to strange arrangements.
Below are a couple more interesting transformations. Have your own favorite wacky take on classical music? Tell us all about it in the comments section.
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