Joachim Horsley is an Emmy-award winning American composer. He's taken a stab at rearranging famous pieces of music from Beethoven and Bach, as well as the Psycho theme for piano and knives.
American composer Joachim Horsley Photo: Michael Pool
His YouTube videos prove he’s a cut above, with millions connecting with his sharp arrangements of classical pieces.
Horsley sees knives as a percussion instrument. He replaced drumsticks with knives from his kitchen when he rearranged the Psycho theme. He doesn’t play the knives on the keys, rather he runs them across the strings of his Steinway B.
The knives play the roles of strings – first and second violin and viola – in the original score. “I mimicked the way the orchestral arrangement goes with the iconic high piercing sounds,” he says.
Like different percussion mallets, knives of varying quality can present different sounds, but he grabbed the first thing he came across in the knife block. “We tested thousands of knives,” he jokes. “They were knives my cousin-in-law sold to my wife; really cheap knives … from a pyramid scheme. Most people complain they aren’t very good, but they are phenomenal knives we’ve had for 20 years.”
Psycho has one of the most recognisable film themes of all time. Horsley describes Bernard Herrmann as “the godfather of sound” and has played a big role in the way Horsley composes.
Verdi and Wagner are also present in his styles. On Saturdays, his parents would tune in to the Metropolitan Opera.
“I still admire him as a composer but I can’t listen to Wagner, I listened so much growing up that I think it was overkill,” he says. “The stubborn rebellious teenager in me doesn’t want to admit that it’s wonderful music yet!”
“[But] I do think that played a role in my liking of the theatrics of music.”
The theatrics and the classics continue in Horsley’s other arrangements. A trip to Cuba in 2015 sparked something that would lead to one of his most successful YouTube videos Beethoven in Havana.
While there, he spoke to locals, read arrangements and soaked in the vibe salsa and rhumba had to offer. Then he combined it with the Bach Preludes and Beethoven’s 7th Symphony. “[It’s] very much a folk thing with high-art music and seeing what the contrast would be,” he says describing his arrangements.
“European classical music evolved in harmonic sophistication … while dance music from Afro-Caribbean styles, they’re really sophisticated in the rhythmic world. Combining the two is an interesting endeavour.”
People have complained about what Horsley is doing with classical pieces. He says there will always be naysayers, but these arrangements are a great way to introduce people to something they haven’t been exposed to previously.
“What I’m doing is not new in the sense of mixing classical music with other things. It’s been done forever,” he says. “Of course Beethoven himself took pieces from those that came before him and rearranged it. “
“Anyone who doesn’t like it … it’s strange that they would say that because the very composers they are swearing to protect were champions of this very idea.”
He’s also started providing sheet music for his arrangements as there has been an increasing interest in the classics with a twist. The sheet music for Psycho for Piano and Knives, is also available, just watch out for the sharps.
