Works Volume 1 is Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s most extravagant gesture — a lavish orchestral double album on which each member takes a side to himself, before the trio reunite for the last. Released in 1977, it gave them their biggest UK hit in ‘Fanfare for the Common Man,’ and set in motion the ruinously expensive tour that would help unravel the band.

The short version

Works Volume 1 (1977) is a double album by Emerson, Lake & Palmer with an unusual design: one side each for Keith Emerson’s Piano Concerto No. 1, Greg Lake’s ballads and Carl Palmer’s instrumentals, and a fourth side of group material. Recorded with orchestras in Montreux and Paris, it produced ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’ — an adaptation of Aaron Copland that reached number 2 in the UK, their highest-charting single — and the thirteen-minute epic ‘Pirates.’

Three soloists and a band

After the exhausting Brain Salad Surgery tour, Emerson, Lake & Palmer spent two years apart. When they regrouped in 1976, each had material of his own, and rather than force it into a trio format they gave each man a side of the double album, reserving the fourth for the band. It was a bold, arguably fatal decision: the group had never sounded less like a group. Peter Sinfield, who wrote lyrics for Lake’s songs and had worked on Brain Salad Surgery, claims credit for the title, reasoning that if you are going to be pretentious you may as well do it properly. The sessions in Montreux and Paris were lavish and fractious, but they produced some of the band’s most ambitious music.

The sound

Works Volume 1 is orchestral rock at its most opulent. Keith Emerson’s side is a genuine piano concerto, performed with the London Philharmonic, blending modernist classical writing with jazz inflections. Greg Lake offers five gently romantic ballads, richly arranged and beautifully sung. Carl Palmer roams furthest, moving between Bach, Prokofiev, jazz-rock and a reworking of an old ELP piece. The closing group side reunites the trio in full flight, with Emerson’s enormous Yamaha GX-1 synthesizer summoning orchestral colours of its own. Sprawling, indulgent and frequently magnificent, it is ELP’s grandest and least unified statement.

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The songs

Emerson’s three-movement Piano Concerto No. 1 is at its finest in the later movements, especially the fiery ‘Toccata con Fuoco.’ Lake’s side yields the lovely ‘C’est la Vie’ and the underrated ‘Closer to Believing.’ Palmer’s highlights are his playful arrangement of Bach’s Two-Part Invention in D minor and a ferocious take on Prokofiev, plus ‘L.A. Nights,’ with guest guitar from the Eagles’ Joe Walsh. The final side belongs to the band: ‘Fanfare for the Common Man,’ adapted from Aaron Copland with the composer’s blessing, and ‘Pirates,’ a cinematic seafaring epic that many consider ELP’s last great long-form work.

Reception and legacy

Works Volume 1 reached the Top 10 in Britain and went gold on both sides of the Atlantic, while ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’ climbed to number 2 in the UK — their biggest hit, and since a fixture of televised sport. Critics were divided, many finding three solo sides self-indulgent, and the album arrived just as punk was sweeping such ambitions aside. What followed proved costlier still: for the accompanying tour the band took a seventy-piece orchestra and choir on the road, an idea abandoned after around eighteen shows on grounds of expense. The final orchestral concert, before a huge crowd at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium, was their largest ever, but the tour reportedly lost millions and strained the group beyond repair.

The verdict

Works Volume 1 is not the place to start with Emerson, Lake & Palmer — the classic albums come first — but it is far more rewarding than its reputation as an act of folly suggests. Treat it as an anthology rather than a band album, and there is riches here: a serious piano concerto, some of Greg Lake’s loveliest songs, Carl Palmer’s adventurous eclecticism, and a closing side that shows the trio still capable of grandeur. Come for the thrilling ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’ and stay for ‘Pirates’ — the last great epic from progressive rock’s most flamboyant band.

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