The Great Kat has released a new music video and single, “Beethoven’s 666th Cheerful Countryside Pastoral”, a shred metal take on Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, the Pastoral. The announcement came through the band’s official “YouTube” channel, where the video is now available.
From countryside to thunderstorm
The video follows Kat in the role of what the announcement calls the Country Bumpkin Shredder, arriving in the countryside and shredding among birds, flowers and nature. The arrangement moves through the symphony’s famous thunderstorm section, with thundering tympani, rumbling basses, chromatic violin runs and a fortissimo tutti orchestra, before returning to shredding and dancing after the storm passes.
Beethoven composed the Pastoral Symphony in 1808 as a homage to nature. The announcement notes that the work is considered program music, designed to represent a specific idea, and that its opening movement, “Erwachen heiterer Empfindungen bei der Ankunft auf dem Lande” (“Awakening of cheerful feelings upon arrival in the countryside”), inspired the video’s concept.
A Juilliard violinist turned shredder
Kat, the founder and frontwoman of The Great Kat, handles vocals, guitars and violin, and has been the band’s central figure since forming the project in New York City in 1986. She is a Juilliard School graduate in violin who crossed over from conventional classical music to metal. Guitar One Magazine named her one of the “Top 10 Fastest Shredders Of All Time”, and the announcement describes her as the only guitar and violin double virtuoso shredding Beethoven’s works at high speeds. She has claimed in past interviews to be the reincarnation of Beethoven, a theme she revisits in this release.
The latest in a long line of classical shreds
The single continues the direction The Great Kat has pursued for decades: metal versions of classical pieces, from the 1990 album “Beethoven on Speed” to recent 2026 singles such as “The Flying Trapeze”, “Strauss’ Radetzky March” and “Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag”. The band’s database entry lists over a thousand releases on the TPR Music label, with Kat backed by Jeff Ingegno on bass and Lionel Cordew on drums.
The video for “Beethoven’s 666th Cheerful Countryside Pastoral” is on “YouTube”, and the single is available on “Spotify”.
