8 min read
Classical music hiding in plain sight
The hit songs built on Rachmaninoff and Pachelbel, the film moments everyone knows, and the rock, pop and hip-hop artists who point back to the composers.
You have heard more classical music than you think, because a great deal of the popular music of the last century was built on it, and because film, television and advertising have used the orchestral repertoire as a shared language for as long as they have existed. This page is the evidence: the hits with a concerto inside them, the screen moments everyone knows, and the artists who have said out loud which composers made them.
Hit songs built on classical pieces
All by Myself · Eric Carmen (1975), later Celine Dion
comes from Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2, second movement
The verse melody is Rachmaninoff's slow movement almost note for note; Carmen thought the piece was out of copyright and ended up paying the estate.
Never Gonna Fall in Love Again · Eric Carmen (1976)
comes from Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2, third movement
Same composer, same trick, one year later. The big clarinet tune of the symphony's slow movement became the chorus.
Full Moon and Empty Arms · Frank Sinatra (1945), Bob Dylan (2015)
comes from Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2, finale
The concerto's second big tune, with words. Rachmaninoff is the most borrowed composer in pop for a reason.
A Whiter Shade of Pale · Procol Harum (1967)
comes from Bach: Air from Orchestral Suite No. 3, and the cantata "Sleepers, Wake"
The organ line is Bach by way of a very good imagination; the band has always said the Air was the model.
Could It Be Magic · Barry Manilow (1975), Take That (1992)
comes from Chopin: Prelude in C minor, Op. 28 No. 20
Opens with the prelude played straight on the piano, then builds the song on its chords.
A Fifth of Beethoven · Walter Murphy (1976)
comes from Beethoven: Symphony No. 5
The disco version, number one in America, on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. The four-note motif needed no help.
Because · The Beatles (1969)
comes from Beethoven: "Moonlight" Sonata
John Lennon said he heard Yoko Ono playing the sonata and asked her to play the chords backwards; the result is Because.
I Can · Nas (2003)
comes from Beethoven: Für Elise
The piano loop under the whole track is Für Elise, which is why every ten-year-old recognised it.
Hook · Blues Traveler (1994)
comes from Pachelbel: Canon in D
A song about how any tune over the right chords will be a hit, built on the chords that prove it. Pachelbel's progression is also under "Go West", "Basket Case", "Graduation" and roughly a thousand others.
Stranger in Paradise · from Kismet (1953), Tony Bennett
comes from Borodin: Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor
The whole musical Kismet was assembled from Borodin; this one is the "Gliding Dance of the Maidens" with lyrics.
Tonight We Love · Freddy Martin (1941)
comes from Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1
The concerto's thunderous opening tune, slowed down and given a dance-band vocal. It was a number-one record.
Moon Love · Glenn Miller (1939)
comes from Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5, second movement
The famous horn solo, sung. Tchaikovsky's slow movements were raided by Tin Pan Alley for a decade.
Song of Joy · Miguel Ríos (1970)
comes from Beethoven: Symphony No. 9, "Ode to Joy"
A worldwide hit and the reason a generation could hum the Ninth. Bright Eyes' "Road to Joy" and countless others followed.
Alejandro · Lady Gaga (2010)
comes from Monti: Csárdás
The mournful violin at the start is the opening of a Hungarian showpiece every violinist learns.
Adagio for Strings · Tiësto (2005), William Orbit (1999)
comes from Barber: Adagio for Strings
The saddest piece in the American repertoire became a trance anthem, and it worked, because the slow build was already there.
Everything's Gonna Be Alright · Sweetbox (1997)
comes from Bach: Air from Orchestral Suite No. 3
The Air, again, this time as a Europop hit. Bach's bass line is the most durable groove ever written.
On screen
2001: A Space Odyssey
Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra
The sunrise. Two minutes of a tone poem about Nietzsche became the sound of the cosmos.
Apocalypse Now
Helicopters and loudspeakers. Wagner wrote it for eight warrior goddesses on horseback, which is not so different.
The Lone Ranger, and every cartoon horse
Rossini: William Tell Overture
The galloping finale of an opera overture about Swiss independence.
Ocean's Eleven
The fountains at the Bellagio. Debussy's piano piece, orchestrated, ends the film.
The 1990 World Cup, and every talent show since
Puccini: "Nessun dorma" from Turandot
Pavarotti made a tenor aria a sports anthem; the last word means "I will win".
Excalibur, Old Spice, every trailer
Orff: "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana
A medieval poem about the wheel of fortune set for huge choir and orchestra in 1936, and the default sound of epic.
Fantasia
Dukas, Stravinsky, Beethoven, Mussorgsky
Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer's Apprentice, dinosaurs to the Rite of Spring, a demon to Night on Bald Mountain. For millions of people, their first orchestra.
Platoon
Also the piece America played on the radio when Roosevelt died and when Kennedy died.
Die Hard, and the Beethoven Ninth in dozens of films
Ode to Joy is the anthem of the European Union and the villain's theme in Die Hard. It can carry both.
The Shining
Bartók: Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta
Kubrick used it for the hotel corridors. Bartók wrote it in 1936 with no hotel in mind, and it is still frightening.
United Airlines, for forty years
The clarinet slide at the start is one of the most recognised sounds in American advertising.
The Simpsons, Looney Tunes, everything
Rimsky-Korsakov: Flight of the Bumblebee; Khachaturian: Sabre Dance
The two pieces for anything fast. One is an interlude from an opera about a prince turned into a bee; the other is from a ballet.
Artists on their influences
In their own interviews and biographies, paraphrased here rather than quoted, these musicians have named the composers they learned from.
Billy Joel
Trained as a classical pianist and has said for decades that Beethoven and Chopin taught him how to write a melody. In 2001 he released an album of his own piano pieces, Fantasies and Delusions, and stopped writing pop songs. Hear Chopin live →
Paul McCartney
Has said that Blackbird grew out of a Bach lute piece he and George Harrison used to play as teenagers, and has written oratorios and a ballet score himself. Hear Bach live →
Elton John
Won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music at eleven and has said Bach, Chopin and Mozart are in his hands whether he means them to be or not. Hear Mozart live →
Freddie Mercury
Loved opera enough to record an album with the soprano Montserrat Caballé; Bohemian Rhapsody is what happens when a rock band decides to write one. Hear Puccini live →
Alicia Keys
Classically trained from age seven and has named Chopin as the composer she keeps returning to; the piano figures in her early hits come straight from that training. Hear Chopin live →
Frank Zappa
Discovered Edgard Varèse at fifteen, phoned the composer on his birthday, and spent the rest of his life writing orchestral music alongside the rock; Stravinsky was the other lodestar. Hear Stravinsky live →
Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead
Has cited Olivier Messiaen and Krzysztof Penderecki as the composers behind his own scores for There Will Be Blood and The Power of the Dog, and has shared concerts with Penderecki's music. Hear Messiaen live →
Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple
Built the guitar style of hard rock on Bach's harmonic patterns, and said so; Deep Purple's Concerto for Group and Orchestra was the first rock-and-orchestra record. Hear Bach live →
Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys
Has said that hearing Rhapsody in Blue as a small child was the moment music opened for him; Gershwin is all over Pet Sounds. Hear Rhapsody in Blue live →
Björk
Studied classical piano and flute as a child in Reykjavík, and has named Messiaen and Stockhausen as the composers who taught her that a song can be built from colour rather than chords. Hear Messiaen live →
Nile Rodgers of Chic
Trained on classical guitar and has said that the discipline of playing Bach every day is where the rhythm-guitar precision of disco came from. Hear Bach live →
Metallica
Have twice performed and recorded with the San Francisco Symphony, and the band has pointed to Ennio Morricone and the drama of the orchestral repertoire as the reason the pairing made sense. Hear San Francisco Symphony live →
What to do with this
Pick the song or the film moment you already know, tap through to the piece, and see who is playing it this season. The if you like guide goes the other way, from the artist you love to the composer who would have loved them. Every work page has a recording to hear first, and the near me page has the concert.
Written by OrchestraFinder. Dotted words open a short definition; the full glossary is here.