alt="image" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#fb3_img_img_04f49965-2d0c-57c6-bc3c-1e318ed95a66.jpg"/> Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik: This piece is constantly in use on film and TV, in everything from The Simpsons to X-Men 2, Batman and Alien, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective … The list goes on.
Ravel’s Boléro: Torvill and Dean, of course, made this the piece to ice skate to, but Futurama, Dr Who and Dudley Moore (in the film Ten ) have also been accompanied by its motoric, repeated theme.
Prokofiev’s ‘Dance of the Knights’ from Romeo and Juliet: Given that contestants have to be polite to each other even though they’d probably like to kill one another, the use of this courtly dance with murderous undertones from Romeo and Juliet seems an entirely appropriate choice as the theme for The Apprentice.
Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95, From the New World, Largo: Even though that small child stopped peddling up Gold Hill in Shaftesbury, Dorset, some time in the 1970s; even though he was accompanied by a brass band who were presumably (and incongruously) from the north of England; and even though they were playing music by a Czech composer who was writing while on tour in America, this piece is one of Britain’s favourites. Multiple Oscar winner Ridley Scott directed this piece of ersatz nostalgia for a Hovis bread commercial and through what might have been a total mess brought the piece to the attention of the wider public.
Other pieces you may already know – or which
won’t cause you much trouble if you don’t
Grieg: Peer Gynt Suites, ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’/‘Solveig’s Song’/‘Morning’
Grieg: Lyric Pieces, ‘Wedding Day at Troldhaugen’
Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture
Wagner: Ride of the Valkyries
Pachelbel: Canon in D Major
Rimsky-Korsakov, arranged by Rachmaninov: ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’
Barber: Adagio for Strings, Op. 11
Bizet: ‘Au Fond du Temple Saint’ from The Pearl Fishers
Massenet: ‘Meditation’ from Thaïs
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125, ‘Choral’, Ode an die Freude (final movement)
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67, first movement
Verdi: ‘Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves’ (‘Va’, Pensiero, Sull’ali Dorate’) from Nabucco
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B Flat Minor, Op. 23
Berlioz: ‘March to the Scaffold’ from Symphonie Fantastique
Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue, Andante (or the whole piece if you’ve time)
Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 13 (‘Pathétique’)
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons, Op. 8, ‘Spring’, Allegro
Boccherini: String Quintet in E Major, Op. 11, No. 5
Verdi: Messa da Requiem, Dies Irae – Tuba Mirum (only if you are a Take That fan – it’s the beginning of ‘Never Forget’ … only it doesn’t have Robbie Williams in Verdi’s version)
Hopefully you’ve found something which you recognise on this list. Familiarity is a useful tool with all music and I advise giving new pieces a couple of listens before giving up on them. For some more starting points for broadening your listening from the mainstream classical repertoire, see Appendix I.5
From here on in you may not recognise the pieces I mention or if you do then you won’t have heard them on a TV advert. But just because they haven’t been plucked from obscurity to be used as a theme tune or to sell cars doesn’t mean they aren’t worth listening to. There is so much great music that you’ll already have heard … imagine how much more there is to discover.
Chapter 2
Why, Why, Why?
Baggage handling
However much you stick your head in the sand, or maintain a hermit-like existence, it is very hard not to experience some classical music in your life – even if it is while waiting for your bank to answer the telephone. Subconsciously, we all build up an impression of what this world of music is like, and the very idea of ‘classical’ begins to gather a lot of baggage and preconceptions, what with its penguin suits, clapping regulations, and people waving sticks around.
The path to understanding is riddled with such potholes. Classical music is an activity that can trip you up with unexpected difficulty or drag you down with the weight of a piece you don’t understand. Like English spelling it has its own idiosyncrasies and traditions that must simply be learnt.
That said, it may comfort you to know that there are many traditions in classical music that even some musicians don’t fully understand: Why is a violin made in that particular shape? Why do opera singers do that wobbly thing? I’ll deal with wobbly opera voices in Chapter 10 on singing, but this chapter aims to answer other bothersome questions. It’s not an exhaustive list, but these are some
alt="image" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#fb3_img_img_04f49965-2d0c-57c6-bc3c-1e318ed95a66.jpg"/> Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik: This piece is constantly in use on film and TV, in everything from The Simpsons to X-Men 2, Batman and Alien, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective … The list goes on.
