Pop Tunes Taken from Classical Music Pieces

It never ceases to amuse me how surprised many of my friends and acquaintances are when they hear what is playing on my mp3 player (for the record Queen's CD The Game has been playing on repeat for a while now). Having read so many of my classical music- and opera-oriented reviews and articles, they fairly had me pegged as an old-fashioned symphonic head!

But why this stereotypical division in musical taste where lovers of classical music and those of rock music must be mutually exclusive? I mean, if such a partition is sanctioned by nature then we would be robbed of so many ear-catching rock and pop tunes taken fairly straight from the other side of the music aisle now, wouldn't we. If you aren't convinced of how pervasive classical music actually is in the rock music scene, here are a few popular rock - pop music numbers whose melody was actually composed more than a century ago by composers you may not have heard of (click on music name to go to youtube sample clip):

1. Elvis Presley's Can't Help Falling In Love (Giovanni Martini's Plaisir d'amour) : I grew up listening to my dad humming Presley's tune in the shower, on the breakfast table, while browsing the newsstand, driving kids to school, while chasing after the golf ball, and even as he tried his hand at cooking. So it is a given that there is no way I could convince him that The King didn't pen this tune himself. For those who are a little less attached to the beautiful Southern Boy's twist on this well aged tune, however, seek out the little known Baroque composer from Bologna Giovanni Battista Martini's Plaisir d'amour (Pleasure of Love) and hear for yourself!

2. Phil Collins' A Groovy Kind of Love (Rondo from Clementi's Sonatina in G) : The pop man's hit tune is essentially taken straight from Clementi's melody, although played with a slower tempo. I'm inclined to say it is an improvement since the slower unfurling of the air allows me to ponder on it more. Many other keyboardists would disagree, of course. But to each his own.

3. The Toys' A Lover's Concerto (Christian Petzold's Minuet in G major) : Long believed to be composed by Johann Sebastian Bach (until the 1970's when it became clear that the Bach notebook where the tune was found contains works from other composers as well as Papa Bach's himself), this ear-worm-friendly tune adapted with slight tempo variation by Sandy Linzer and Denny Randell is a great testament to the timelessness of great melodies and also to the fact that people who lived over two centuries ago looked for the same pleasure in music as we do now. The tune has been around since 1725!

4. Beach Boys' Lady Lynda (Johann Sebastian Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring) : I won't comment on what Alan Jardine thinks about his then wife, Lynda, in compared to Jesus, but you've gotta admit that Bach's melody
stands modernization on modern instruments really well even though I can't see much resemblance between Bach's Germany and the sunny California coast. Nowadays the Beach Boys tune is renamed as Lady Liberty, however (Jardine and his wife are now divorced).

5. John Denver's Annie's Song (2nd movement from Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5) : I don't know, mates. I think I still like this caressing romance of a melody done by the gentle sound of the French horn than I do pulled out of context into an unanswered vocal line sung by Denver. No disrespect meant for Mr. Denver, of course, but part of what makes this Tchaikovsky beauty 'magical' is how the orchestra reacts to the solo horn call and the musical dialog that follows it.

6. The Farm's All Together Now version 2004 , Coolio's I'll C U When U Get There, and My Chemical Romance's Welcome to the Black Parade (Pachebel's Canon in D) : I suspect there are many more pop and rock tunes based on Pachebel's one hit wonder melody than listed here (I freely admit to not having heard everything there is to hear yet). It is rather interesting to see how Pachebel's religious canon can be made to express many different sentiments not quite in the same pious neighborhood as the original tune was composed for.

7. Janet Jackson's Someone To Call My Lover (Satie's Gymnopedie No. 1) : It might be hard to tell from the sung vocal alone, but there is no mistaking Satie's most popular melody in the chiming keyboard here, is there? I must confess to not being a fan of Janet Jackson. My college dorm-mate was, however, so I heard more than my fair share of this stuff. It has been a decade now and I still don't quite know what to make of it.

8. Jem's They (Johann Sebastian Bach's Prelude & Fugue in F Minor) : Urm... that quake you just felt, that was Bach rapping in his coffin...

9. Puff Daddy & Nas' Hate Me Now (O Fortuna from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana) : I'm still waiting for the other wonderful sections of Orff's Carmina Burana to be lifted and modernized/pop-itized, but people insist on just picking on this most bombastic scene from it. Like it or not, you've got to admit, it is a fantastic musical sequence that gives everything it is lifted to a decidedly dark aura...

10. Queen's It's A Hard Life (Vesti la giubba from Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci) : Ok, this is more of music quoting rather than wholesale borrowing like the other examples above. The opening line, of course, is quoted straight from the climatic line of Leoncavallo's famous verismo opera where the heartbroken Canio (who works as a clown) airs his despair that he must go on putting on a funny face for others even as his wife is cheating on him. Old Freddie Mercury (who LOVED opera and classical music) is actually doing Leoncavallo the honor of commenting on Canio's plight rather than just lifting his melody the way many others would. And that, my friends, is one of the many reasons why Queen tends to get their CDs stuck on my boom box. They rock classically!!!

Sources:
http://cantorion.org/music/655/Minuet_in_G_Guitar_Duet