Rocking Classically: 10 Rousing Classical Music Tunes to Welcome Summer With

Sometimes we youngsters are fooled by the delusion that people in the older days didn't know how to have fun (after all, aren't parents such a bunch of killjoys sometimes?). But delusion it is... and rousing music was discovered long before the Beatles or the Rollingstone or even Elvis came on to the scene in the 1900's. Here are a few blood-pumpers from the classical music genre for those of us who don't want to have to choose between classical music and metal rock: (click on tune name for a sample clip)

1. 'Qual guerriero in campo amanto' from Broschi's Idaspe (Vivica Genaux): Yes, people did sing like that back in the Baroque days. We will never know just how fast and furious the famous soprano castrato Farinelli, for whom this aria was written, would have taken this thing, but I think there are quite a few mezzo-sopranos singing today who can provide a very good glimpse of it. Among the most rock'n'roll worthy of today's Baroque singers is the mezzo from Alaska, Vivica Genaux. She actually sings this thing live in concerts nowadays... and does so almost as cleanly as she does in this studio recorded version!

2. Finale from Beethoven's Choral Fantasy: Those who think that classical choral music are inevitable yawn-inducers, fasten your seat belt and take care that you don't fall off your seat listening to this joyous burst of delirium that ends Beethoven's spin off from the famous 'Ode to Joy' from his 9th symphony. If you aren't happy to be alive at the end of this piece, then you have probably died a while back and just didn't realize it.... Zombie!

3. 'Walkurenritt (Ride of the Valkyries)' from Wagner's Die Walküre: If you have access to a television, you have heard this celestial auroral music from the 3rd Act of Richard Wagner's The Valkyrie. Not only was it used to great effects during the helicopter fleet scene in the film Acapolypse Now, it is also a favorite soundtrack of TV commercials. The original operatic version features a bunch of sopranos and mezzo-sopranos goddesses who search the battlefields looking for fallen heroes per the Norse and German mythologies (they're supposed to set off aurorae across the sky when they're on the prowl).

4. 'Dies irae' from Verdi's Requiem: Giuseppe Verdi was nothing if he wasn't a master of musical scene setting on the grand scale. The 'Day of Wrath' sequence from his famous Requiem (conceived to commemorate the death of Gioacchino Rossini) will make even non-believers see the fire of hell and feel its horror... at least as a believer would believe it. It is a few short minutes of sheer brutality that keeps returning to haunt the composition. If you ever wonder why atheists think that at least some religious people exploit the fear of god too much (rather than just cultivating the will to do good for goodness' sake), music like this doesn't help erasing that notion (though it makes for pretty darn good adrenaline-pumper in war and horror films, I think).

5. '1812 Overture' by Tchaikovsky: Another familiar piece even to non-fans of classical music! We hear it every year at Fourth of July celebrations, playing to the background of spectacular firework. Don't be fooled into thinking that the overture was composed to commemorate our American War of 1812, though. After all, our version of that war stemmed from the turmoil Napoleon was causing in Europe, remember? Listen to the music and you will notice that the story it is telling is strictly the European version of Napoleon's invasion of Tsarist Russia (you can actually hear the assaults with the bits of the La Marseilles, being eventually beaten out by the Russian imperial hymn... At no time do you ever hear the Stars Spangled Banner in this music!).

6. Tango 'Por una cabeza' by Carlos Gardel (Vadim Repin): Here is a bit of a breather... a dancy music rather than a blood-pumping one. The basic melody would be familiar with most, I think. There is hardly a more recognizable tango theme than Gardel's tango. The orchestral arrangement here is done by John Williams, the film composer. It's tango at its best - flirtative, passionate, and packing enough heat to melt all the ice in Greenland if you play it too often!

7. 'In the Hall of the Mountain King' from Grieg's Peer Gynt: Yet another familiar music that shows up often in films and commercials. This spooky little tune from Edvard Grieg's incidental music to the Ibsen play is the prime example for those learning about accelerando (speeding up the pace) and crescendo (turning up the volume) in their music appreciation class.

8. 'Malaguena' by Ernesto Lecuona: You've got to give it to the latino composers for their ability to make even a leper want to jump off his wheelchair to dance to their infectious tunes. This is a very alpha-male-ish tune, with the trumpets getting to preen around like a bunch of colorful peacocks trying to dazzle the mesmerized females. With music like this, we're lucky not to have an epidermic of peacock infestation caused by hyperactivity by hormonal overload birds!

9. 'Ritual Fire Dance' by Manuel de Falla (Alicia DeLaroccha): When you dance upon a bonfire, makes no difference who you are... Well, actually, it does make a difference who plays this thing. I suppose... It takes a pianist with hot latino blood in her vain to really incinerate the piano with Falla's magical melodic flame, I think. Listen to how the fire dances and manipulates the shadows around it - gradually growing, sending embers flying high above the background gyration. It is red hot orgasmic music that will burn itself into your musical memory and leave you smoking from your ears for hours afterward.

10. 'O fortuna' from Orff's Carmina Burana: Ah, the ultimate scary music from the classical music section! It seems that man has always nourished a kind of reverent awe and trepidation about fortune and fate (click here to see what the lyric to this thing says)... I first heard this thing back in music appreciation class in college when the professor used it as the perfect example of a long crescendo (after the opening rumble, the chorus drops straight to piano (soft) singing and gradually turning up the volume toward the ending climax). Most people will have experienced it from films, though, particularly the gory and bloody war-theme ones. Lately, the GOP used it in an anti-closing-of-Guantanamo ads that somehow scared the wit off the democratic senators who then went on to vote against funding the closure. Amazing what a little spooky music can do sometimes, ay?

And there we have just a few samples of classical music numbers that won't sedate even a sleepy rhino on a lazy summer day. Classical musicians can rock you with different means... All you have to do is give it a chance!