# Classical music in tv and movies



## Manok (Aug 29, 2011)

Haven't seen a post like this, so I was wondering, do you always know what classical piece is being played and what's the most obscure piece you've heard in either a tv show or movie?


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## Mephistopheles (Sep 3, 2012)

I don't always know, but I can usually tell when it's an actual piece rather than a stock imitation. I don't remember ever being surprised by a piece used in a film, though I did think it was less cliché than expected when Mahler's Piano Quartet appeared in _Shutter Island_.


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## oogabooha (Nov 22, 2011)

Mahler 1 in the film _The Tree of Life_ was pretty rad and in great taste


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I can't say I always know, but I try to find out afterwards. 

I tracked down the slow movement of Brahms' first Sextet after they used it on Star Trek TNG to make a Vulcan weep. 

I don't know if it's considered obscure, but I was very happy to hear Satie's Gnossienne No. 1 in Hugo and Chocolat. 

I think Mompou's Cancion 6 was very effective in Cria Cuervos.

And a hilarious in-joke for classical fans occurs in The Incredibles, specifically the add-on video Jack-Jack Attack. The babysitter shows the baby flash cards while listening to Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, a favorite Baby Einstein piece, but when the super-baby sees a card with fire, he bursts into flames, and the music is still Mozart, but now it's the Dies Irae from his Requiem.


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## oogabooha (Nov 22, 2011)

Also, in the latest episode of Doctor Who, Bizet's _Carmen_ was featured, with the Doctor even saying that it was great.


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## Carpenoctem (May 15, 2012)

There are so many great moments in which classical music enriches particular movies.

This is my favorite scene from The Shawshank Redemption (if you haven't seen this movie, do it now!)






Morgan Freeman's voice + Sull'aria from Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro. If this scene isn't awesome, I don't know what is.


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

In Gus van Sant's film Last Days (based on Kurt Cobain's death) there's a sequence near the end, where one hears the sound of a radio being changed from one station to the next, during which one briefly hears the scherzo from Schubert's Great C Major Symphony. The piece is obviously not obscure, but within the context of the film, it comes completely out of left field.


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## Mephistopheles (Sep 3, 2012)

oogabooha said:


> Also, in the latest episode of Doctor Who, Bizet's _Carmen_ was featured, with the Doctor even saying that it was great.


And in tonight's, it was Schubert's Fantasia in F minor for 4 hands!


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this thread perfect for the Movie and TV board?


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## campy (Aug 16, 2012)

In the 1963 Otto Preminger film _The Cardinal, _the protagonist enters his future mentor's study to find the older man playing Bach. The young priest compliments the cardinal's playing, and the older man says something like (greatly paraphrasing here) "The fifth _Goldberg _is quite tricky."

Confused, the priest replies, "wasn't Your Eminence playing the _Chromatic Fantasy_?"

"Ah," the cardinal says. "I had to see if you knew your stuff before I accepted your compliment."


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## oogabooha (Nov 22, 2011)

Mephistopheles said:


> And in tonight's, it was Schubert's Fantasia in F minor for 4 hands!


really??? I haven't seen the episode yet, but I'm doing so right now. I'm so excited


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

Beethoven's Ode to Joy is played prob no less than a dozen times in Die Hard and in Die Hard 2 they use Sibelius' Finlandia. Not very obscure. I'm sad to say that most of the pieces I recognise aren't obscure at all, but there are also a very limited number of tunes that are used in movies and advertisements from the classical genre.


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

Dance of the Apprentices from Die Meistersinger as Londoners are wrestling with a downed WWII barrage balloon in Boorman's "Hope and Glory."


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## Manok (Aug 29, 2011)

The reason I asked was I recently watched an episode of Grimm and the piece the kid kept playing sounded very familiar and towards the end I noticed the episodes title: danses macabre, the piece by saint saens, by no means obscure, but it was for prime time tv. They also played part of the Brahms violin concerto. Two pieces I never have heard on tv or film.


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## Mephistopheles (Sep 3, 2012)

You can hear Saint-Saens every week if you watch Jonathan Creek!


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Kubrick used classical music a lot in his movies. In _2001: a space odyssey_, he used music by Ligeti (Requiem, Lux Aeterna, Atmospheres). In _A Clockwork Orange_, he used Beethoven's ninth symphony. In _Barry Lyndon_, he used that, now famous, sarabande by Haedel and some other pieces by Schubert.
Visconti used Mahler's adagietto from his Fifth Symphony in _Death in Venice_.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

crmoorhead said:


> there are also a very limited number of tunes that are used in movies and advertisements from the classical genre.


They are beginning to pop up in commercials. I just saw a Pringle's commercial that used the overture to Figaro.

Of course, I'm all for more people hearing Bruckner, but I wish Arby's hadn't used the opening of his seventh symphony to advertise their fish sandwich. It took a while to get that image out of my head.


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## hamsonk (Sep 9, 2012)

I think Chopin makes a minor appearance in "The Pianist"


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## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

Crudblud said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this thread perfect for the Movie and TV board?


Yes.

On topic, I love Master and Commander music pieces. I think it has some pieces from R.V.W and Boccherini.


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

The main theme from the last movement of Saint-Saens symphony no.3 (Organ symphony) is used over and over again in the film Babe (the one about the little pig). Although Saint-Saens is uncredited in the film, he is acknowledged as the composer on the soundtrack recording.


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## Wandering (Feb 27, 2012)

In the recent film 'The Killer Inside Me', the sociopath is at one point sitting in his study listening to Mahler's 'Urlicht'. Mahler music was also in the other recent films 'Shutter Island' and 'The Tree of Life'; 'The Tree of Life' had a whole slew of classical works.


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