# Classical Everyone Just Knows



## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Every so often, I am listening to some classical piece I just bought and a melody or phrase appears and I realize, to my amazement, that I have heard that part before. It's just one of those things I've always known.

There are likely hundreds of such passages that (probably) the majority of us just know, even though we don't know that it's classical music, what composer or piece it is, when or where we heard it, etc. Originally, perhaps we heard it in advertisements, movies or who knows where? We just recognize it.

One such melody immediately comes to mind: Beethoven's _Für Elise_. Another is the opening of Beethoven's _Fifth Symphony_, those first four notes. Also, perhaps, Strauss' A_lso Sprach Zarathustra_. Most likely know it from 2001: A Space Odyssey, but I think it might have been in our collective genomes even before that film.

Can you think of others that are _just there_ in most of our DNA?


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## DrMuller (May 26, 2014)

Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and his 40th Symphony, Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker and Swan Lake Ballets (at least highlights), Bach's Air on the G-String and Badinerie (Orchestral Suite No. 2). Also Strauss' Blue Danube Waltz.


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

Here's a list I made when I was 14. It might be lacking, but I think the ones that are there are spot-on:

CLASSICAL MUSIC THAT EVERYONE KNOWS

A-E

Bach: Air on the G String
Bach: Tocatta and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565
Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier (#1)
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67 (First Movement Theme)
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D minor "Choral", Op. 125 (Second movement opening and Fourth Movement theme)
Beethoven: Fur Elise (Bagatelle in A minor)
Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 14 in C# minor "Moonlight" (First Movement)
Bizet: "Toreador en Garde" (Toreador Song) (from Carmen)
Borodin: Polovtsian Dances (first theme)
Brahms: Lullaby
Chopin: Funeral March (from Piano Sonata No. 2)
Chopin: Nocturne in E-flat
Clarke: Trumpet Voluntary
Debussy: Claire de Lune
Delibes: Dome Epais le Jasmin (Flower Duet) (from Lakme)
Delibes: Pizzicati (from Sylvia)
Dvorak: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95 (second movement)
Dvorak: Humoresque No. 7 in Gb major
Elgar: Pomp and Circumstance (March No. 1)

F-K

Fauré: Pavane
Fucik: Entry of the Gladiators, Op. 68
Gounod: Funeral March for a Marionette
Grieg: Morning Mood (from Peer Gynt)
Grieg: In the Hall of the Mountain King (from Peer Gynt)
Handel: Hallelujah Chorus
Holst: The Planets (Mars and Jupiter)
Khatchaturian: Sabre Dance (from Gayne)

L-P

Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C# minor (Finale)
Mendelssohn: Wedding March (from Midsummer Night's Dream)
Mozart: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (First Movement)
Mozart: Marriage of Figaro Overture
Mozart: Requiem (Lacrimosa and Dies Irae)
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major (Second Movement) 
Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 16 (First Movement)
Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 11 (Turkish March)
Mozart: Symphony No. 40 (First Movement Theme)
Mouret: Rondeau [Masterpiece Theater theme]
Mussorgksy: A Night on Bald Mountain
Offenbach: Can Can (from Orpheus in the Underworld)
Orff: O Fortuna (from Carmina Burana)
Pachelbel: Canon in D
Petzold: Minuet in G
Ponchielli: Dance of the Hours (from La Gioconda)
Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf, Op. 67 (Main Theme)

Q-U

Rachmaninov: Rhapsody on a Theme (Variation #18)
Ravel: Bolero
Rimsky-Korsakov: Flight of the Bumblebee
Rossini: La Gazza Ladra (Thieving Magpie) Overture
Rossini: Largo al Factotum
Rossini: The Barber of Seville Overture
Rossini: William Tell Overture
Saint-Saens: Carnival of the Animals (Swan)
Satie: Gymnopedie No. 1
Schubert: Ave Maria
R. Strauss: Sunrise (from Also Sprach Zarathustra) [the 2001 theme]
J. Strauss: The Blue Danube Waltz
Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker, Op. 71 (overture, march, #12, #14)
Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake, Op. 20 (#10)
Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture
Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture

V-Z 
Verdi: La Donna e Mobile (from Rigoletto)
Verdi: Brindisi (from La Traviata)
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons (Spring)
Wagner: Ride of the Valkyries
Wagner: Wedding March from Lohengrin


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

^ That is great, Tristan! I will have to check all of those out


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

The "Lone Ranger" theme from the overture to William Tell by Rossini.

Für Elise by Beethoven

Piano Concerto by Schoenberg, first movement.*






*NOT!!!


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Great list Tristan! Any piece i could think of was already up there.

There is this one piece that I've always whistled to myself, and I hadn't ever come across it throughout my journey in classical music. It wasn't until recently that I discovered the tune:


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

^Can't believe I forgot that one! That's definitely something I think most people have heard. It's a go-to piece of classical music in TV shows and movies.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Oh, Apollo, why would you anyone want to dwell on these particular cultural strands, I wonder :-/


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Ride of the whadyacallem ladies, certainly!


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

Tristan said:


> Here's a list I made when I was 14. It might be lacking, but I think the ones that are there are spot-on:
> 
> CLASSICAL MUSIC THAT EVERYONE KNOWS
> 
> ...


Great list!
I'll add a few more which are for sure in the DNA of the people in my country (mostly because of commercial and TV shows...)
Beethoven: Violin Romance op. 50
Bizet: Carmen Habanera
Charpentier: Te Deum prelude
Mozart: Die Zauberflote, second Aria of the Queen of the Night 
Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet, Dance of the knights
Puccini: Nessun Dorma from Turandot
Rossini: William Tell final scene
Verdi: Triumphal March from Aida
Wagner: Tannhauser Overture


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

Barber's Adagio for strings, Saint Saens' Danse Macabre and "Albinoni's" Adagio.


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## Couac Addict (Oct 16, 2013)

Well, if I take the opening passage from the Allegro of Dvorak's 9th - I think of sharks....and if you mash Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (The Adoration of the Earth) on the end of that - I'm thinking _You're going to need a bigger boat._


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Copland-Fanfare For The Common Man; Rodeo
Dukas-Sorcerer's Apprentice
Brahms-Hungarian Dance No. 5
Gershwin-Rhapsody In Blue


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## Perotin (May 29, 2012)

Verdi: Dies irae from Requiem
Khatchaturian: Adagio from Spartacus


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Swedish film from 1967: Elvira Madigan: Mozart Piano Concerto #21, second movement.

I was hoping this piece would give a spark to a big wave of new classical converts, but didn't really happen.


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## echmain (Jan 18, 2013)

I would add:
Sibelius - Finlandia
Bach - Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring (from Cantata BWV 147)

Here's a CD full of classical 'hits'. 99 tracks.


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## Radames (Feb 27, 2013)

Puccini's Nessun Dorma used to be in TV commercials. Also has been used in many films.


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

Verdi - Coro di zingari ("Anvil Chorus") from Il Trovatore


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Tristan said:


> Here's a list I made when I was 14. It might be lacking, but I think the ones that are there are spot-on:
> 
> CLASSICAL MUSIC THAT EVERYONE KNOWS
> 
> ...


Good list, but I think you are slightly overestimating how much classical music most people know.


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

violadude said:


> Good list, but I think you are slightly overestimating how much classical music most people know.


I assumed the OP was asking about music people have almost certainly heard without realizing, not necessarily "knowing" the music or even its name. Still might be a slight overestimation, though.


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## jim prideaux (May 30, 2013)

Radames said:


> Puccini's Nessun Dorma used to be in TV commercials. Also has been used in many films.


1990 World Cup in Italy-semi final England vs Germany,Paul Gascoigne's yellow card, Gary Linekers glance to Bobby Robson,all to the theme 0f.............


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

Siegfried's funeral music has been used in many a movie and commercial, as has Bellinis Casta Diva from Norma.
Popular songs have been based on classical melodies such as "No Other Love" ( Étude in E major, Op. 10, No. 3 by Frédéric Chopin.)
and "Dont you know?" ("Musetta's Waltz" from Puccini's La Boheme) A big hit for the wondefull Della Reese.


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

I'll offer up the Minuet from Boccherini's String Quintet in E, Op. 11, No. 5. A tune that everyone knows but few (non-musicians) can identify. For most of my life I just assumed it was Mozart.


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

Beethoven's _Pathetique_ Sonata, first and second movements.
A lot of people know Mozart's aria _Voi Che Sapete_ without realising it.


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

I should imagine everyone (in the UK at least) knows the 'O Fortuna' from Orff's "Carmina Burana". Far fewer people will have heard the remaining 55-odd minutes, and fewer than that will even realise that it is part of a much bigger work.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

Juventino Rosas - Sobre las Olas


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Ode To Joy-various TV commercials on American television.

Opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony-the theme music to Judge Judy TV program in the US.


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## echmain (Jan 18, 2013)

Anyone who watched Bugs Bunny knows some classical music.

Wagner Ride of the Valkyries from What's Opera Doc?

Kill da wabbit, kill da wabbit, kill da wabbit


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Of course, the wedding music by both Wagner and Mendelssohn. I've avoided such music like the plague.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Brahms' Waltz 



Delibes - Mazurka from Coppelia - 




Most of the ones on Tristan's list, I absolutely love! They're popular for a reason.


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## musicrom (Dec 29, 2013)

I don't think I've ever heard the Brahms Waltz or the Rosas... _Voi che sapete_ doesn't sound at all familiar to me either, although I don't really listen to anything for voice. Are they really THAT popular?


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

musicrom said:


> I don't think I've ever heard the Brahms Waltz or the Rosas... _Voi che sapete_ doesn't sound at all familiar to me either, although I don't really listen to anything for voice. Are they really THAT popular?


I for one knew both long before I got interested in classical music. The Rosas I played very often on the electronic organ at home.


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

Another one that I thought of. People of a certain generation probably would recognize the third movement from Rachmaninov's Symphony No. 2 because it formed the tune for the chorus of a popular 1976 song, Eric Carmen's "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again".


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

I think the opening of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto could make the cut, too. Along, perhaps, with the Waltz from his Serenade for Strings op. 48.

Also, Strauß's Roses from the South and the Emperor Waltz (bits of them anyway). And of course his father's Radetzky March.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Tchaikovsky, Polonaise from Eugene Onegin. 



Brahms, Hungarian Dance no. 5 - 



Csárdás -


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## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

On TC, I feel like everybody knows everything - but I am sure very few people know all Haydn symphonies.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I have a slight suspicion that the OP means what the non-TC layman would be able to recognize as a familiar classical piece.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Proms favourites:

Franz von Suppé Light Cavalry Overture
Johann Strauss Sr Radetzky March 

Theme tunes

Khachaturian Overture to Spartacus (aka Onedin Line theme)
Sibelius Intermezzo from 'Karelia Suite' op II (aka This Week theme)
Sousa Liberty Bell (aka Monty Python theme)

Sorry about the British bias.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Taggart said:


> Proms favourites:
> 
> Franz von Suppé Light Cavalry Overture
> Johann Strauss Sr Radetzky March
> ...


Yes I remember the intense competition between the von Suppé and "Tonight's the Night" for number one song at my Prom.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Perotin said:


> Verdi: Dies irae from Requiem
> Khatchaturian: Adagio from Spartacus


If you don't recognize the Adagio from Spartacus as Khatchaturian's, there is a good chance you've heard it elsewhere... as pretty much lifted wholesale and turned into a popular song by Tony Hiller & Nicky Graham, 
_Journey's End,_ here as sung by Andy Williams




With the U.S.S.R. non-copyright policy of the times, I bet Khatchaturian didn't see a penny (or fraction of a Ruble) from this one....


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

This is a _great_ thread. As someone fairly new to classical music, I can testify that some of these are the hardest works to find out about. They're so far below most of you that you never think to mention them to people like me.

The Radetzky March was the one that showed me how little of the most famous music I knew, long after I'd started exploring relatively obscure stuff. Made me very angry. I think I will die angry about that actually.


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## Perotin (May 29, 2012)

Rachmaninov: Elegie, Vocalise
Fritz Kreisler: Schön Rosmarin, Liebesfreud, Liebesleid
Gabriel Fauré: Élégie
Elgar: the beginnig of cello concerto
Händel: music for Uefa champions league,oh wait, or is it Zadok the priest? :lol:


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

hpowders said:


> Yes I remember the intense competition between the von Suppé and "Tonight's the Night" for number one song at my Prom.


Aw, c'mon, I bet the most controversial choice was between two numbers from Star Wars.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

science said:


> This is a _great_ thread. As someone fairly new to classical music, I can testify that some of these are the hardest works to find out about. They're so far below most of you that you never think to mention them to people like me.
> 
> The Radetzky March was the one that showed me how little of the most famous music I knew, long after I'd started exploring relatively obscure stuff. Made me very angry. I think I will die angry about that actually.


Depends on the paper you read. The Daily Telegraph had a spell at pushing pop classics some years back and we have the (free) CDs. They include all the "standards" that I grew up hearing on the radio like:

Arne _Rule Britannia_
Butterworth _Banks of Green Willow_
Elgar _Nimrod_
Gershwin _Rhapsody in Blue_
Handel _Arrival of the Queen of Sheba_
Sousa _Stars and Stripes Forever_
Vaughan Williams _Fantasia on Greensleeves_
Wood _Fantasia on British Sea Songs_

The trouble is the packaging - they're all snippets put out as Best of the Proms or whatever. In some ways they don't appeal to "serious" new listeners but for people of a certain age they are a total blast from the past - a box of candy that you know tastes good but is pure sugar.


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## scratchgolf (Nov 15, 2013)

I think a lot of these are regional. I've listened to a few that you've all posted from British television and I've never heard them. Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue was used in an airline commercial in the States so that's my exposure. Someone from Italy may not share my "Oh yeah, I've heard that before" moment. I also don't think things as famous as Beethoven's 5th apply here because people can usually name the source too. The true gems are the ones that I still have no clue about, and on occasion I'll hear something and have my moment. A recent for me was Rossini's overture to the Barber of Seville. Most Americans have heard it in film/advertising but can't say where/when/who.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

scratchgolf said:


> I think a lot of these are regional. I've listened to a few that you've all posted from British television and I've never heard them. Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue was used in an airline commercial in the States so that's my exposure. Someone from Italy may not share my "Oh yeah, I've heard that before" moment. I also don't think things as famous as Beethoven's 5th apply here because people can usually name the source too. The true gems are the ones that I still have no clue about, and on occasion I'll hear something and have my moment. A recent for me was Rossini's overture to the Barber of Seville. Most Americans have heard it in film/advertising but can't say where/when/who.


A lot of it depends upon upbringing too. If you've only heard these once they might not linger in your mind but if they have been drummed into you through a misspent youth of cartoon watching then you will automatically know Juventino Rosas - _Sobre las Olas_ as trapeze music even if you could never name it.

In the same category but some of them heading off into the semi-classical, disdainful sniff
Waldteufel - Die Schlittschuhläufer-Walzer - 



 - Slippy slidey elegance
Schubert - Erlkönig - 



 - OMG we're screwed
Mendelssohn - The Hebrides - 



 - looming amazement
Handel - The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba - 



 - Out of my way peasant/look at my antiques
Tritsch Tratsch Polka - Strauss - 



 - Chased by small creatures
Leroy Anderson - Sleigh Ride - 



Laurie Johnson - Happy Go Lively - 



 - Let's go to town and look at 50's style furniture
Raymond Scott - Powerhouse - 



 - Welcome to the machine

Ofthen it only takes a few notes to implant the tune so no matter how recognisable it is you still don't know the music.


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## scratchgolf (Nov 15, 2013)

So true. Walt Disney alone has buried so many "toons" (<----see what I did there?) in my subconscious. Someday soon I'll collect all the cartoons of my youth and be amazed at what I hear.

*I've spent much of the last hour clicking the links I'm not familiar with. Wow, recognizing many many things.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Taggart said:


> Depends on the paper you read. The Daily Telegraph had a spell at pushing pop classics some years back and we have the (free) CDs. They include all the "standards" that I grew up hearing on the radio like:
> 
> Arne _Rule Britannia_
> Butterworth _Banks of Green Willow_
> ...


Yeah, if I could go back to give myself advice when I was starting out, I would begin with things like "the 99 most relaxing pieces of classical music" and whatever, just to familiarize myself with the repertoire from that angle. I really regret trying to skip that phase of my self-education.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Ride of the Valkyries by Wagner. Many non-classical listeners recognize that one.


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