Spot The Classical Sample

Delmarva

Lunatic Member
I'm starting this thread to celebrate and compile a list of classical music references in popular music.
Many times I've been introduced to a classical piece via rock and popular music and didn't realize that the song was actually a reworking or snippet from a classical composition.

My favorite band, Emerson, Lake & Palmer started their first album with a track called The Barbarian. It's a rearrangement of Béla Bartók's piano composition Alegro Barbero. Carl Palmer suggested using the piece when they were recording the album, so Keith, Greg & Carl came up with an arrangement for bass, drums and organ. ELP doubled the length of the original piece.

They mistakenly failed to credit Bartók, assuming that the record company would take care of that detail.

Bartók's widow sued the band over copywrite infringement. I don't know what the result of the litigation was, but eventually the band gave Bartók full credit.

And so here is Bartók's original piece, Alegro Barbero (Sz. 49)

And here is Emerson, Lake & Palmer's, "The Barbarian".

So the idea for the thread is to include full blown reworkings of classical pieces such as The Barbarian or just a bar or two incorporated into an original song. Should be interesting to see where this goes, if it goes anywhere at all.
 
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Here's Romance, from Lieutenant Kijé by Sergei Prokofiev


And now, Russians, from The Dream Of The Blue Turtles, by Sting

As many times as I've heard Russians by Sting I've never made that connection.

I'm much more familiar with the 4th movement of the Lieutenant Kije Suite, the movement known as Troika.

And of course Greg Lake combined it with Jingle Bells and turned it into a holiday classic in 1975.
 
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ELP did a quote that might apply. The military assembly bugle call...


...at about 2:10 in Are You Ready Eddy from Tarkus.


There isn't much info on the origin of bugle calls, but Haydn might have composed some, according to this.

https://www.mfiles.co.uk/bugle-calls.htm
Love it. Exactly what I'm looking for here. That one hadn't occurred to me when I thought about where this thread could go. Emerson just slipped it in there so subtlety in his inimitable style..
Yes, Bugle Calls are officially included in this thread.

And of course there's an extra reference in Are You Ready Eddy. That being Judy Carne's Laugh In catchphrase "Sock It To Me".
 
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KMFDM's album Naive was withdrawn from sale due to objections from Carl Orff's estate, over a sample from "O Fortuna" from Orff's cantata Carmina Burana.
The album was later reissued without the offending sample, in the song "Liebeslied". I've got the original CD, and two of the reissues.

The sample is clearest at 4:53 in.

"O Fortuna":
 
Love it. Exactly what I'm looking for here. That one hadn't occurred to me when I thought about where this thread could go. Emerson just slipped it in there so subtlety in his inimitable style..
Yes, Bugle Calls are officially included in this thread.

And of course there's an extra reference in Are You Ready Eddy. That being Judy Carne's Laugh In catchphrase "Sock It To Me".
Nice thread, Frank. I've been somewhat disconnected lately, but I will try to catch up and contribute (although, I'm a musical mental midget:))...
 
I think @Delmarva will approve of this one.

In The Hall Of The Mountain King, from Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite


has been borrowed on numerous occasions, but this version by Apocalyptica is a bit special

I think @Delmarva will approve of this one.

In The Hall Of The Mountain King, from Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite


has been borrowed on numerous occasions, but this version by Apocalyptica is a bit special

 
An old New Wave Of British Heavy Metal band, Witchfynde used Edvard Greig's Hall Of The Mountain King as the basis for their song Cry Wolf
Horrible full album video here. Each song cut's off before finishing. Cry Wolf comes in at the 15:34 minute mark.
 
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