Recently I was told about a website where you can record 10 minute-long sound track of a tune that you’ve heard somewhere but don’t know its identity. So I checked it out and spent a few hours listening through the often off-pitched humming by hundreds of people who would like to know the identity of the classical music tune they have heard and like… and identifying a bunch of them. It really was very interesting how so many of the clips are requests for the same tunes. So here I list the 17 classical/instrumental tunes whose identification is most requested on NameMyTune.com. Click on the name of the song for sample from Youtube.
1.‘In the hall of the Mountain King’ from Edvard Grieg’s ‘Peer Gynt’
2. ‘Morning Mood’ from Edvard Grieg’s ‘Peer Gynt’
The first two numbers are from the orchestral suite composed as incidental music to Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt, a delightful account of Norwegian adventurous anti-hero who, when asked by the Mountain Troll King: “What is the difference between troll and man?,” he answers: “Man, be thyself. Troll, to thyself be – enough.”
3. ‘O fortuna’ from Carl Orff’s ‘Carmina Burana’
Orff’s Carmina Burana is a scenic cantata based on a medieval Latin text. It was conceived for staged performance, but is most often performed as a concert piece. Most non-classical music fans have heard the famous ‘O fortuna’ from the film ‘The Last of the Mohegans.’
4. Mozart’s ‘Eine kleine Nachtmusik’ (Serenade for strings in G major, K.525)
Known in English as ‘A Little Night Music’, this is a cute as a button chamber music piece for strings in 4 movements:
– Allegro
– Romance andante
– Menuetto allegretto
– Rondo allegro
5. ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ from Richard Wagner’s ‘Die Walküre
The Valkyrie is the 2nd of Wagner’s ‘Ring Cycle‘ opera. The valkyries, taken from Norse mythology, are the goddess daughters of the chief god Wotan (Wagner’s version of Odin). They spend their days collecting the dead and dying from the battle fields and it is said that the aurora borealis signifies the ride of these goddesses of slaughter across the heavens. Most people are familiar with Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ from the helicopter fleet scene in the film Apocalypse Now.
6. Edward Elgar’s ‘Chanson de matin’ (Morning Song)
Composed in 1899 for a violin solo with piano accompaniment, this is a favorite recital piece for violinist.
7. Fritz Kreisler’s ‘Liebesleid’ (Love’s Sorrow)
Another favorite recital piece for violinists, Liebesleid is often given together with Liebesfreud. It is usually played by a solo violin to piano accompaniment.
8. Franz Liszt’s ‘Liebestraum No.3’
Written in 1850, this is a part of a set of three songs Liszt set to the poems of Uhland and Freiligrath describing three sides of love.
9. Johann Sebastian Bach’s ‘Toccata & Fugue in D minor’
Very popular number for horror movies and TV commercials, this is one of Bach’s best known organ works.
10. ‘O mio babbino caro’ from Giacomo Puccini’s opera ‘Gianni Schicchi’
Gianni Schicchi is the last of the set of three one act operas, Il Tritico, by Puccini designed to be performed one after another in a single evening. This is the song that young (and quite spoiled rotten) Lauretta sings to her dad (Gianni Schicchi), imploring his approval of her lover (either he complies or she’ll jump into the Arno).
11. Luigi Boccherini’s ‘Minuet‘
Another favorite of TV commercials and party scenes in period films, this is a movement from Boccherini’s String Quintet Op. 13, no. 5.
12. ‘Watlz II’ from Dmitri Shostakovich’s Jazz Suite No. 2
From Shostakovich’s fantastic second Jazz Suite, this dancy number also shows up a lot during light-hearted moments in films.
13. Ludwig van Beethoven’s ‘Für Elise’
Curiously written not for an ‘Elise’ but for the pianist Therese Malfatti. It is a charming piano number that every piano student runs into soon after their introduction to the keyboard.
14. Ludwig van Beethoven’s finale from Symphony no.9 (Ode to Joy)
Most of the time non-classical music fans would have heard only the choral part of this final movement of Beethoven’s final symphony. A variation of it can also be heard in his ‘Choral Fantasy’.
15. Richard Addinsell’s ‘Warsaw Concerto’
Written specifically for the film Dangerous Moonlight (1941) about a Polish composer/fighter pilot who sees the progress of WW II from his London place and wants to join the fight for Poland.
16. ‘The Arrival of the Guests to the Ball’ from Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet ‘Romeo and Juliet’
If you love Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, you’d love his Romeo and Juliet Suite for ballet. It doesn’t sound very much Italian, but its exotic coloring paints a vivid image of the ill-fated lovers in your imagination.
17.Vangelis’ ‘Conquest of Paradise’
Written for the film ‘1492‘ about Christopher Columbus and the discovery of America (starring Gerard Depardieu). It’s an absurdly simple theme that is repeated over and over with different arrangement of the chorus and orchestra instruments… and it works wonderfully in conjuring up the image of a new world emerging out of the fog after a long sea voyage.
Voila! I hope this list would prove helpful to those who have heard some of the music here before and wondered where they came from…. And also it is a selfish wish of mine to cut down on the number of duplicate requests on NameMyTune.com. If I hear another off-tuned humming of Boccherini’s Minuet on that site I think I’ll scream!
