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COFFEE BREAK | Eight Of The Most Iconic Uses Of Classical Music In Film

Maestro, the Bradley Cooper biopic about Leonard Bernstein, puts a spotlight on the late conductor/composer’s own music, along with the music of Beethoven, Walton, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, which he conducts in a moving scene. The soundtrack, featuring the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, is tearing up the classical music charts.
Naturally, the music is an integral part of Bernstein’s story. Western classical music, however, has provided the emotional underpinnings to many a Hollywood movie. In fact, in some cases, the music has reached iconic status because of it.
Here’s a look at some of the more memorable uses of classical music in Hollywood’s dream factory.
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Raging Bull | Intermezzo from Cavelleria Rusticana (Pietro Mascagni)
Robert De Niro’s portrayal of boxer Jake LaMotta was widely acclaimed for its realistic depiction of the sheer physicality of the sport, along with the tragedy of his story. Mascagni’s Intermezzo comes from his one-act opera Cavelleria Rusticana, written in 1889. The music’s passionate intensity and emotional appeal underscore the movie’s major themes admirably well, and are used in the opening credits of the movie.
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Prometheus | Prelude Op. 28, No. 15 (Frédéric Chopin)
Frédéric Chopin’s Prelude, also known as the Raindrop because of the repetitive notes played by the left hand, appears a couple of times in Ridley Scott’s gruesome space opera. It’s pure tones create a gently melancholic mood that starkly contrasts the brutal realities of the alien antagonism, ultra-toxic gene-modifying chemical warfare, and other far space hazards faced by the characters in the story. It plays over the end credits in the violent aftermath of the plot. Interestingly, Op. 28, No. 4 is used in the Jack Nicholson flick Five Easy Pieces. He plays it in his old family home, and its mournful qualities come to the fore.
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Apocalypse Now | Flight Of The Valkyries (Richard Wagner)
While iconic in its own right, it’s probably a truism to say that Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries, which is taken from the beginning of act 3 of Die Walküre, the second of the four operas in the composer’s Ring Cycle, is best known from its use in Francis Ford Coppola’s movie. As the helicopters prepare for a deadly strike, Robert Duvall’s war-loving Lt. Col. William Kilgore orders the music to be played. It’s a surreal soundtrack to the rain of death from above.
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2001: A Space Odyssey | Also sprach Zarathustra (Richard Strauss)
While it’s not the only piece of classical music used in the film — the other Strauss’s Blue Danube appears in one scene, among other pieces — Richard Strauss’s tone poem, Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30, has reached iconic status in popular culture. It plays over the opening credits of Stanley Kubrick’s masterwork, with the sun rising over earth in the dark loneliness of space. Its triumphant tone is offset by the sense of impending doom. Strauss’s Nietschian inspiration for the music adds its note of existential absurdity to the proceedings.
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Platoon | Adagio for Strings (Samuel Barber)
The emotional depth that classical music can add to a film is highlighted in Oliver Stone’s Platoon. Samuel Barber’s mournful Adagio for Strings plays as Willem Dafoe’s Sergeant Elias dies – just as the helicopters arrive to evacuate the remaining soldiers. The rescued soldiers watch helplessly as Elias runs from multiple enemy combattants, only to be shot numerous times. The music reaches its emotional peak just as he makes his final defiant gesture. It’s a scene that has become a touchstone for many about the horrors of war.
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The Shining | Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta (Béla Bartók)
Stanley Kubrick makes the list twice, which must say something about the filmmaker’s taste in music. For his 1980 horror classic The Shining, he uses the Adagio from Béla Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, Sz. 106, BB 114. Its eerie sense of tension and suspense accompanies Danny Torrance’s child character Danny Lloyd as he becomes acquainted with the dead residents of the haunted mountain resort, adding to the audience’s growing sense of disquiet. He also uses music by Penderecki, and the opening theme as composed by Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind, was based on medieval hymns and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique.
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The King’s Speech | Symphony No. 7 (Ludwig van Beethoven)
Colin Firth’s King George VI struggles with his stutter in the Academy Award winning film The King’s Speech. As the Second World War breaks out, however, he’s called upon to make a live radio speech to the British Empire. The upward motion of the second movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 matches the trajectory of his all-important speech; as his voice becomes more confident, verging into strident and passionate, the music grows in intensity. The scene cuts to his vocal coach, played by Jeffrey Rush, the live audience and those listening by radio. It’s a remarkably adept pacing of the scene and the music.
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Alien | Symphony No. 2 (The Romantic), II. (Howard Hanson)
Ridley Scott also makes a second appearance on the list with his use of American composer Howard Hanson’s little known Symphony No. 2 for the end credits of his 1979 space thriller Alien. The music’s romantic swell of strings and melody gives the film a lush finish – just after Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley has blasted the last of the movie’s Aliens out of her escape ship. The music’s use came with a controversy. Film composer Jerry Goldsmith wrote the score for the rest of the film, but he objected to the way they had cut and pasted bits of it, and most of all, that he was replaced for both opening and closing credits. Hanson himself was said to be so displeased by its use in the flick that he was contemplating legal action until he was persuaded against it by the movie’s popularity.
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Anya Wassenberg is a Toronto City Editor at Ludwig Van. She is an experienced freelance writer, blogger and writing instructor. Latest posts by Anya Wassenberg (see all)

CLASSICAL CHARTZ | The Albums Of 2023

Enjoy new music with our classical music chart for the year. Our selections are based on sales numbers and simply what albums we love and think you NEED to hear.
For the complete top 20, tune into Classical Chartz with the New Classical FM’s Mark Wigmore every Saturday from 3-5 p.m.
This week, we take a look at the top 20 classical music albums of 2023. The list neatly illustrates the diversity of the classical music world today.
Along with the superstars and stalwarts of the traditional repertoire, like Yuja Wang’s Rachmaninov, which sits at the top of the list, there is about equal representation of works like Québécoise neo-classical composer and pianist Alexandra Stréliski’s release Neo-Romance, which clocks in a No. 2.
Víkingur Ólafsson is being compared to Glenn Gould with his recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, sitting at No. 8. The Rotterdam Philharmonic and Lahav Shani anticipate next year’s anniversary with Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7, which turns up at position No. 9.
Canadians figure strongly on the list, including a solid quotient of stars from la belle province. Along with Alexandra Stréliski, the Montréal Symphony Orchestra and Rafael Payare offer In the Spirit: Sacred Music for Christmas (No. 3), Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s Clara & Robert Schumann Piano music (with Beatrice Rana and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, at No. 15), Bruce Liu’s Waves (No. 16), and Angèle Dubeau and La Pietà with their release of Signature: Philip Glass (No. 20).
An interesting addition is Joe Hisaishi’s A Symphonic Celebration at No. 7. Hisaichi will be coming back to Toronto to conduct the TSO this spring.
Here’s looking forward to another year of wonderful music and performances to enjoy.

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THE SCOOP | Barbara Hannigan Extends Assignment As Principal Guest Conductor In Gothenburg

Barbara Hannigan (Photo: Marco Borggreve)
The Gothenburg Symphony has announced the extension of Barbara Hannigan’s assignment as Principal Guest Conductor. For another three seasons, the famously singing conductor will continue to build her relationship with Swedish audiences until 2028.
“I am absolutely thrilled to continue my collaboration with Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, as their Principal Guest Conductor! We have had so many exciting and inspiring concerts over the past years, and I know there will be many more!” says Barbara Hannigan in a statement.
The recent news continues the University of Toronto graduate’s steady rise in the world of Western classical music as both a vocalist and conductor.
Barbara Hannigan
A native of Waverley, Nova Scotia, Barbara moved to Toronto at the age of 17, where she studied music at the University of Toronto. She graduated there with a BMus, followed by a Masters of Music degree. She pursued her musical education at the Banff Centre for the Arts, Steans Institute for Young Artists at the Ravinia Festival, and the Centre d’arts Orford.
As a gifted soprano, she has performed with opera companies and orchestras all over the world, and is known for her fearless commitment to new music along with her interpretations of the traditional repertoire. She won a Gramophone Recording of the Year Award for her 2013 premiere of Henri Dutilleux’s Correspondances. Her virtuosic abilities in the higher registers have been widely noted.
She began conducting in about 2011, and was immediately recognized for her dynamic and unique approach. Her acclaimed 2015 appearances in Toronto conducting Stravinsky’s Symphony In Three Movements were sold out.
In 2016, Barbara was awarded the Order of Canada for her singular contributions to the world of Western classical music. Her 2017 release Crazy Girl Crazy won the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal album.
She is as committed to the next generation as she is to her own music. Barbara created two initiatives, the Equilibrium Young Artists and Momentum: Our Future Now, designed to mentor emerging artists. She was named Reinbert de Leeuw Professor of Music at the Royal Academy of Music in the summer of 2023.
Barbara has been based in the Europe for several years. According to her website, she now lives in “Finistère, on the northwest coast of France, directly across the Atlantic from where she grew up in Waverley, Nova Scotia”.
Barbara Hannigan conducts and performs Ligeti’s Mysteries of the Macabre with Gothenburg Symphony on April 12, 2013:
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Barbara in Gothenburg
Her connections to Gothenburg go back to 2013, when she was invited to conduct a concert titled Spring Shock. Already known as a soprano, she left a lasting impression, and after building her conducting portfolio with numerous engagements, was appointed as the Symphony’s Principal Guest Conductor in 2019.
That contract now extends into the 2027/28 season.
“We are incredibly happy that Barbara Hannigan chooses to stay with us. She is a world star. For the orchestra, her innovative concerts are always a way to develop and meet the audience in new ways,” says Sten Cranner, CEO of the Gothenburg Symphony.
Notably, Gothenburg Symphony’s Chief conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali will be stepping down from the post at the end of the 2024-25 season. Rouvali has been the Symphony’s Chief conductor since 2017.
“We are all looking forward to a lot of fantastic concerts and projects before the end of next season, not least, guest performances in other countries. We will of course maintain our fine relationship in the future and have already planned invites as guest conductor,” says Sten Cranner.
Maestra Hannigan’s next conducting engagement with the Gothenburg Symphony will take place on January 18 and 19 for a program titled Animatopia, a dramatic comedy with actor David Dencik, piano duo Katia & Marielle Labèque, and baritone Laurent Naouri.
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Anya Wassenberg is a Toronto City Editor at Ludwig Van. She is an experienced freelance writer, blogger and writing instructor. Latest posts by Anya Wassenberg (see all)

LEBRECHT LISTENS | There’s No Better Entry To Bruckner Than Bernard Haitink’s Symphony 7

L-R: Portrait of Anton Bruckner (Kaulbach/public domain); Bernard Haitink, 1984 by The Algemeen Nederlandsch Fotobureau (ANeFo), also known as the General Dutch Photo Bureau, a Dutch photography agency, Netherlands (Nationaal Archief/Public domain dedication)
Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 (BR Klassik)
★★★★★
🎧 Presto
At the risk of provoking premature exasperation, I’m about to start the Bruckner bicentennial year a few days early. The Dutchman Bernard Haitink was a natural Brucknerian, more so than he was a Mahlerian. He had an innate grasp of structure and knew how to withhold passion and when to let rip. While Karajan, Wand and Giulini stole Bruckner’s thunder in the record stores, Haitink stuck to his meticulous ways with the symphonies, laying down markers for a longer posterity.
As principal conductor at the Concertgebouw, London Philharmonic, Covent Garden and Chicago, Haitink would make time for seasonal trips to Munich to work with the world’s best broadcast orchestra, the BRSO. Their sound in Bruckner is exemplary, the brass feral and unconstrained, the lower strings relishing the gift of a really big tune. The first page of the seventh symphony might well be the most impressive opening Bruckner ever wrote. The work was certainly the greatest success of his lifetime, coming shortly after he turned 60 and elevated by the Leipzig conductor Arthur Nikisch into a thing of wonder.
On the face of it, there is no imaginative leap forward from previous disappointments. The four movements look classical and sound romantic, but there is an authority that was hitherto absent. Richard Wagner had died since Bruckner last finished a score, and it is not far-fetched to suggest that the bereaved disciple stepped into the vacancy with a larger, more confident tread.
In an hour-long work, the first two movements take up 40 minutes can appear top-heavy. Haitink avoids the pitfall with a steady beat that is mitigated by lightness and touches of wit. This is the least Germanic interpretation you will find, the antithesis of folksy naiveties by Eugen Jochum, Gunter Wand and Karl Böhm. It is a reading that grows with repletion, vying with Karajan for explosiveness and with Giulini for sweet lyricism.
You will find no better entry point to Bruckner than this delicately civilised, never bombastic exploration of an essential milestone in German music.
To read more from Norman Lebrecht, subscribe to Slippedisc.com.
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Norman Lebrecht is one of the most widely-read commentators on music, culture and cultural politics. He is a regular presenter on BBC Radio 3 and a contributor to the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Standpoint, Sinfini and other publications. His blog, Slipped Disc, is among the most widely read cultural sites online, breaking exclusive stories and campaigning against human abuse and acts of injustice in the cultural industries. Latest posts by Norman Lebrecht (see all)