Let’s face it, most regular people aren’t that into classical music. My condolences to them. They don’t know what they’re missing. There’s a reason that classical music is classic and stood the test of time.
But there are those among the rock and rolling and folk musicians of our times that are familiar with classical music and have based some of their songs on it. Perhaps you didn’t know that some of your favorite tunes of the classical age of rock and roll derive from the classical age of classical music, written by such noteworthies as Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin.
As Chuck Berry once sang, roll over Beethoven. A new crop of musicians has arrived.
This article will explore some of those songs. I’ll present the original classical works they derived from in a separate article, in case you’re the type who likes to skip such music. (My condolences to you.)
In the early 1970s, a flash-in-the-pan came along called Apollo 100, a one-hit-wonder band. They were a miniscule part of the British Invasion, but while their pan flashed, they hit the top 10 charts. People often utter the term “one-hit wonder” with a smirk. I say, good on those who succeed at creating a hit, even if only one. Have you done that?
The song is simply called “Joy,” and it certainly does evoke that emotion listening to it. It’s based on a choral work by Johann Sebastian Bach called “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desire.” It’s the opposite of the Apollo 100 hit, a somber, dignified piece that’s the last movement of his cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, German for “Heart and mouth and deed and life,” which sounds sort of like the Baroque version of “life, the universe, and everything.”
Apollo 100 weren’t the only ones who cribbed Bach’s song of joy. The Beach Boys recorded a song called “Lady Lynda” based on it. It also reached the top 10, but in the United Kingdom, not so much in America. Lady Lynda refers to Lynda Jardine, wife of Beach Boys cofounder Alan Jardine, who cowrote the song. Unfortunately they divorced, at which point the lyrics were rewritten to be a celebration of the Statue of Liberty and the song retitled to “Lady Liberty.”
Before those two bands, one obscure and one popular, released their classical-based hits, a certain King of Rock and Roll recorded a song based on a popular love song that hit the French charts in 1784. It was called “Plaisir D’Amour,” meaning “The pleasure of love”—just about as nice a title for a love song as you could think of. (Certainly better than “Silly Love Songs.”) It was written by Jean-Paul-Égide Martini. The great French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz arranged it for orchestra 75 years later.
177 years later Elvis Presley recorded it with new words in 1961. It became a #2 hit and was featured in the film Blue Hawaii. “Can’t Help Falling in Love” became a signature song of his and an iconic love ballad for modern times. The 18th century French would be proud.
Consummate folk singer Paul Simon, after he and Art Garfunkel criminally disbanded the greatest folk duo ever, came out with a love ballad of sorts, but for America, and well, actually it was more of a lamentation than a love ballad. “American Tune” is a beautiful but mournful ode to America. It was written shortly after President Nixon was elected, but its thematic line is still relevant today:
Still when I think of the road we’re traveling on
I wonder what’s gone wrong
I can’t help it, I wonder what’s gone wrong
The music to this tune is also based on an old song written way back in the early part of the new millennium—that would be the millennium of the 1000’s. It’s a passion hymn originally with Latin lyrics called “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded.” Kind of reminds you of the cheeriness of Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ.
Enough of this penny ante stuff. Let’s move on to the towering figure of classical music, the icon of what it means to be classical, Ludvig van Beethoven, or as Alex deLarge in A Clockwork Orange calls him, “Ludwig van.” That Stanley Kubrick film alone is a study in using classical music for modern times, but in our focus now, we’re interested in a rendition of Beethoven’s magnificent and final symphony #9, movement #4, the choral section, that most of the world knows as “Ode to Joy.” It seems to be a popular selection for flash mobs all over the world.
Julio Iglesias performs a fairly faithful version of it musically, but plays fast and loose with the words, only lightly touching on the message Beethoven included in his symphony with the borrowed German poem “Ode to Joy.” The Iglesias version is called “Song of Joy,” originating in 1994 and recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra.
As with transitioning between Bach’s cantata and Apollo 100’s cover, there’s a certain peaceful and beautiful piano sonata written by Beethoven that apparently is intended to play under moonlight, but was adapted by a guitarist of the 21st century into something that will rock your socks off. Tina S is a bit of a YouTube sensation with over 19 million views as of this moment for this performance.
Beethoven wrote the Piano Sonata #14 in C Minor, subtitled “Quasi una fantasia,” but most commonly known as “Moonlight Sonata,” in 1801. In 2013, this lively rendition of the 3rd movement erupted onto the Internet scene. This one if nothing else should make Beethoven roll over.
When speaking of piano, there’s one name that comes to mind above any other: Chopin. He wrote zillions of preludes for piano in every key that exists. One particular one was called “Prelude Opus 28, No. 20 in C minor.” (Such catchy titles these classical works have!) This was some time in the year 18mumblemumble.
It took until the next century to fix that title into something that glides off the tongue more easily. That title was “Could It Be Magic,” and it was written by Tony Orlando and that one-time advertising jingle composer Barry Manilow turned barroom-crooner and singer of love songs. The “Prelude in C minor” is the introduction to the song before that silky Manilow voice chimes in with “Spirit move me.”
Both rock and roll and folk are genres of music for the common people. Folk became the genre of protest music for a young generation disillusioned with the establishment (the Man), and rock and roll was born in the incubator of 1940s black music back when being black meant being oppressed.
But classical music, perceived today as the music of the hoi polloi, has also had its moments of voice for the common folk. In particular, there’s one composer who, unlike Beethoven, Mozart, and Brahms with a German influence, or Berlioz, Debussy, and Saint-Saëns with a French influence, or Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, and Stravinsky with a Russian influence, was quintessentially American, so much so that he was called “the Dean of American Composers.”
Aaron Copland’s music includes that Western theme you’ve heard in the ads for “Beef—it’s what’s for dinner.” For the common people, he composed a piece specifically called “Fanfare for the Common Man,” and the common people can stand proud knowing such a stirring piece was dedicated to them.
It seems inevitable that a classical work for the common people would be adapted to the genre for common people: rock and roll. That’s precisely what Emerson, Lake, and Palmer did in 1977 in their ambitious album Works Volume 1. They took “stirring” to “electrifying.”