Classical Music in movies, Part 1

Please allow me to continue with this introduction (perhaps better, reintroduction) to classical music.
Movies are full of classical music bits or complete movements. My next post will give some numbers that are amazing. This post is simply an introduction to that post.

Perhaps some of the earliest examples of classical music used in modern media might be from Walt Disney studios. In the 30s and 40s (even before my time!) Walt Disney produced a series of cartoons called Silly Symphonies. They span the changeover from black and white to color, although they are all “talkies.” Often these cartoons were set to various classical themes, as were other Disney cartoons that followed over the course of many years. Mendelssohn’s Spring Song is an example that readily springs (pun intended, sorry) to mind here.

Perhaps the biggest classical music offering came in Fantasia, which was released in 1940. Fantasia offers a sort of fantasy look at 7 familiar pieces of classical music: Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor,  Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, Beethoven’s 6th Symphony, Ponchielli’s Dance of the Hours and a combination work including Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain and Schubert’s Ave Maria. The cartoon work tried to follow some of the different types of classical music - abstract, evocative, story-telling, faith-expression, etc. This movie has been reedited and re-released numerous times, with the latest incarnations reflecting the original, adding some footage that fell to the cutting room floor along the way. The quality of the sound track has also been remastered to showcase what was the latest innovation when it was originally released - stereophonic sound.

One section was taken from this movie, and became a popular cartoon shown on its own over and over again: Mickey Mouse as The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Who hasn’t seen that at least a couple of times in their lives?

There was a sequel in the late 1990s, but it didn’t catch the imagination nearly as much as the original did. As I recall, the sequel used images that were so far from the musical work’s title or content that it just didn’t match up to the original standard.

From there it isn’t hard to find other movies that used classical music in their soundtracks. The theme from Mozart’s 21st Piano Concerto is prominently heard in Elvira Madigan. Rachmaninov’s 18th variation from the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is heard throughout Somewhere in Time. Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries sounds fitting to helicopter scenes in Apocalypse Now. There are the obvious classical music films based on some element of a composer's life: Amadeus and Immortal Beloved. I think one of the greatest pairings of classical music and cinema is the scene of the incomplete space station in 2001: A Space Odyssey slowly rotating to the strains of Strauss’ Blue Danube waltz..
See? You have heard classical music, haven’t you? I’ll even go so far as to say that you enjoyed it, too, didn’t you? Only a true curmudgeon could answer “No” to these questions.