Classical Music is on the Air

Classical music is in the air. Perhaps it would be better to say “Classical music is on the air.” Although we don’t hear as much today, “old time radio” often had themes borrowed from classical music, and some even used music to underscore the drama of the program. Here are some examples of OTR (old time radio) themes. I guess this will be directed to older readers who might remember some of these programs. However there are others, like myself, who came after, and belatedly discovered the (often superior) entertainment that OTR offered. These are listed as program title, musical selection, composer.

Action Theater               Piano Concerto in A minor        (Edvard Grieg)
Adventures of Ace Williams   Poet and Peasant Overture        (Franz Von Suppe)
American School of the Air   Leonore Overture # 3             (Ludwig von Beethoven)
Arabesque                    Scheherazade                     (N. Rimsky-Korsakov)
Author's Playhouse           Adagio from Symphony No. 2       (Sergei Rachmaninoff)
The Big Story                Ein Heldenleben                  (Richard Strauss)
Buck Rogers                  Les Preludes                     (Franz Liszt)
Captain Midnight             Flying Dutchman Overture         (Richard Wagner)
The Count of Monte Cristo    Sylvia Ballet                    (Leo Delibes)
Escape                       Night on Bald Mountain           (Modeste Mussorgsky)
The Family Hour              Clair de Lune                    (Claude Debussy)
FBI In Peace and War         March from Love for Three Oranges(Sergei Prokofiev)
Green Hornet                 The Flight of the Bumblebee      (N. Rimsky-Korsakov)
Hilltop House                Lullaby                          (Johannes Brahms)
I Love A Mystery             Valse Triste                     (Jan Sibelius)
Jungle Jim                   William Tell Overture            (Giacchino Rossini)
Kitty Keene                  None but the Lonely Heart        (Peter I. Tchaikovsky)
Kraft Music Hall             Rhapsody In Blue                 (George Gershwin)
Life Begins at Eighty        Melody In F (Opus 3, No. 1)      (Anton Rubinstein)
The Lone Ranger              William Tell Overture            (Gioacchino Rossini)                              Fingal's Cave Overture           (Felix Mendelssohn)
                             Les Preludes                     (Franz Liszt)
Mandrake, The Magician       The Sorcerer's Apprentice        (Paul Dukas)
Mercury Theater on the Air   Piano Concerto # 1, 1st movement (Peter I. Tchaikovsky)
Moon River                   Caprice Viennois                 (Fritz Kreisler)
Mr. District Attorney        Ein Heldenleben                  (Richard Strauss)
Passing Parade               Romeo & Juliet (Fantasy Overture)(Peter I. Tchaikovsky)
Philip Morris Theatre        Grand Canyon Suite               (Ferde Grofe)
Quiet, Please                Symphony in D minor, 2nd mvmt    (Cesar Franck)
The Road of Life             Andante Cantabile                (Peter I.Tchaikovsky) 
The Shadow                   Omphale’s Spinning Wheel         (Camille Saint-Saens)
We, The People               Symphony No. 1, First Movement   (Johannes Brahms)
Words And Music              Largo from the Symphony, No. 9   (Antonin Dvorak)
You Are There                Fanfare for the Common Man       (Aaron Copland)

Well, once again, we have a huge list of old time radio programs that used classical music. This is not an exhaustive listing. I left out a number of music programs that (obviously) used classical music for their themes. Notice, too, that we have all kinds of radio programs - adventure, drama, variety, musical, romance, mystery, sci-fi, suspense, documentary, comedy.

There are a number of websites that offer streams or downloads of OTR, many of them at no cost. You can become better acquainted with these melodies if you stream or download some of these programs and spend a bit of time listening to them, especially their opening music and/or main themes that recur throughout the program.

And so, classical music is "on the air."