Formerly rarely heard classical pieces that become ubiquitous.?

Well - 3 weeks ago, I did not know the name of this work - and thank to S C Johnson and their GLADE commercial, I do not need to hear it EVER again - although I am sure I will - it's the Delius "Sleigh Ride". And of course - ALL OF THE ABOVE so far named. As someone who judges NYSSMA festivals, I can tell you that despite the large lists from which to choose, we hear the SAME works over and over. At dinner, we compare - how many Moonlights, Spinning Songs, Knechts, etc. we have heard. DH and I make sure that our private students play things that have a SLIM chance of being played by anyone else - aural fatigue in any judge is a dangerous thing.

Several years ago, I went to the music library and listened to The Pearl Fishers.

I was curious about what Bizet composed besides Carmen.

I was impressed with the tenor-baritone duet, which I then heard for the first time.

Apparently, other people have too, because it has been used and abused since then.

Of course the Pathetique Sonata was never obscure, but when I was in junior high school, it was not used and abused as it is now.

That was when I heard it for the first time, in a college recital.

I was impressed that time also.

Apparently, its numerous users and abusers have too.

I played Prokofieff's Romeo and Juliet at Interlochen.

I especially remembered the scene which gets used and abused now.

Alas, now I can never again enjoy any privacy while listening to that piece either.

Speaking of Interlochen, I went back there one more time for an alumni reunion.

Guess what the choir and the orchestra performed for us--yes, you guessed it, Carmina Burana!

I enjoyed it, and the rest of the audience enjoyed it.

Now the mass media has ruined that composition for us also!

No #1--Please give it a rest award goes to "O Fortuna" from Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana"

No.2--"O Mio Babbino Caro"by Giacomo Puccini, is now sung by every opera wanna-be including tiny children who shreik and gasp their way through the aria.

No.3-"Nessun Dorma" also by Mr. Puccini, for the same reasons above. What's worse is the fact that so many bad sopranos are attempting to sing this rather difficult tenor aria.

No.4--"Thus Spoke Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss, otherwise known as the theme from "2001: A Space Odyssey". So everytime someone decides to parody the monolith/monkey scene from the movie...I even have it as a choice of ringtones on my cell phone.

No.5--The Flower Duet from Delibes' opera "Lakme"--a beautiful duet ruined by the number of commercials/movies/television shows, etc. it shows up in--no matter how unrelated the scene

I can probably think of some more--this time of year, honorable mention goes to "The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from "The Nutcracker Ballet and Suite".

Below, an arrangement for glass armonica/harmonica

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQemvyyJ--g

The Pavarotti/Bocelli/Potts craze might have been back in 2007, but it's still being sung everywhere by everyone--here is the bodacious Katherine Jenkins in 2008 (she's a mezzo so it's even been transposed down for her). Listen only if you have a strong stomach.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt3uKYWeFtQ

By the way, I love this question and all the great answers!

Famously the Largo from the New World Symphony was know as 'the Hovis music' in the UK for years, though it has dropped out of favour recently.

As for the others, I agree with the Pachelbel, the Dance of the Knights, O Fortuna, the Bach 'Cello Prelude et cetera (lit. 'and the rest', from the Greek ''Kai ta hetera'' (sorry, felt like throwing that in)), but I suppose it does expose people to at least 'some' classical music. The only thing is that some of these pieces aren't that bad. Especially the An die Freude (lit Ode to Joy)

Oh, Chopin's Funeral March (From the Second Piano Sonata), and the opening bars of the Grieg Piano Concerto (but that was mainly due to Morecambe and Wise).

At my funeral i want NO song - none in any respect. i want people to squirm and ask your self "Why is it so QUIET? the place did all the song bypass?" i'm no longer able to do the maudlin part of having my flute left interior the open case, on a closed casket - too, too icky - in basic terms slam the lid, pop me into the spot I already very own ( yup - relatives component) down the line. As a approaches a Bluette, the only sound i'd affiliate together with her death is a flush . . . .it relatively is frequently what we do with . . . never suggestions . . . Did every physique else see the non everlasting visual attraction of yet another I. Jones identity theft in the past this week? I reported it, and it became long gone in hours. I additionally bypass away relatively nasty responses, because of the fact the trolls erase their stuff quickly, and in the event that they checklist me, I certainly have a digital path. It labored in removing all the different ones - what do I take care of some factors lost? At that value, i could get reported approximately 3 hundred greater cases - no epidermis off my nostril.

There are quite a few of these which are quite recent - although no less annoying to this old grouch for that.

Of course, the 'old faithfuls' like 'Moonlight Thingummy', 'Oh, For Tuna', the Taco Bell Cannon, Beeethoven's Fifth and the like have been wearing us down for years. But of the more recent ones, those that make me despair include the 'Dance of the Knights' from Prokofiev's 'Romeo and Juliet'. Almost as much as 'Oh, For Tuna', this music is being used EVERYWHERE (if it's not one, it seems to be the other). I also yearn for the halcyon days when the only Beethoven symphony ignorant people knew was the aforementioned Fifth, but now everyone's clammering after the second movement of No 7 and, even more so, the so-called 'Ode to Joy' (so, who called it that? Schiller? Beethoven? I think not!) which many think is all the Ninth Symphony comprises.

Most recently of all, I was perplexed, bemused and heartened in almost equal measures at the sudden 'popularity' of Bach's solo cello music. Well, a little bit of it actually. One suite. Well, one movement from one suite. OK, the opening of one movement from one suite. *Sigh*

The most prominent feature of Art is the constant change that creative people bring to it. Art Music never sits still, and is constantly in flux.

When Stravinsky, Bartok, Schoenberg, etc. emerged early in the 20th century, their music was 'new'. As a rather 'red-neck' reaction to this newness, people began to talk of 'classical' music. This clearly meant "Music we are familiar with: not this modern junk."

When the regular flushing away of the old by the new is largely killed off by self-important reactionaries, and the line in the sand separating the old from the new has remained in much the same place for almost 100 years, it is hard to then plausibly complain that certain old music is beginning to become tiresome.

Because music that we once liked has 'worn out' (in our estimation), we tend to rather snobbishly deride the music itself. This is simply egotistical cretinism!

Debussy's "Clair de Lune". e.g., is no better (or no worse!) a work of art because we have now grown sick of it. We grow sick of it mostly because we are not being constantly presented with new beauties.

To further intensify the nausea we experience when familiar music is played too often, we now have radio, television, CDs, etc., etc. to increase the pain of over-familiarity.

The unimaginative drones that created 'classical' music are all long dead (if ever they could be diagnosed as 'alive') but their anti-art legacy lives on. "I don't like it, therefore I'll kill it", the infantile mentality of 'classical' music, has now come back to bite us.

If one doesn't eagerly search out the new in music, and is apparently content to celebrate Bach's birthday at a party next door to a contemporary composer who one has never heard of, a composer who needs a welfare payment to live on, it is quite rich to then complain that the only music one regularly is fed in our society is 'old', over-played, etc.

I need to look up the meaning of ubiquitous. I'll be right back........

Ok, I'm back. I have been happily listening to classical music for over 60 years. Sometime in the early 1970's I became aware of a composer by the name of Pachelbel, to be more specific his "Canon in D". At first listening I found it quite nice however since then I have heard it arranged horribly for just about every instrument in existence. I vote to give this piece a R.I.P.

No one had ever heard of Saint-Saens 3rd Symphony until that damn pig film used it. Here in the UK, the piece that is everywhere these days seems to be the flaming Lark. I wish it would stop ascending and migrate or whatever larks do in the winter.

I am sick of Ode to Joy, O fortuna, moonlight sonata, and clair de Lune. I'm sorry, but these pieces are over exposed compared to many other classical pieces that are much, much better.