B.Mus (Hons), L.G.S.M., Q.T.S.
Trombonist, conductor, teacher and arranger.
Site updated 20/4/2025
Part 1
Introduction to Popular Music that uses Classical melodies.
Watch (listen to) the video on the left. "Stranger in Paradise" was a popular song written in 1953 and comes from the musical "Kismet". The most popular version was sung by Tony Bennett and reached number one in the UK Singles chart in May 1955. The huge popularity of "Stranger in Paradise" in the UK is reflected by the fact that no fewer than six versions charted in 1955: besides the chart topper by Tony Bennett, others include the versions by the Four Aces (No. 6), Tony Martin (No. 6), Bing Crosby (No. 17), Don Cornell (No. 19), as well as an instrumental version by Eddie Calvert (No. 14) in the UK chart listings. In the same year, the song was recorded in France by Gloria Lasso as "Étranger au paradis".
This beautiful music however was written much earlier by the Russian composer Alexander Borodin and comes from his opera "Prince Igor" which he began working on in 1868 and was completed after his death by Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov. Watch the first two minutes of the video on the right to hear the original music that was used in the pop song. This extract from the opera is known as the "Polovtsian Dances". I strongly recommend watching the whole video!
Here's another example of how a pop singer has used music written originally by a classical composer. The original music (on the right) is "O Sole Mio". This is a Neapolitan Song written in 1898 with lyrics by Giovanni Capurro and music composed by Eduardo di Capua and Alfredo Mazzucchi. Elvis Presley used this music for his hit "It's Now or Never", which was his best-selling single (20 million copies) and one of the best-selling singles of all time! In 1960, "It's Now or Never" was a number-one record in the U.S. for Elvis Presley, spending five weeks at number one and the UK, where it spent eight weeks at the top in 1960 and an additional week at number one in 2005 as a re-issue, and numerous other countries, selling in excess of 25 million copies worldwide, Elvis Presley's biggest international single ever. Watch both videos and again see how the pop song uses the same melody from the original song.
Incidentally, his same music was used for a series of adverts for Cornetto ice cream (with different words added). These adverts were so successful that there are probably more people who associate this music with Cornetto ice cream than with Elvis's song or the original one!
The final example I'm going to show you is a comic song from 1963 by Allan Sherman and Lou Busch, based on letters of complaint Allan received from his son Robert while Robert attended Camp Champlain, a summer camp in Westport, New York. The music (Dance of the Hours) was composed by Ponchielli and comes from his opera La Gioconda, which was first performed in 1876. Walt Disney also used this music in his animation Fantasia (see below right).
Over the next few weeks your task is to write a song using Classical music themes. In other words, you are to add your own lyrics to a previously composed classical melody. Your song will have a number of verses (which use the same music each time but have different words) and a chorus (which is both the same music and words each time). The music for the verses and chorus will be different classical music themes and can either have different music styles (e.g. Reggae) or the style can remain the same for both verse and chorus.
Your task this week is:
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to decide what your song is going to be about (e.g. the summer holidays.
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to choose from the options below the classical theme for your chorus (e.g. Ode To Joy).
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to choose from the options below the musical style for your chorus (e.g. Funk).
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to add words (lyrics) to your chosen classical theme for the chorus. Remember that the chorus is repeated several times so this should contain the main message of your song.
Choosing your classical melody and musical style for your chorus.
I have chosen for you three pieces of classical music melodies and created backing tracks in a number of pop styles.
Listen to the options below and decide which classical melody and in which musical style you wish to have for your chorus.
Also watch the videos on the right, which are the originals.
Ode To Joy by Beethoven
This music is the theme used in the final movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony (known as the Choral Symphony) completed in 1824. His tune (but not words) was adopted as the Anthem of Europe by the Council of Europe in 1972 and then by the European Union. This video from March 2020 shows an orchestra playing whilst isolated at home due to the Coronavirus.
New World Symphony by Dvorak
This music is the theme from the final movement of Dvorak's 9th Symphony (known as The New World Symphony) completed in 1893. It is a musical portrait of "the New World" (i.e. America), a country he emigrated to from Czechoslovakia in 1892 (one year earlier). Listen to at least the first minute of this video (all of it would be even better!).
In The Hall of the Mountain King by Grieg
This music comes from the final movement of the Peer Gynt Suite No. 1 written by Edvard Grieg in 1875. It is probably most known in the UK as the music used for the Alton Towers advert! Listen in the video how both the tempo and dynamics gradually increase throughout the movement.
Creating new words to classical music themes
Some of you will have seen on the wall in my room at The Hollies this poster about the consequences of children playing their instruments at inappropriate times during the lesson. The words fit (more or less) to the melody of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and so when this was first introduced to the class we sang it to this tune. It also fits (more of less) to the melody of Beethoven's Ode To Joy.
I say "more or less" because the original tunes don't quite have enough notes for the number of syllables in the sentence so slight modifications to the rhythms of the original melodies are necessary to accommodate this.
Notice in the example above from my classroom that the statement rhymes.
If you play before I say,
I will take your instrument away.
So (this fits to the music of Twinkle, Twinkle by the way so have a go at singing it!):
When you add some words can you,
Make them rhyme just like I do.
At the end of every line,
Just the last words need to rhyme.
Rhyming pairs of lines are good
Just like Shakespeare if you could!
A more tricky way of rhyming your words (lyrics) is to do it like this (try singing this to the tune of Happy Birthday!):
If you want to feel free,
But it's harder to do,
Rhyme line one with line three,
And line four with line two.
If you have more notes in the melody than syllables you need to continue singing a syllable over more than one note. In the example below see how the word "say" uses both the notes E and D (that are slurred together).
If you have more syllables in your words than the number of notes in the song you will need to adjust the rhythm by changing a long note into a number of shorter ones. See how "instrument away" is 5 syllables long but with only 3 notes in the original the rhythm has to be changed to add 2 more notes. Notice that the added notes stay on the same pitch. This helps to keep it sounding like the original melody.
This top line is the original melody.
Observe the small changes to make the syllables fit.
