ROCK versions of Classical Music

"Annie's Song" by John Denver (74)- based on Peter Tchaikovsky "Symphony No. 5," second movement  

https://wwwyoutube.com/watch?v=RNOTF-znQyw 

Mozart And Madness - Savatage

https://youtu.be/ob3eqK7hTVs

Quotes directly from Mozart’s Symphony No. 25

Memory - Savatage

https://youtu.be/krMQgSPmgmE

Ode to Joy, Beethoven’s 9th

The bridge in Bridge Over Troubled Waters comes from a Bach Cantata

Tubular Bells is an inversion of a Bach piece

Whiter Shade of Pale also derived from Bach

many many others

Song Sung Blue by Neil Diamond is taken directly from the Andanti movement from Mozart's Piano Concerto #21.   Diamond has altered the tempo and arrangement of the beats but the melody is Mozart's.   This is the music that was so effectively used in the romantic movie Elvira Madigan.  Its used so effectively that its now often known as the Elvira madigan concerto.   

Dio you think that there would be interest in two topics: 1 The best and worst uses of classical music in movies and 2.  The opposite of the topic.  Composers who compose adaptions of popular music, or who use it in bigger compositions.   Mozart's father leopold Mozart often used folk and popular music in his own compositions, which is often the only way we have been able to have this music as it was not usually written down at the time.   My favorite is Hector Berlioz's setting of les marseillais, the French national anthem.  This version is wholly nuts and fantastic.  

Two songs evoking classic Jazz tunes by John Coltrane include 8 Miles High by the Byrds which takes its cue from India, and Light My Fire which takes its cue from Coltrane's version of My Favorite Things.   Light My Fire also borrows from Bach with that nice baroque keyboard bridge. played by Ray.    

Night:  Jackie Wilson  (Based on an aria from the opera Samson and Delilah by Saint-Saëns)

Blackbird - The Beatles

Paul said he started with the first four bars of Bach’s Bouree in E Minor for lute, and then made up the rest. 

Joybringer - Manfred Mann’s Earth Band

https://youtu.be/rtoPr76fCac

From Gustav Holst’s Jupiter, Planet Suites

MM has more but I’ll have to look them up.