Five pieces of classical music that have inspired pop

Have you ever listened to a pop song and thought that it seemed strangely familiar? You may be hearing a famous piece of classical music.

It may sound strange, but huge pop acts like Blackpink, Little Mix, Celine Dion, Oasis and many more have taken inspiration from classical giants. Sometimes, it's quite obvious: for example, the Electric Light Orchestra’s version of the song Roll Over Beethoven features music by Beethoven, his Symphony No. 5 to be exact. Other times, it’s less noticeable.

Join BBC Bitesize as we explore five pieces of classical music that have appeared in songs that made it big in the charts.

Pavane (Fauré)

Pavane is a relatively short piece of music by the French composer Gabriel Fauré, which formed the basis of songs by two British pop groups in the 21st Century.

First up in 2000 was S Club 7 with Natural. This single was quite a departure from the group’s usual ‘bubblegum pop’ style, with Rachel Stevens taking over lead vocals and the song leaning more towards an R&B sound. Natural was in fact an English-language cover of French singer Norma Ray’s Tous Les Maux D’Amour, with Fauré’s Pavane featuring prominently in both.

Thirteen years later, Little Mix used Pavane for both the intro and chorus to their song Little Me, the second single from the Salute album.

When composing Pavane in 1887, Fauré was heavily influenced by a traditional Spanish court dance of the same name. His original composition was an orchestral piece, but he later wrote an arrangement which included a choir.

Canon in D (Pachelbel)

Johann Pachelbel’s Canon in D was once described by the music producer Pete Waterman as "almost the godfather of pop music because we've all used that in our own ways".

It has made appearances in a range of songs over the years, across genres.

Waterman produced Kylie Minogue’s number one hit I Should Be So Lucky, which was released in the UK on 29 December 1987 and was supposedly inspired by Canon in D.

Other songs to feature elements of Canon in D include:

• All Together Now - The Farm
• Let It Be - The Beatles
• Go West - The Village People
• Don’t Look Back In Anger - Oasis
• Graduation (Friends Forever) - Vitamin C
• Memories - Maroon 5
• Step - Vampire Weekend
• We Dance On — NDubz
• Rain and Tears - Aphrodite’s Child
• Streets of London - Ralph McTell

Pachelbel’s original music was written for three violins and a basso continuo, around the end of the 17th Century. For years it remained relatively obscure, until it re-emerged in the mid-20th Century Baroque revival. It soon gained popularity as wedding music, as well as appearing in numerous soundtracks for film and television.

A canon is a musical form in which multiple instruments or voices play the same music but with different start times. This creates layers to the music. Try listening to Canon in D and see if you can spot the point at which a new instrument joins the melody each time. The opening instrument plays the bass line, typically a cello, organ or harpsichord, and then the melody is repeated in a different register or instrument, such as a violin.

Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Opus 18 (Rachmaninov)

Bridget Jones’ Diary and Sergei Rachmaninov might not seem like a natural fit at first, but the composer’s work has a starring role in the famous opening scene. As Renée Zellweger’s character considers the state of her love life, she sings along to Jamie O’Neal’s cover version of All By Myself. Originally written and released by American singer-songwriter Eric Carmen in 1975, it clearly features Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Opus 18. The song would later prove to be a big hit for Celine Dion, when she released her own version in 1996.

Whilst Rachmaninov’s work was in the public domain in the United States, and so free from copyright, it wasn’t elsewhere in the world. As a result, Carmen had to give Rachmaninov a songwriting credit and pay his estate a share of the royalties.

However, this wasn’t the only time that Carmen turned to Rachmaninov for inspiration. Another of his hit singles, Never Gonna Fall in Love Again, is based on the third movement of Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 2.

La Campanella (Paganini)

Record-breaking K-pop girl group Blackpink turned to the work of Italian composer and violinist Niccolò Paganini for the second single of their 2022 album Born Pink.

The first four measures of Paganini’s violin solo La Campanella (the final movement of the Violin Concerto No. 2 in B Minor, Op. 7) play on a loop in the background of the song Shut Down.

This particular solo is renowned for its technical difficulty. When the work premiered at Milan’s La Scala opera house in 1827, it was Paganini himself who played the solo. In later performances, he would often perform La Campanella as a standalone piece from the rest of the concerto.

La Campanella is also closely associated with Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt, who enjoyed it so much that he adapted it for solo piano performance.

Air on a G String (Bach)

Johann Sebastian Bach’s compositions have inspired numerous songs over the years, from Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water to The Beatles’ All You Need Is Love.

Air on a G String (the second movement of his Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major) features in another K-pop hit, Feel My Rhythm by the girl group Sweet Velvet. It was also sampled by the German-based group Sweetbox in 1997, on the song Everything’s Gonna Be Alright.

Of Bach’s four orchestral suites, this, his third, is arguably the most well-known. However, while the second movement of the suite probably premiered around 1731, it did not gain the name Air on a G String until 1871. This was when the German violinist August Wilhelmj adapted it for solo violin with accompaniment and marked the change as “auf der G-Saite” (on the G String).

This article was published in July 2024