# Non-soundtrack classical that rocks **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 19, 2008, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-soundtrack-classical-that-rocks/453509 "2008-06-19T19:55:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-soundtrack-classical-that-rocks/453509/1 "2008-06-19T19:55:23Z")
From [this post here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9921335&postcount=35), what non-soundtrack classical stuff conjures up the primal urge to dance and or get physically active? – O Fortuna – Egmont Overture – Much of Wagner. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-soundtrack-classical-that-rocks/453509/2 "2008-06-19T20:13:22Z")
> [@](#): > > Much of Wagner. You can’t be serious. Wagner is long stretches of dull punctuated by a few brief moments of exciting. You want exciting? The last movements of several of Beethoven’s symphonies. or of Dvorak’s **new World Symphony** ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-soundtrack-classical-that-rocks/453509/3 "2008-06-19T20:19:05Z")
by “Much” I didn’t mean “Most” 🙂 Some of Beethoven’s symphonies are good, even rousing, but they don’t _rock_. They might cause me to sit back whereever I am and say “damn, that was good”. But they don’t make me want to move it. And furthermore, I can’t get past the sense that it’s _music_ the way some rock makes me forget that in total experience of it (which isn’t a slam, per se, on classical, since other forms such as Goth/Industrial also have that problem with me.) ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-soundtrack-classical-that-rocks/453509/4 "2008-06-19T20:25:31Z")
Oh, come now. The Ninth doesn’t rock your world? Crank up that second movement and _tell me_ you don’t want to skip, or stomp, around the room in frenzied ecstasy! Never mind the choral which I think is just transcendent. I’m not much of a music snob. I just like the Ninth. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-soundtrack-classical-that-rocks/453509/5 "2008-06-19T20:25:45Z")
> [@](#): > > Some of Beethoven’s symphonies are good, even rousing, but they don’t rock. Listen to the last movement of the Seventh by von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonik. Or Toscanini and NBC. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-soundtrack-classical-that-rocks/453509/6 "2008-06-19T20:44:15Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] Or Toscanini and NBC. [/QUOTE] Toscanini and NBC almost get the Fifth to rock, so it might be possible with them. I’ll look for it. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-soundtrack-classical-that-rocks/453509/7 "2008-06-19T21:19:38Z")
“Danse générale”, the last 4 minutes of Ravel’s “Daphnis and Chloe”. It’s a bacchanal. “Fêtes”, second of three nocturnes for orchestra by Debussy. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-soundtrack-classical-that-rocks/453509/8 "2008-06-19T21:23:50Z")
Tchaikovsky’s ballets – _Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, et al._ And if Bizet’s “Toreador March” from _Carmen_ doesn’t lift you to your feet, nothin’ will. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-soundtrack-classical-that-rocks/453509/9 "2008-06-19T22:36:10Z")
Franz Lizst’s _Les Preludes_: just hearing it makes me want to drive a tank through a burning Polish monastery at high speed. It would, to quote P. G. Wodehouse, stir the blood of a jellyfish. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-soundtrack-classical-that-rocks/453509/10 "2008-06-19T23:21:34Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] Listen to the last movement of the Seventh by von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonik. Or Toscanini and NBC. [/QUOTE] The genius of the seventh is that _all_ the movements are pure rhythm and lightness. This even applies to the second movement: all too often played as a dirge, it’s marked ‘allegretto’ and is surely an elegant pavane. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-soundtrack-classical-that-rocks/453509/11 "2008-06-19T23:32:57Z")
Rachmaninoff…It isn’t fair…Every time I hear it, I go to pieces…It shakes me, it quakes me. It makes me feel goose-pimply all over. I don’t know where I am or who I am or what I’m doing. Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop! ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2008, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-soundtrack-classical-that-rocks/453509/12 "2008-06-20T04:14:32Z")
[QUOTE=C K Dexter Haven] And if Bizet’s “Toreador March” from _Carmen_ doesn’t lift you to your feet, nothin’ will. [/QUOTE] Absolutely! In a similar, if slightly more relaxed vein, I’d add the Can-can (Offenbach’s Galop from Orpheus in the Underworld) and Rossini’s trumpet entry from William Tell (aka the Lone Ranger theme). 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2008, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-soundtrack-classical-that-rocks/453509/13 "2008-06-20T04:26:22Z")
Khachaturian’s [Sabre Dance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabre_Dance) Rimsky-Korsakov’s [Flight of the Bumblebee](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_of_the_bumblebee) Grieg’s [In the Hall of the Mountain King](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_hall_of_the_mountain_king) Some of Brahms’s Hungarian Dances or Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances might do it for you. ---
**Author:** ![vertizontal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ad7895/32.png) [@vertizontal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vertizontal)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2008, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-soundtrack-classical-that-rocks/453509/14 "2008-06-20T13:56:01Z")
I nominate the last movement of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. [Symphony No.4 in F minor, Op.36 - 4. Finale (Allegro con fuoco)](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VHPZU2/ref=dm_mu_dp_trk4?ie=UTF8&qid=1213969683&sr=1-2) Man, that _cooks!_ ---
**Author:** ![h.sapiens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e0b2c6/32.png) [@h.sapiens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/h.sapiens)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2008, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-soundtrack-classical-that-rocks/453509/15 "2008-06-20T14:13:46Z")
Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre du Printemps” is _all about_ “the primal urge to dance and or get physically active.” ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2008, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-soundtrack-classical-that-rocks/453509/16 "2008-06-20T14:22:04Z")
Borodin’s [Polovtsian Dances](http://youtube.com/watch?v=fmptWExyKEw). It really starts going around 3:10 or so. Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1 - [the Classical Symphony](http://youtube.com/watch?v=a4WxE7oQ2sM&feature=related). ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2008, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-soundtrack-classical-that-rocks/453509/17 "2008-06-20T22:22:39Z")
Many Bach pieces should make you want to do a happy dance. Fugue in G major (“Jig”) Violin concerto in D major, last movement Brandenburg concerto #5, last movement ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2008, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-soundtrack-classical-that-rocks/453509/18 "2008-06-20T22:34:03Z")
[QUOTE=rowrrbazzle] Violin concerto in D major, last movement [/QUOTE] Wow, talk about going for the obscure option! I’m no Bach scholar, but I’d not listened to this piece before, and to be honest I’m not enthralled with it. I can’t help but wonder if it even considered to actually be by JSB? (The way the A minor and E major concertos are routinely presented as ‘the’ solo violin concertos makes me suspect this. On the other hand, people talk of ‘the’ Mendelssohn concerto…) ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2008, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-soundtrack-classical-that-rocks/453509/19 "2008-06-21T00:43:38Z")
-Rimsky-Korsakov’s _Scheherezade_ -Prokofiev’s _Romeo and Juliet_ (especially the **Montagues and Capulets** ) -Any Strauss waltz -Tchaikovsky’s _Marche Slav_ -Debussy’s _Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun_, or _La Mer_ ---
**Author:** ![Paladud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Paladud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paladud)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2008, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-soundtrack-classical-that-rocks/453509/20 "2008-06-21T17:33:41Z")
Rachmaninoff - Symphonic Dances, part one Shostakovich - Tenth Symphony, second movement Mozart - Dies Irae from Requiem [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-soundtrack-classical-that-rocks/453509.md?page=2)