I know the Arioso well, working a lot of weddings, but I can’t place what Beatles song that is supposed to remind me of. However, I also would not have made the connection between the Bouree and Blackbird.
They remind me of Cavatina and other well-known classical guitar hits. Beatles songs, not so much.
Hint:
Hey Jude,
don’t make it bad,
take a Bach song,
and make it better*
remember, to let it into your heart,
'cause it’s all Bach…
*Or worse, depending on whether you’re a bigger fan of the Beatles or Bach.
Now that you point it out, I see the resemblance. This link has a clarinetist and pianist play both of them back to back in a similar arrangement to highlight the similarities. Beatles tune starts at 4:20. It’s not a connection I would have made, but it’s clear to me how others would find them similar.
I think that should be Erik Satie.
Lou Christie’s Rhapsody in the Rain, from Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet.”
The James Gang’s “The Bomber” has “Bolero” in the middle of it. (video links right to “Bolero” section)
Rob Dougan’s Clubbed to Death lifted bits from Elgar’s Variations on an Original Theme Op. 36 - Enigma.
If you mention Bourée, then the mention has to go first to Jethro Tull’s Bourée from the Stand Up album.
From the notes of Walter Everett’s excellent books “The Beatles as Musicians”:
"McCartney ascribes the song’s origins to the treble/bass counterpoint of ‘a well-known piece by Bach,’ which may be a reference to the G-major outer-voice parallel tenths in the best know minuet from the Anna Magdalena collection. (the same counterpoint also appears in the same key in the Allemande of Bach G-major French Suites.)’
For Hey Jude, Everett speculates:
“…whether he would have known a certain liturgical work by John Ireland from his choirboy days. Ireland’s “Te Deum laudamus” (1907) begins with, and returns to, [gives example] … which is untransposed in Hey Jude…”
link to Ireland’s work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY16QQXdcWA
It’s not specifically from a classical composer, but Todd Rundgren’s Don’t You Ever Listen from his album Something/Anything is actually a 12-tone composition. I had no idea until he was a guest professor at Indiana University.
I hadn’t realized how many pop songs were lifted from Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2. I was going to mention Sinatra’s Full Moon and Empty Arms. Apparently two of his other songs are also based on it.
Wiki says;
Becauseby the Beatles, which is basically Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata backwards.
Eric Carmen, “All by Myself” - lifted from Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor.klasik müzik dinle
And Wendy (Walter) Carlos.
Grieg’s “In The Hall Of The Mountain King” gets The Who treatment, with Keith Moon on spooky noises. May contain traces of amphetamines.
The borrowing of classical music is nothing new. The popular music composers
a century ago were doing the same thing. A few examples:
- Russian Rag by George Cobb (1918) uses part of Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C# minor
- Hungarian Rag by Julius Lenzberg (1913) is based on Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody #2
- Operatic Rag also by Julius Lenzberg (1914) uses pieces of several different operas
- That Mesmerizing Mendelssohn Tune by Irving Berlin (1909) uses a piece by Mendelssohn (obviously)
If anyone is curious what these pieces sound like, they can all be found on youtube.com.
Vaguely similar, but I doubt Bach will sue. Actually it’s pretty clearly a ripoff of his Air on a G string.
If you ever see “The Outlaw,” the movie that Howard Hughes made to make Jane Russell famous, you’ll hear passages from Tchaikovsky’s 6th stolen note for note. And some of the music from the original Star Wars movie is very reminiscent of Tchaikovsky’s 4th.
I forget who it was, but there’s a story that some composer who won an Oscar for his score said in his acceptance speech something along the lines of, “I’d like to thank Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff …”
Emerson Lake and Palmer did Mussorsky’s Pictures an an Exhibition. Not a song, but an entire album.