----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I post this to several groups and some individuals because I believe that cross-discussing is good and that the various groups, over and above their specialties, can offer much to one another. My original message to the group FILMUS-L follows: If I may,here is an idea for a simple, rather amusing thread. Which film launched or popularized a given piece of classical music? For example: BRIEF ENCOUNTER by David Lean (a **** movie). Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #2, played, I believe, by Eileen Joyce, became hugely popular, better known than ever, after the film's release. Cocteau's ORPHEE (Orpheus) popularized a bit of Gluck's Orfeo, via Georges Auric And so on... ============================================================ The responses coming in seem to concentrate in general on classical music in film, but not on particular music in particular films, that is, music that, the way Helen launched a thousand ships, certain classical sounds launched a thousand recordings. My posting seems to have started a new thread, but it is a parallel one.To repeat, what I had in mind is the sort of music that was unknown to -- pardon the expression -- the great unwashed, but because of a certain film, became widely known. To my examples above let me add 2001: A Space Odyssey which launched Also Spracht Zarathustra (I'd hate to think that he Blue Danube Waltz was little-known before this!) and so on ---and, for the more esoteric public, music by Gyorgy Ligeti. Another example would be Disney's Fantasia that introduced to the masses Dukas, Mussorgsky, etc. Or Elvira Madigan for Mozart's Piano Concert #21 (Some of you may remember that this concerto started selling LPs of "The Elvira Madigan Music") . Etc.etc. Or else we have the Ride of the Walkyries that has been a staple of movies since the earliest sound days, but, in a special case, became really known in the USA after the helicopter sequences ("I love the smell of napalm inthe morning!") of Apocalypse Now. (And by the way, in The Cousins by Claude Chabrol, it is effectively used along with Siegfried's Journey, a Mozart Symphony, and the unending melody of Tristan and Isolde). Or Brahms,and Tristan & Isolde, and Beethoven and Mendelssohn in Bunuel's L'Age d'Or. So we could have 2 threads. Both valuable mind you. One, along the lines I suggested (Popularizing the Classics or whatever would be an accurate description), and the other about classical music in movies, but music that did not result in huge, newly found popularity and that did not "introduce" certain pieces to the public-at-large. That second thread is also quite useful. It may (or rather will) give us some comparisons between the much wider use of classical excerpts in European films, vs. their much sparser use in American movies. In effect, by working around the classical music theme we could make, collectively, a fascinating database. And this would have repercussions in many directions. Such as the film-music imitations, inspirations, ripoffs etc. of classical stuff. Such as the emotive power of classical sounds & their reinforcements of images. Such as the excellent Vivaldiesque (and Handel-esque) score of the late & lamented Georges Delerue for Francois Truffaut'sLa Nuit Americaine (Day for Night). Such as the very clever use of Handel (by George Fenton) in the recent The Madness of King George. This would not mean demeaning the Herrmanns and Roszas and, yes, the Victor Youngs or the Glasses --and thir direct-for-film-compositions -- but it would open (pardon the cliche) new horizons.