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What’s that music? 13 pieces from screens and memes, and where to catch them live in Philly.

These are the pieces you'll want to use in your next Instagram reel.

Cate Blanchett stars as fictional conductor Lydia Tár in director Todd Field’s “Tár.”
Cate Blanchett stars as fictional conductor Lydia Tár in director Todd Field’s “Tár.”Read moreFocus Features / MCT

You loved the tune in that Beyoncé soda commercial (from Carmen) and still perk up at the Bugs Bunny earworms first heard when you were still in footie pajamas (Rossini, Wagner). If your Philly credentials are in order, the opening city montage of Trading Places is fixed somewhere in your DNA (set to the “overture” from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro).

But what was that music in pastoral settings with people running in fields on TikToks and Instagram reels? It’s in the trailer for the movie Gravity: Arvo Pärt’s Mirror in Mirror.

Classical music has a deep reach throughout pop culture. You know the opening of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. But think of it as the center of a wheel — with spokes going out to the other symphonies, piano sonatas, and string quartets.

Here are 13 pieces already in the zeitgeist, some of which will be performed around Philly this season.


That music in Beyoncé's Pepsi commercial

What it’s called: The “Habanera” from Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen.

What you need to know: The tune of an aria called “Love is a rebellious bird,” the “Habanera” is mysterious and sexy, but also lends itself to irony.

If you like this piece, then you’ll love: The rest of Carmen, as well as Bizet’s lighter-than-air Symphony in C.

Where to hear it: The Philadelphia Orchestra will perform an orchestral suite from Carmen with the Brian Sanders’ JUNK dance company March 10-12 at the Kimmel Center.


That music you heard at the Central Park memorial for victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting

What it’s called: Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber.

What you need to know: One of the most famous pieces of classical music started in Philadelphia. West Chester native Barber wrote his String Quartet, Op. 11 while a Curtis Institute student. He knew the adagio section was something special and turned it into a stand-alone piece for orchestra that was premiered by the famous Arturo Toscanini in 1938. “Curtis was in an uproar,” recalled then-student pianist Ruth Slenczynska, now 97. It was played at the deaths of Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. But is the music truly sad? Some hear it as a solemn declaration of love.

If you like this piece, then you’ll love: The 1977 Fratres by Arvo Pärt, who pioneered a style of music called holy minimalism, and George Walker’s Lyric for Strings.


That music you heard on Spotify’s Best Mom’s Prenatal Music playlist

What it’s called: Gabriel Fauré's Sicilienne.

What you need to know: Fauré was on a lifelong quest for beauty, and almost nowhere else did he hit on it as perfectly as in this flowing, tragedy-tinged work.

If you like this piece, then you’ll love: Fauré’s Requiem.

Where to hear it: Cellist Peter Stumpf and pianist Cynthia Raim will perform it at their Jan. 27 Philadelphia Chamber Music Society concert at the American Philosophical Society.

That music at Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s memorial service

What it’s called: “Deep River,” popularized by Henry T. Burleigh.

What you need to know: A cornerstone of spiritual literature, the song points to a “promised land, where all is peace,” a message as germane in the 19th century as it is now.

If you like this piece, then you’ll love: “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.”

Where you can hear it: The Brentano Quartet will perform “Deep River” in a March 1 Philadelphia Chamber Music Society program that explores the influence of Black musical sources on Dvorak.


That music in ‘Carlito’s Way’

What it’s called: “Flower Duet” from Lakmé by Léo Delibes.

What you need to know: Ornate, Far Eastern worlds were the settings in numerous trouble-in-utopia operas on 1880s Paris stages, and one of the biggest hits was Delibes’ Lakmé. What is the duet about? Exactly what it sounds like. Sample lyrics: “Ah! Let us gently glide along ...”

If you like this piece, then you’ll love: “Au fond du temple saint” by Bizet in his opera The Pearl Fishers. Two guys pledge everlasting loyalty.


That music on video games like Atari’s ‘Mountain King’ (1983)

What it’s called: Edvard Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King.”

What you need to know: It’s from the vivid incidental music to Peer Gynt, which is full of other tunes that have also pierced the classical-pop culture barrier.

If you like this piece, then you’ll love: Grieg’s Piano Concerto, especially the beautifully unhinged last movement.

Where to hear it: At the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Feb. 11 family concert in Verizon Hall.


That music in the film ‘Tár’ starring Cate Blanchett

What it’s called: The “Adagietto” by Gustav Mahler.

What you need to know: The “Adagietto” movement from Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, composed 1901-1902, is sort of a song beyond words, describing the indescribable, seeming to hang suspended in midair. It’s said to be about the composer’s feelings toward his wife, Alma, though in the 1971 Luchino Visconti film Death in Venice, the “Adagietto” accompanied the possibility of ultimate love.

If you like this piece, then you’ll love: The “Andante” movement of the Mahler Symphony No. 6. It feels like taking a week’s vacation to the Austrian Alps.


That music in that Great Kat thrash metal video

What it’s called: “Spring Song” by Felix Mendelssohn.

What you need to know: What were you doing when you were 16? Mendelssohn had already completed his Octet for Strings — two centuries later still often played and widely adored.

If you like this piece, then you’ll love: The incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, whose “Overture” is possibly the most exuberant music on earth.


That music Michelle Kwan skated to

What it’s called: Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana.

What you need to know: This choral work full of lamentation, exaltation, and (most of all) heavy breathing. Though Carl Orff’s 1936 choral work has a questionable history (written in Nazi Germany), the piece caught fire in concert halls, movies (the 1981 Excalibur), and commercials (Carlton beer). Drawn from often-bawdy medieval poetry, it’s used to convey implacable forces and, let’s face it, graphic sex.

If you like this piece, then you’ll love: Vaughan Williams’ Five Tudor Portraits was written about the same time and sounds like the two composers were having daily phone conversations.

Where to hear it: Opera Philadelphia will stage the piece Feb. 3 and 5 at the Academy of Music. But in the meantime, there’s this pseudo-epic Carlton Draught beer ad that goofs on the music’s pretensions.


That music on ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

What it’s called: “Flight of the Bumblebee” from the Rimsky-Korsakov opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan.

What you need to know: The Russian composer was a pioneering orchestrator. This quicksilver music is used by instrumentalists to strut their technique.

If you like this piece, then you’ll love: Scheherazade, which the Curtis Institute of Music orchestra will perform Jan. 29 in Verizon Hall.

That music on the soundtrack to ‘The Royal Tenenbaums '

What it’s called: Gymnopédies by Erik Satie.

What you need to know: When composed in 1888, this series of piano pieces by this deeply eccentric composer were considered “outsider music” — too simple to be taken seriously, too melancholy to dismiss. But when Blood, Sweat & Tears opened its 1968 album with it, Satie became cool. Now, the music accompanies dreamy movie scenes with characters who aren’t quite of this world, such as Man on Wire, the 2008 documentary about tightrope walking at the World Trade Center.

If you like this piece, then you’ll love: Satie wrote other wistful pieces such as Gnossiennes. But steer clear of Vexations, a little wisp of music that the composer wanted to be repeated 840 mind-numbing times.


That music on the ‘Joan Baez/5 album

What it’s called: The “Aria” from Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 by Heitor Villa-Lobos.

What you need to know: Originally scored for soprano and an ensemble of cellos, the work is the composer’s best-known piece, and for good reason: It’s mysterious and profoundly moving.

If you like this piece, then you’ll love: 12 Etudes for Guitar by Villa-Lobos.

That music at your wedding

What it’s called: The “Bridal Chorus” from Wagner’s opera Lohengrin.

What you need to know: Better known as “Here Comes the Bride,” the ceremonial music used in weddings is embraced by many and avoided in some religions. The “Wedding March” often played at the end of the wedding ceremony is from Mendelssohn’s music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

If you like this piece, then you’ll love: Wagner is mostly worshiped as a pioneer in opera, but you might want to start with something less weighty, like the Siegfried Idyll.

Where you can hear it: At your next wedding.