Everything I Know About Classical Music I Learned from Cartoons Pt. 1

And I ain't the only one

A lot of us, A LOT of us, learned about classical music courtesy of the beautifully demented makers of madcap cartoons especially those lunatics who crafted Looney Tunes (Yes, it’s Tunes and decidedly not Toons).

Here’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 performed by those exceptional concert pianists Tom and Bugs Bunny.

I suppose I should be more sophisticated, but I cannot separate Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville from Chuck Jones’ brilliant synchronization of his favorite muse’s slapstick excellence.

Perhaps the most well-known aria from Barber of Seville that shows up constantly in animation is Largo al Factotum, which introduces the famous Figaro character. Even the piece’s Wikipedia article credits the tune’s legacy to its use in cartoons.

You may not know Franz Schubert’s Der Erlkönig by name, but you’ll know it when you hear it, thanks to Looney Tunes cartoons. It was written about a supernatural king of the fairies, but Warner Brothers composer Carl Stalling would always pull it out to underscore a villain’s entrance.

Dance of the Comedians by Czech composer Bedřich Smetana (from the comic opera The Bartered Bride) was the unofficial musical theme for the Road Runner cartoons. The propulsive energy of the piece matches well with Wile E. Coyote’s various epic failures.

Austrian composer Franz von Suppé’s The Light Cavalry Overture was most memorably used in the Mickey Mouse short Symphony Hour, where Goofy breaks all the instruments and the orchestra has to play a wacky Spike Jones-esque rendition.

Bugs Bunny famously conducted Franz von Suppé’s Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna in the classic Baton Bunny. This cartoon has been screened with live orchestral accompaniment on Broadway, at the Hollywood Bowl, and the Royal Festival Hall for the royal family.

The work of Austrian composer Johann Strauss, known as the Waltz King, is in literally hundreds of cartoons. Frühlingsstimmen, Op. 410 (Voices of Spring) was frequently used when characters dance or daintily frolic across the screen. You'll know it when you hear it.