Bach to the Future Trivia Quiz

Answer: Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565

Bach's celebrated "Toccata and Fugue in D minor" is probably the most recognizable piece of classical organ music, and has been transcribed to many different instruments and used in numerous films, most notably in an early film version of "The Phantom of the Opera", and as a fully fleshed-out orchestral arrangement in the animated film "Fantasia".

For 1975's "Rollerball", director Norman Jewison turned to distinguished composer and conductor André Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra to record new performances of classics from the Baroque and Romantic periods. "Since the film took place in the not-too-distant future, we decided to stay with a classical score which hopefully would be timeless and not date the film musically," explained Jewison. Bach's "Toccata" was chosen as the theme for the gladiator-style contest, and was performed by soloist Simon Preston on the pipe organ in London's Royal Albert Hall. Other selections attributed to Shostakovich, Albinoni and Tchaikovsky rounded off the rest of the film's score.

Answer: Beethoven's "Symphony No. 9"

Alex was a big fan of "the Ludwig Van", and enjoyed nothing better after a tiring day of mischief and mayhem than unwinding to a recording of Beethoven's "Symphony No. 9". After his incarceration, Alex agreed to participate in a mysterious, experimental rehabilitation program on the expectation that his sentence would be reduced. The treatment was called "The Ludovico Technique" ("Ludovico" being an Italianization of "Ludwig"), and involved forcing the subject to watch films depicting horror and violence while under the influence of revulsion-inducing drugs. In a cruel irony, the films were accompanied by an electronic rendition of the choral movement from Beethoven's "Symphony No. 9", so the treatment had the unintended consequence of conditioning Alex to feel repulsion and pain whenever he heard his favorite piece of music.

In an unusual move, writer-director Stanley Kubrick scored "A Clockwork Orange" almost entirely with classical music. In some instances, he utilized pre-existing recordings, like Rossini's "The Thieving Magpie" in a fight scene with a rival gang, and Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance" in the prison scenes. On other occasions, Kubrick deployed newer Moog synthesizer versions of popular classics, like the frenzied, sped-up "William Tell Overture" which accompanied Alex's tryst with a pair of lovely young ladies. The electronic renditions were performed by composer Wendy Carlos, who had recently enjoyed great success with her album "Switched-On Bach".

Answer: 1812 Overture

Tchaikovsky was commissioned to write "Festival Overture: The Year 1812" in 1880 to commemorate the successful defense of Moscow against the advancement of Napoleon's troops in 1812. The piece is famous for having eleven precisely timed cannon shots written into the score's climax. Tchaikovsky himself wrote, "The Overture will be very loud and noisy, but I've written it without affection and enthusiasm, and therefore there will probably be no artistic merit in it." Artistic merit or not, the "1812 Overture" is today one of the most well known and beloved works by Tchaikovsky, and has been referenced in everything from cereal commercials to the film "Caddyshack". After a rousing Fourth of July performance in 1974 by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops, the "1812 Overture" even became a staple in America during its annual Independence Day celebrations, even though the work in question had nothing to do with the war between the United States and Britain.

In "V for Vendetta", the piece was appropriated yet again, this time by a mysterious freedom fighter by the name of V, who went about London in 2038 in a Guy Fawkes costume trying to overthrow a brutal, totalitarian regime. Like Guy Fawkes, V's plan involved a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament, which was planned to coincide with a fireworks display and the climax of the "1812 Overture" blaring from the city's central emergency broadcast system. The piece's cacophony of cannon shots and carillon calls was a perfect accompaniment to the exploding buildings and pyrotechnics, which were designed to form the letter "V" against the night sky.

Answer: Symphony No. 7

Beethoven's "Symphony No. 7" was tremendously well received when it premiered in 1813, and Beethoven himself called it "one of the happiest products of my poor talents". The second movement "Allegretto" made such an impact that it had to be encored at its very first performance, and its popularity meant that it was often performed separately from the rest of the Symphony.

It's not surprising then that writer-director John Boorman chose the theme from the Symphony's second movement as the foundation for the musical score for his film "Zardoz". Unfortunately, the acclaim associated with the magnificent "Symphony No. 7" didn't really rub off on his film, which seemed only effective in confounding its viewers. It certainly didn't help that the film's star, a post-Bond Sean Connery, spent most of the film running around wearing nothing but, in the words of two different reviewers, knee-high leather boots, a bright red nappy, and a slightly bemused expression on his face. After the resounding success of 1972's "Deliverance", Boorman had the necessary clout to make any picture he wanted, so why he chose an eccentric and incredibly inaccessible film to make as his follow-up will always remain a mystery. In 2005, "Zardoz" was selected as one of "The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made" in the book "The Official Razzie Movie Guide".

Answer: The Mad Scene

"Mad scenes" were commonly found in Italian and French operas throughout the early 19th century, and were often used to showcase the talents of the featured singers, due to the demanding nature of the pieces associated with them. "Lucia di Lammermoor" was no different, and the aria from the mad scene was often referred to as "The Mad Song" in keeping with this fine tradition. In the opera, "Il Dolce Suono" was sung by Lucia after she went mad and murdered her husband on their wedding day.

While nothing quite as melodramatic took place in "The Fifth Element" during the performance of "Il Dolce Suono", the sequence is nevertheless overflowing with what can only be described as an inspired madness, mostly on the part of visionary writer-director Luc Besson. Even the magnificent splendor of the setting (the scene was shot in the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden) couldn't detract from the dramatic appearance of the Diva Plavalaguna as she emerged on stage. Her skin from head to toe was a pale shade of blue - the same color as the long, thin tentacles flowing from the sides of her head and her back. The audience comprising denizens from all over the galaxy sat entranced as the Diva performed, her hands and fingers gesticulating expressively with each phrase and measure of the song. Upon the conclusion of the aria, the music suddenly segued to a techno-inspired "Diva Dance", which featured sequences of notes that no human could possibly achieve. The entire song was performed by Albanian soprano Inva Mulla Tchako, who sang most of the notes of the "Diva Dance" in isolation, so that they could be subsequently compiled in the desired order to double for the alien Diva's singing voice.

Answer: Felix Mendelssohn, "Midsummer Night's Dream"

Stanley Kubrick was notorious for his unbending attachment to a film's temp track (the temporary musical score used in a film's editing process to help with mood and pacing), and "2001" was no exception. The director famously discarded an original symphonic score composed by Alex North (the pair had worked together previously on 1960's "Spartacus") in favor of pre-existing classical music, mostly from Kubrick's own record collection. "I don't see any reason not to avail yourself of the great orchestral music of the past and present," Kubrick later said in an interview concerning his penchant for scoring his movies with classical music.

And so it came to pass that "2001: A Space Odyssey" was scored almost entirely with recordings of classical works. The dramatic tone poem "Also Sprach Zarathustra" appeared at the opening and various other monolithic parts of the film, and the reflective adagio from Kachaturian's "Gayane Ballet Suite" captured the spaceship Discovery's forlorn journey to Jupiter so effectively that the music has since been imitated in numerous space movies, most notably 1986's "Aliens". For the scene where the space shuttle Orion docked with the space station, Kubrick had originally used the scherzo from Mendelssohn's "Midsummer Night's Dream", but this too was discarded in favor of "The Blue Danube", reportedly after Kubrick's wife, Christiane, handed him a new recording of the popular Strauss waltz performed by the Berlin Philharmonic. The rest, as they say, was history, and Kubrick even used the waltz again over the end credits - a fitting reminder of the wondrous scenes of weightlessness that accompanied the music earlier in the film.

Answer: Debussy

Debussy based "La Cathédrale Engloutie" on an ancient legend about a cathedral on the mythical island of Ys located off the coast of Brittany. Ys and its cathedral were submerged one night during a terrible storm, after the King's daughter was tricked by the devil into opening the levees that protected the city. According to the legend, on clear days when the sea is calm, the cathedral rises up momentarily from its watery grave, and the sounds of an organ and church bells can be heard over the waves.

In "Escape From New York", the piece accompanied the protagonist, Snake Plissken, as he flew a glider into a desolate, pitch-black New York City. The year was 1997, and Manhattan had transformed into a walled maximum-security prison, from which no one had ever escaped. Snake was tasked with slipping into the city under cover of darkness to rescue the American President (portrayed by a curiously British Donald Pleasance), whose plane had crash-landed somewhere on 8th Avenue. The only suitable place to land the glider undetected was on the top of one of the World Trade Center's towers, which emerged from a sea of skyscrapers in the film like the mythical cathedral of Ys. Needless to say, the synthesizer version of Debussy's prelude complemented the visuals of the scene perfectly.

Answer: Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46

"Soylent Green" was set in a bleak, overpopulated future where the depletion of the Earth's natural resources resulted in the majority of the world's population having to subsist on multi-colored "soylent" crackers produced by a powerful corporation. All this proved to be too much to handle for the disillusioned Sol Roth (Edward G. Robinson in his final film role), so he checked into his local euthanasia clinic, where helpful attendants confirmed his selection of an orange-color theme and "light classical music" to accompany his demise. His suicide (which was euphemistically referred to in the film as "going home") was preceded by a screening of beautiful images of deer, sheep, a sunset, birds flying, streams flowing and endless fields of flowers, all set to a lovely pastiche of classical favorites. The first movement of Tchaikovsky's "Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, Pathétique" was used as an overture, while the visual presentation itself was scored with the first movement of Beethoven's "Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68, Pastoral" and themes from Grieg's "Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46".

These classical pieces were selected and conducted by film composer Gerald Fried, who was required to come up with an agenda that would please Charlton Heston (the star of the film), as well as the film's director and producer. "That was the hard part of the job," recalled Fried, "Figuring out what would be classical but not too classical to scare them off. They bought the Beethoven 'Pastorale' and the 'Peer Gynt'. The Tchaikovsky was a little harder sell."

Answer: The Unfinished Symphony

Most of the pieces of diegetic music heard in "Minority Report" were selections from the classical repertoire, and none of these were more fitting than Schubert's "Symphony No. 8", commonly known as "The Unfinished Symphony". Tom Cruise listened to a recording of the Schubert work as he pieced together the precogs' jumbled visions of the murders using a futuristic glove-controlled interface, which gave him the appearance of a seasoned maestro conducting a morbid visual symphony. The "unfinished" nature of the Symphony was also appropriate to the scene's subtext - the success of the Precrime program meant that all premeditated murders were a thing of he past, so the precogs only ever had visions of spontaneous, crimes-of-passion type murders that were just about to occur, giving the Precrime officers only a precious few minutes in which to intervene. If Cruise did his job correctly, he would uncover the necessary clues to apprehend these would-be murderers before they had a chance to carry out their intentions, thereby ensuring that their murders would remain as unfinished as Schubert's great Symphony.

Ironically, the making of "Minority Report" was delayed by two years because Spielberg decided to write and direct "Artificial Intelligence", the film that Stanley Kubrick had been developing for many years, but which remained unfinished when he passed away in early 1999.

Answer: Symphony No. 2, "Romantic"

By all reports, veteran film composer Jerry Goldsmith had a rough time composing the music for Ridley Scott's "Alien". Terry Rawlings, the film's editor, had assembled a rough cut of the film, and temp-tracked it with music written by Goldsmith for earlier films. When the cues written by Goldsmith for the film failed to match the desired mood created by these temporary music tracks, he was asked to perform rewrites. In some instances, the film studio simply purchased the pre-existing Goldsmith music from films like "Freud" for use in the film, which evidently led to people writing to Goldsmith after the film came out with messages like, "starting to repeat yourself, eh?"

The film's climax featured Ripley discovering the Alien on board the escape shuttle, and blowing it out of the hatch into outer space. For this scene, Goldsmith had written some tense action music that culminated in a triumphant brass fanfare when the alien threat was finally over. Upon reviewing the film after the musical score had been recorded, director Scott and editor Rawlings felt that the extensive shots of the Alien in this scene "undermined the mystery" which had surrounded the creature up to this point in the film, and they decided to shorten the scene. Unfortunately, Goldsmith's music was synchronized closely to the action of the longer version of the scene, and could not be similarly truncated. By then, Goldsmith had moved on to other film projects, so Rawlings improvised by substituting the cue with the final section of the first movement from Hanson's "Symphony No. 2", and found that it fit the scene perfectly. Rawlings later said of Goldsmith, "I don't think he ever forgave me for using Howard Hanson for the end of the film." Hanson's music captured just the right, exultant mood that they wanted for the end of the film, so they re-used the same piece of music for the film's end credits.