Brits give classical music a Top 10 spin

Marilyn MONROE in “The Seven Year Itch” whispers that Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto “makes me feel goose-pimply all over.” Residents of the British Isles must feel the same, as Rach 2 is their favorite piece of classical music, according to a poll released last week by the British radio station Classic FM.

The concerto, also used in David Lean’s “Brief Encounter,” is not the only winner whose fame was spread by the movies: Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A, used in “Out of Africa,” came in third, just before Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto, whose slow movement shows up in “Dead Poets Society.”

Are the Brits victims of Hollywood? Not really, says early-music expert James Tyler of USC, who lived and performed in London for much of the last 30 years. “In Britain, classical music life is broader and wider than here -- they’re able to hear a better variety of music. But even in Britain you end up with the inevitable, names that are almost sacred.”

Not all the names on the new list are equally world-renowned. No. 2 is Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “The Lark Ascending” -- a national favorite, by a distinctly English composer, that would not likely show up on any other country’s Top 10. Still, the folk-song-loving Vaughan Williams is nothing to sneeze at, says Paul Coletti, a UCLA music professor who grew up in Britain.

“He represents the spirit of the English people, their pastoral sensibility. Their national identity was lifted by these composers” who emerged after the 19th century’s long slumber, Coletti says.

Back then, when the great nations of Europe were producing their canonical pieces, and “serious” music was considered to be German or at least Austrian, England was dubbed “the land without music.” The term, says Tyler, was never fair, even if Britain wasn’t exactly churning out famous composers in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Britain has always been receptive to foreign composers, he says. “The British were often the first to appreciate the great Italian composers. They’re often the first to appreciate great music of all kinds.”