The Classical Intersection

I've been reading with interest the comments of Don Lee and others about the intersection of classical music and popular -- specifically, rock 'n' roll. I'm sure there are many other examples waiting to be cited.

But for a really productive era in this category, you'd need to go back several decades, to the years of swing and big-band jazz. "Let's Dance" is a re-working of Weber's "Invitation to the Dance, Fletcher Henderson did an arrangement of Ravel's "Bolero," Duke Ellington did a "Nutcracker" Suite, and so on; it would be an interesting task to see just how many pop songs came out of this special relationship.