Public Domain Soundtrack

""American movie makers have always held a deep reverence for composers whose works lie in the public domain.""

- Cecil Adams

Classical music and folk songs seem to show up an awful lot as background music. The reason, of course, is obvious: They're in the public domain, and thus there's no need to license the melody or a Suspiciously Similar Song. Of course, recently, there has been an emergence of free music, some of which even has a free license for commercial use.

The most common ones include Amazing Freaking Grace and Ride of the Valkyries.

For those pieces with well-entrenched meanings, see Standard Snippet.

Advertising

 * Let's All Go to the Lobby: The jingle's Ear Worm tune is "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow".

Anime

 * The final episode of Irresponsible Captain Tylor makes EPIC use of Suppe's Light Cavalry Overture for one of the greatest Bait and Switch of all time, it has to seen to be believed.
 * The ending theme to Dragon Half is a medley of Beethoven symphonies...with newly written lyrics about omelettes. (No, seriously.)
 * Digimon Adventure featured Ravel's "Bolero".
 * Fate/stay night uses the "Lacrimosa" from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Requiem in a flashback in the fourth episode. (You'll hear his name a lot on this page.)
 * Neon Genesis Evangelion uses "Fly Me to the Moon" as its ending theme, the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's "Messiah" in its 22nd episode, and "Ode To Joy" (Beethoven's Ninth, fourth movement) in its 24th. There's a fair amount of Lyrical Dissonance:
 * Bach's "Cello Suite No. 1" and Pachelbel's Canon in D are used in the movie Death & Rebirth, and Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" and "Air on the G String" appear in End of Evangelion. Though instead of using Bach's great and slightly morbid "Komm, Süsser Tod", only the name was used for a more cheerful and much more morbid pop song.
 * Most of the classical music in Evangelion is used ironically, but surprisingly enough, "Cello Suite No. 1" and "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" are played relatively straight. The R1 DVD menus fix that.
 * Not wanting Evangelion's reputation for Soundtrack Dissonance to come into question, the second Rebuild of Evangelion film is sure to make soul-searing use of not one, but two Japanese folk songs.
 * Episode 6 of Azumanga Daioh, the field day episode, has a field day with this trope: "Csikos Post," "Camptown Races," Offenbach's "Can-Can," "Clarinet Polka," Kabalevsky's Comedians, and "Turkey in the Straw" are all featured as background music.
 * Aren't they typical tunes played at Japanese school athletic festivals? Turkey in the Straw is anyway.
 * Mahou Shoujo-Tai Arusu has a peppy J-Pop ending theme based on "The Beautiful Blue Danube".
 * The Area 88 TV series used a techno remix of Bach's "Little Fugue in G Minor" for its opening theme song.
 * As did the series Nazca.
 * Other than the opening and ending themes, Legend of Galactic Heroes uses classical music for the entirety of its soundtrack.
 * Though at the same time, paying an orchestra to perform nearly every symphony from the Baroque to Romantic periods for you to record isn't cheap. In fact, it's one of the reasons it isn't licensed outside of Japan - it would be too expensive to pay said orchestra for that level of work again.
 * The theme of Iketeru Futari is a j-pop song called "Fall in YOU"—which suddenly takes up the tune of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor for ten seconds in the middle. Seriously!
 * One of the episodes of Sailor Moon has Sailor Uranus searching for Sailor Neptune and ending up getting damaged, and to the tune of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, no less.
 * The song "Journey to the Sun" from Endless Waltz uses the familiar ten-note refrain from "Jingle Bells"; appropriate, since the movie's events center on Christmas.
 * Princess Tutu, being themed around ballet, uses plenty of classical themes.
 * The same counts for Nodame Cantabile, which makes sense for a series about classical musicians.
 * Kemeko Deluxe used Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" when Izumi's bikini top falls off and she lands an Armor-Piercing Slap on Sanpeita.
 * The Big O utilizes Chopin's Prelude No. 15, aka "The Raindrop Prelude".
 * Giant Robo The Animation has "Una Furtiva Lagrima" from Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore. It also has an original composition based on "Dies Irae" that briefly features the melody of the original hymn.
 * Black Butler uses the "Queen of the Night's Revenge" aria from Mozart's opera The Magic Flute at the start of episode 5.
 * The OST of .hack//Roots features a song based on this aria as well.
 * Ghost Stories episode 4 prominently features Beethoven's famous piano composition, "Fur Elise".
 * FLCL used Kabalevsky's "Comedians" for a hectic chase scene.
 * In Black Cat, main villain Creed Disketh played the Third Movement to Giovanni Battista Pescetti's "Sonata in C Minor" for piano several times.
 * The final episode of the 2003 anime version of Fullmetal Alchemist contains two arrangements of Chopin's Etude #3 as background music.
 * The First Movement of Beethoven's 5th Symphony can be heard in episodes 49 and 50 as well.
 * In the English dub, Zolf J. Kimblee can be heard humming Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" in episode 39.
 * Rideback features "The Great Gate of Kiev" from Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" as a recurring motif.
 * Excel Saga uses Beethoven's Ode to Joy in episode 2 where Menchi tries to escape. She's surrounded by a rainbow and cherubs while the track plays. Skip to 5:00 and 6:20 to see.
 * Gunslinger Girl plays Ode To Joy in one episode, making that moment work much better than just reading the words did in the manga.
 * Celes' day in the limelight episode in the second season features an arrangement of "Scarborough Fair".
 * Gankutsuou likes this trope, too. Tchaikovsky's "Manfred symphony" is used a lot - the first movement is the Count's own theme and excerpts from latter movements are also used here and there. Eugénie plays the first movement (edited, though) of Rachmaninov's "Piano Concerto No. 2" and Schumann's "Traumerei" during her performance in the Opera, on Luna Albert and Franz meet the Count during a performance of "Lucia di Lammermoor", later in Paris the Count invites Albert to a performance of "Robert le Diable"... and the opening theme song is based partly on Chopin's "Etude Op.10 No.3."
 * Done wonderfully in the R-18 rated Shoujo Sect, in which Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, Debussy's Claire de Lune, Bach's Little Fugue in G Minor were used.
 * The Moonlight Sonata also features on Detective Conan, as part of a mystery.
 * The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya uses Tchaikovsky's Fourth, Shostakovich's Seventh, and music from Ravel's ballet Daphnis et Chloé in "The Day of Sagittarius" and Mahler's Eighth in the finale. The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya features Satie's Gymnopedies and Gnossiennes along with "Je te veux".
 * The Naruto OST features a piece based on the fugue from Johann Sebastian Bach's "Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor".
 * Bleach's soundtrack also has two pieces that use segments of the above piece.
 * One Piece episode 86 very appropriately uses Franz Schubert's "Ave Maria".
 * Ouran High School Host Club episode 6 used Mozart's "Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major".
 * Not quite background music, but still: the use of Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik in the fourth Ranma 1/2 opening.
 * Tegami Bachi frequently features Johann Sebastian Bach's Air in D Major from Orchestral Suite No. 3 as background music, as well as his Sonata for Solo Violin No. 1 in G Minor.
 * Romeo X Juliet uses the aria "Lascia ch'io pianga" from George Frederic Handel's opera "Rinaldo".
 * The score of Puella Magi Madoka Magica features arrangements of a few classical pieces, including the Bach/Gounod "Ave Maria", Claude Debussy's "La Fille aux Chevaux de Lin", and Sergei Rachmaninoff's "Vocalise OP. 34 no. 14".

Film

 * 2001: A Space Odyssey was renowned for its use of classical music in its soundtrack, and most people will automatically identify the song "Also Sprach Zarathustra" with the movie—with one exception (see below).
 * Though it wasn't all public domain—Györgi Ligeti's music was altered and used without his permission, and Ligeti threatened to sue Kubrick and MGM.
 * Originally the classical pieces were merely used to set the general pace for an original score by Alex North, but Kubrick obviously knew awesome when he saw it.
 * Kubrick, a lover of classical music, used this trope frequently and masterfully. The entirety of the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange is comprised of classical pieces, some of them arranged for a moog synthesizer to lend them a surreal, nightmarish quality. The Shining did the same.
 * Spielberg imitated Kubrick in Minority Report, using "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" and Schubert's "Unfinished" symphony.
 * The song "Classico" in Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny is a medley of numerous classical tunes, with very profane lyrics.
 * The Japanese film Tampopo uses excerpts of Mahler symphonies and Liszt's "Les Preludes".
 * Kramer vs. Kramer used Vivaldi's Concerto in C major for mandolin and strings.
 * Partial example: While The Wizard of Oz contains many original songs, the background music also includes arrangements of Felix Mendelssohn's Scherzo in E minor and Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain".
 * Gattaca used a modified version of Franz Schubert's Impromptu in G-flat major, Op. 90, No. 3 with extra notes added for a concert scene involving a pianist genetically engineered with 12 fingers.
 * The above examples are only a very small sample: the use of classical music in Hollywood films is VERY frequent. Here is a more comprehensive (though not exhaustive) list.
 * Trailers for films (though mostly for TV Spots) use Hall of the Mountain King A LOT. Although in the UK the music is heavily associated with the Alton Towers theme park, so it always seems odd when it turns up anywhere else- for example the recent Windows Phone 7 advert, which has confused a lot of people (especially as it includes a clip of people on a rollercoaster).
 * Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" is very heavily used in trailers, particularly after a movie had debuted in theaters and is a box-office and/or critical success.
 * Hopscotch stars actor Walter Matthau and composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Puccini and Rossini make cameo appearances as well.
 * The original Dawn of the Dead features mostly library tracks for music. The Italian cut features additional original music by the band Goblin.
 * The King's Speech utilizes several pieces of classical music, including the Overture to Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and the allegretto from Beethoven's 7th Symphony.
 * The Baz Luhrmann Romeo + Juliet uses Mozart's 25th Symphony for the scene where the Capulets are preparing for their ball, though most of the rest of the music is original.
 * The entire soundtrack to Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan is based off of "Swan Lake".
 * The 2010 remake of True Grit uses "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" as the theme for Mattie Ross, the main character, among other hymns. Unfortunately, because they were all pre-composed music, Mr. Carter Burwell was denied an Academy Award nomination.
 * The original Rollerball is notable for its use of classic music such as "Toccata and Fugue in D minor" and the "Adagio in G minor."
 * Help! was a showcase for a lot of Beatles songs, and much of the soundtrack was their tunes done in a James Bond style - but then they also used Wagner's 'Lohengrin', Tchaikovsky's '1812 Overture', Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy', and Rossini's 'Barber of Seville'.

Live Action TV
"Jack: This week, America's kids sing really old songs that everyone knows and NBC doesn't have to pay for. It's brilliant!"
 * Sousa's "Liberty Bell March" became the Monty Python's Flying Circus theme. Even the (ancient) recording they used must have been in the public domain.
 * Ravel's "Bolero" was used in the Doctor Who episode "The Impossible Planet".
 * In the commentary for "The Christmas Invasion," Russell T. Davies noted how happy composer Murray Gold was that "Jingle Bells" was out of copyright, and so could be rescored as incidental music in that episode.
 * Strauss's "Emperor Waltz" is the "soothing music" played in the Tardis in "Vincent and the Doctor."
 * Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" was used in the Scrubs episode "My Female Trouble".
 * Charles Gounod's Funeral March of a Marionette is more commonly known as the theme song to Alfred Hitchcock Presents
 * The restrictiveness of the scope of public domain music is parodied in Mystery Science Theater 3000 with the Mads' karaoke machine that plays only public domain songs, such as "The Battle Hymn of the Republic", the immortal "Baa Baa Black Sheep", the turgid and bittersweet Gregorian Chant #5, the impish "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and Mozart's The Magic Flute.
 * The soundtrack to It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is primarily public-domain easy listening music. Originally done because the show had a low budget, it's usually in contrast with the show's subject matter.
 * Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata was used in Forever Knight. Strains of it can be heard in the music used when Baltar is looking around the Cylon baseship in "Torn".
 * It is also used in the final moments of a biography of Tupac Shakur.
 * Unusual example: Lexx's Musical Episode wove a tragedy of love and loss out of German nursery rhyme tunes unfamiliar to English-speaking audiences. Other episodes had comedic versions of "Greensleeves" and "Row, Row, Row Your Boat".
 * Lampshaded on iCarly, when Spencer is trapped in a heating vent and trying to amuse himself, "And now, a medley of your favorite songs from the public domain!"
 * And before that in iSpy a Mean Teacher, when Carly, Freddie, and Sam get caught in Ms. Briggs house they act like they were there to surprise her for her birthday, "Let's sing our public domain birthday song!"
 * An odd version occurred in Kamen Rider Decade, where fans were disappointed to discover that several awesome tracks weren't included on the official soundtrack (particularly from the World of Black RX arc). Eventually it was discovered that they were part of a public domain library...when someone heard one of the songs on Minute to Win It.
 * Mentioned on Thirty Rock, when Jack states that it's "public domain week" on America's Kidz Got Singing:


 * The theme song of Barney and Friends is "Yankee Doodle". "I Love You" is "This Old Man".

Professional Wrestling

 * Whereas film lovers will identify "Also sprach Zarathustra" with 2001, in the mind of the wrestling fan, the song is synonymous with Ric Flair.
 * Jerry "The King" Lawler has long used Modest Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" (Great Gate of Kiev movement) as his entrance theme.
 * WWE wrestler The Undertaker's most common and well-known theme is a variation of Chopin's funeral march.
 * And who can forget Doink the Clown entering to "Entry of the Gladiators"? (as much as we wish we could)
 * BITE YOUR TONGUE, CHURL!
 * For a brief period at the height of his "American blueblood" gimmick, the WWF's Hunter Hearst Helmsley (better known today as Triple H) made his entrance to Beethoven's "Ode to Joy".
 * Don't forget Randy Savage coming out to Edward Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance" (otherwise known as "the graduation song").
 * AKA "Land of Hope and Glory".

Radio

 * The Lone Ranger on both radio and television used the finale of Rossini's William Tell overture ("March of the Swiss Soldiers") as its opening theme.
 * And the radio series The Green Hornet used Rimsky-Korsakov's "The Flight of the Bumblebee'' for its opening theme, and a number of classical works as regular soundtrack bits. Both series were created by WXYZ's George W. Trendle, a notorious cheapskate, who was well known in the radio broadcast business for pinching his pennies in the production of his radio dramas. The film serials also used a classical soundtrack, unless the action on-screen demanded something else.
 * It worked beautifully, though, especially in The Lone Ranger. Who can forget Liszt's "Prelude to a Silver Bullet", and Mendelssohn's "Rustler's Cave Overture"? The damn thing was perfect. Few people can listen to "March of the Swiss Soldiers" without at least thinking "Hi-yo Silver!"
 * The opening music to 'You'll Have Had Your Tea: The Doings of Hamish and Dougal' is a pipe version of the Rondo from Mozart's 4th Horn Concerto.

Video Games

 * The DSiWare downloadable Soul Of Darkness, Gameloft's Castlevania clone, uses the "Dies Irae" from Mozart's Requiem Mass for its credits music.
 * Offenbach's "Can-Can," from Orpheus in the Underworld, shows up a lot:
 * Lemmings, which also uses, among others, "How Much Is That Doggy In The Window,"(actually more of a Suspiciously Similar Song) "She'll Be Comin' Round The Mountain," Mozart's Rondo Alla Turca, Pachelbel's Canon, Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker and Swan Lake... you get the idea.
 * Oh No! More Lemmings had an original soundtrack in its Amiga/PC release. Its Acorn Archimedes port, however, had a rewritten soundtrack with an absolute crapload of public domain songs, even more than in the original game: "The Trumpet Hornpipe" (better known as the Captain Pugwash theme), "K-K-K-Katy", "Camptown Races", "Three Blind Mice", the Finale from the William Tell overture, "Greensleeves", "Old McDonald", "Waltzing Matilda", "The British Grenadiers", "On Ilka Moor Baht 'at", "Trepak", "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor", "Don't Dilly-Dally on the Way" (also used in the Master System and Game Gear ports of the first game), "Rule, Britannia!", "Sobre las Olas" (also used in Lemmings 2), "Yakety Sax", "Country Gardens", and finally "Portsmouth".
 * Parodius (for the Hot Lips boss), which uses even more than Lemmings, if that's even believable.
 * Mr. Do.
 * Super Mario Land's invincibility music.
 * Tiny Toon Adventures: Montana's Movie Madness's boss music.
 * O2Jam, where it was one of the most popular songs.
 * Jubeat features a Eurobeat rendition titled "Heaven or Hell".
 * A remixed version plays during the credits roll of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom (except when you win as Roll).
 * Although the Ninja Hattori-Kun Famicom game's main theme is mostly an original tune, it quotes a few bars of the Can-Can.
 * Space shooter Phoenix should be counted as one of the very first examples, with its short excerpts of Romance de Amor and Beethoven's Für Elise.
 * Khatchaturian's Sabre Dance is another one that shows up pretty often, showing up in, among other places, the SNES Bonk game. And Parodius.
 * Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King shows up quite often as well, including Manic Miner for ZX Spectrum, Hunt the Wumpus for TI-99/4A, and... you guessed it... Parodius.
 * Also in the old space-sim-trader Elite.
 * ...Y'know what? Just check out The Other Wiki's entry on the music in Parodius.
 * Word of God is that, for the original MSX Parodius, the use of public domain music was due to the composer given a very strict deadline. This carried over to Parodius da!, and before long it was a series staple.
 * In La-Mulana, the PR3 Mini Game parodies many elements of the original Parodius, right down to remixing classical songs; "Pomp and Circumstance" for the pre-stage area, "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" for the stage itself, and "Sabre Dance" for the boss.
 * Another TI-99/4A game, Alpiner, featured as its main music another song from Grieg's Peer Gynt soundtrack, "Anitra's Dance".
 * Did anyone know that iconic Spanish guitar solo in the beginning cutscene in Ace Combat 04, titled Prelude, is actually Agustin Barrios Mangore's "La Catedral, 1st Movement" (hence "Prelude")? Some of his works are also featured in the cutscenes, such as "Una Limosnita Por (el) Amor de Dios" ("An Alm for the Love of God").
 * Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik starts off the arcade Mario Bros. game (not Super Mario Bros., but its predecessor).
 * Frogger plays a snippet of Camptown Races whenever the title character dies, while levels are introduced by a variety of classical themes.
 * The "game start" jingle is "Inu no Omawari-san" ("The Dog Policeman"), which is a traditional Japanese nursery rhyme. The line the game plays is the first one, which goes "Maigo no maigo no koneko-chan. Anata no ouchi wa doko desu ka?" (Lost, lost kitten, where is your address?).
 * The Commodore 64 version employs a sort of mash-up/medley theme that very notably includes Yankee Doodle. Yankee Doodle also appears in the arcade version.
 * In Earthworm Jim, the background music in the second level, "What the Heck?", starts off with Modest Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain before switching suddenly to elevator music.
 * Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata provides two backing tracks in Earthworm Jim 2; another level uses a medley of "Funiculi, Funicula" and "Tarantella."
 * Moonlight Sonata also shows up in the title screen and ending of Thexder, as well as Jet Set Willy.
 * The NES version of Tetris used Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy"... and, on the victory screen, the Soldiers' Chorus from Bizet's Carmen. The Game Boy version, on the other hand, used the Russian folk song "Korobeiniki" (and another Tchiakovsky piece, "Trepek" from The Nutcracker as victory music). In fact, the Tetris Company has trademarked the use of "Korobeiniki." also, Type C in the Game Boy version is a Minuet in B Minor from one of J.S. Bach's French Suites.
 * Yoshi's Cookie, in the spirit of puzzle games, uses "Csikós Post" as background music in all three versions (it's Action Music B in the SNES version and 2P Music C in the NES and Game Boy versions).
 * The Super Solvers Edutainment Games' soundtracks consisted entirely of classical music:
 * Midnight Rescue used "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" and "In The Halls of the Mountain King".
 * OutNumbered used two movements of Mozart's 40th Symphony.
 * Treasure Mountain plays Bach's "Solfeggietto" on the title screen and upon reaching the top of the mountain. One of Beethoven's country dances was used as a level theme.
 * Frontier: Elite uses a variety of classical themes, including Johann Strauss' "Beautiful Blue Danube" and Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries".
 * The original Elite also used "On the Beautiful Blue Danube" on the opening screen, and (on some platforms) when the player's ship is performing auto-docking. This latter use is a reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
 * Gyruss uses Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor
 * The LucasArts adventure Loom uses melodies from Swan Lake.
 * Justified Trope: The character's mother and several other characters were turned into swans.
 * The Mystic Cave Zone theme in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is based on Julius Fuč Ã­k's "Entry of the Gladiators" (also known as "that circus theme").
 * Also present in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, in the Carnival Night Zone, which also sampled Michael Jackson's "Jam," which makes sense since Jackson's songwriters and those who worked with him composed the soundtrack for this game.
 * Star FOX used various folk melodies in the Out of this Dimension level.
 * Nasen Jack, a German game for Atari 8 Bit Computers, played "Greensleeves" when the player collected all the letters in the word EXTRA.
 * In Zool 2 for Amiga and DOS, the first level is named "Swan Lake." Guess what the background music's a remix of...
 * Hudson Soft's Famicom game Binary Land uses Erik Satie's "Je Te Veux" as its background music, and Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" as the victory music.
 * The arcade and NES game City Connection uses Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto #1 as its background music... but in a rock arrangement. Even better, though, when one runs over a cat in the game, a little polka plays; the Japanese name of that tune translates as, appropriately enough, "I stepped on the cat".
 * Richard Wellington, the primary witness for the first case of the second Ace Attorney game, has Bach's Tocatta and Fugue in D minor as his cell phone ringtone. Before that, in the same case, it's used for major effect in the Phoenix Wright's nightmare, and later, when the witness.
 * For Metal Gear Solid, composer Tappi Iwadere tried to do this to "The Winter Road" by Georgey Syridov, using it as the games' main theme. After ten years of Metal Gear Solid games, the song turned out to be not as public domain as the composer thought...
 * Please cite evidence stating that was what happened. The official story is that some people found similarities to the main theme song and "The Winter Road" which brought the attention to the legal owner of "The Winter Road" and Konami. Konami states they will stop using the song to avoid legal action with the owner of the song. There is also the other camp that believes that the songs are nothing alike but that is something to discuss elsewhere.
 * Beatmania IIDX is home to "V," a remix of the Winter movement of Antonio Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons."
 * Bemani loves this one. Consider: any "Classic" song in Pop'n Music (all medleys), any "Classic Party" song in Guitar Freaks/Drummania (ditto), "End of the Century (Beethoven's "Ode to Joy"), and last but not least, "Kakumei" (Chopin's Revolutionary Etude, and a damn good translation pun - "kakumei" means "revolution(ary)", and that it's the One-Hit-Point Wonder boss on a Dance Dance Revolution game too).
 * And then you have songs that subvert this by actually being original works, like "A" and "Piano Concerto No. 1 'Anti-Ares'". The latter's supposed composer, Virkato Wakhmaninov, even has a brief fictional biography about him.
 * Return Fire uses "Dies Irae" by Verdi, "In the Hall of the Mountain King" by Grieg, "Mars" (from the Planets) by Holst, and "Ride of the Valkyries" by Wagner for its soundtrack.
 * Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak has "Moonlight Sonata" and "Waltz of the Flowers" as unlockable Ham-Jam themes. Its predecessor, Ham-Hams Unite!, uses Ravel's "Bolero" and "Csikós Post".
 * During the last two levels of Call of Duty World at War, one can hear a German military march (the KÃ¶niggrÃ¤tzer Marsch, to be exact) playing in the background in specific areas. Considering that it's been around since 1866, it's almost certainly in the public domain by now.
 * The game's original soundtrack also incorporates some real music; the song played at the very end of the Soviet campaign's last mission incorporates a snippet of the Hymn of the Soviet Union.
 * The popular Dies Irae also pops up briefly in the mission "Eviction".
 * Call of Duty 4 has a portion of the Soviet anthem play when you win a match as the Spetsnaz.
 * Most Paradox Interactive games up to and including Victoria had soundtrack consisting mostly of classical music. Hearts of Iron's intro theme is "Ride of the Valkyries", while EU 2's soundtrack is filled by somewhat bizarre period music. (including one involving whips, and the infamous falalalalan)
 * In Banjo-Kazooie, Grunty's theme (and thus, the music heard everywhere through her lair, the Hub Level) is actually a minor-key version of "Teddy Bears' Picnic." Since both The Hero, Banjo, and the Damsel in Distress, Tootie, are bears, it's actually fitting... if not rather odd.
 * The Konami game Magicians Quest Mysterious Times/Enchanted Folk and the School of Wizardry takes this almost to the point of abuse. Almost all of the overworld and event music is based on existing classical pieces, ranging from the well-known (like "Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy" and "Beautiful Dreamer"), there are also some lesser-known oddballs thrown in (such as the "Love" theme being Debussy's "Petite Suite.") However, the game also provides a large assortment of original compositions for you to play on your in-game instruments, so, there you go.
 * Wii Music had a soundtrack composed almost entirely of public domain songs.
 * Samurai Shodown 6 uses Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" as a background theme for the USA stage, rearranged as a military march.
 * And the arranged version adds the national anthem The Star-Spangled Banner in the beginning, then goes into a rock version of "Stars and Stripes Forever".
 * The Halo 3 Believe ad campaign (at least the 90-second one that had no live action) used Chopin's Prelude No. 15 in D-Flat Major, though all other music from the game and ads were original compositions
 * The original 1980s version of Sid Meier's Pirates! featured short snippets of classical music to accompany certain events. Many came from Handel's Water Music. For the 1990s version, Pirates! Gold, music was taken from the works of J.S. Bach (and credited to him). The 2004 remake features loads of classical music, with several "cover" versions for each tune. Firaxis Games were developing Civilization IV at the same time, and so several tunes ended up in both games.
 * Donkey Kong Country 2's theme for Haunted Hall borrows from "Night on Bald Mountain in places.
 * The music played for Megaman Juno's final form in the first Mega Man Legends is a rather chilling remix of Johann Bach's Little Fugue.
 * The Famicom/NES game Tetrastar: The Fighter uses several classical music pieces, including Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" and Khachaturian's "Sabre Dance".
 * The boss music in Castle of Deceit is the fugue movement of Bach's "Toccata and Fugue". The main action themes also sound like Bach pieces.
 * The game Jigsaw on the Action 52 cartridge uses "Long Long Ago" for its theme.
 * In the "Waterloo World" level of Psychonauts, the 1812 Overture can be heard.
 * The Sachen game Pyramid(Tetris knockoff) uses "The Streets of Cairo"(aka "There's A Place in France").
 * The DOS first-person wireframe Pac-Man clone 3-Demon uses several Scott Joplin songs, including "The Entertainer", for its soundtrack.
 * The entire soundtrack of Little King's Story is classical music.
 * Most of the soundtrack to the Oregon Trail games is country folk songs.
 * Runman's soundtrack.
 * Tapper/Root Beer Tapper features Oh! Susanna in the first level.
 * Oh! Susanna also plays in the arcade game Pooyan, when Mama rescues her piglets for the second time.
 * The NES version of Punch-Out!! uses "Sakura, Sakura", a traditional Japanese folk song for Piston Honda's ring entrance. This is referenced in the Wii game (where he was renamed "Piston Hondo").
 * "Ride of the Valkyries" was used as the themes to Von Kaiser and a couple other boxers.
 * Glass Joe's entrance theme is La Marsellaise, the French National Anthem.
 * Don Flamenco's theme is an excerpt from the Georges Bizet's opera Carmen.
 * The arcade game Battlezone plays a snippet of the 1812 Overture when you make the high score list.
 * Crystal Castles plays two different parts of the Nutcracker March. The one that plays depends on whether or not Bentley Bear or the enemies get the last gem.
 * Depending on high the player gets, Beethoven's Fifth (specifically the famous four-note opening) is one of the themes plays when you make the high score list in Stargate (AKA: Defender II).
 * The NES game Might & Magic: Secret of the Inner Sanctum uses a surprisingly-long arrangement of Pachelbel's Canon in D on its title screen.
 * The NES game Battle of Olympus plays Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D minor inside the Temple.
 * Super Famicom game Violinist of Hameln's soundtrack consists mostly (if not entirely) of classical music -- most immediately apparent, Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring is the town theme.
 * The Space tribe's theme in Lemmings 2 is J. Strauss's Blue Danube, a Shout-Out to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
 * Most of the soundtrack to Flower, Sun, and Rain consists of pop/techno remixes of classical and jazz pieces; most of the chapters in the game are even named after the music that appears in them.
 * Successful completion of each level in Peggle is met with a rousing rendition of "Ode to Joy". Renfield's theme is "Toccata and Fugue in D minor", and "Morning Mood" plays when the game is launched.
 * The NES version of The Adventures of Captain Comic has a soundtrack consisting of badly mixed classical music.
 * Mega Blast, an old arcade shoot-em-up from Taito, has an FM synth arrangement of Chopin's piano piece, Fantasie Impromptu in C-sharp. It doesn't show up during the game itself, but in the attract mode. Beethoven's Ode to Joy accompanies the ending cast roll.
 * The New World Symphony plays during the boss battle against Augus in Asura's Wrath.
 * Antarctic Adventure uses the "Skater's Waltz" as its in-game music.
 * Miner 2049er during its intro plays a version of "Clementine," a song alluded to by the game's title.
 * Kingdom Hearts 3D, while hailing from a series known for having its very own share of awesome tracks in the first place, has three pieces of classic music in its soundtrack because of one of its worlds representing Fantasia.

Visual Novel

 * G Senjou no Maou uses "Air on a G-String" as a motif and the title screen music, as evidenced by the title ("The Devil on G-String"). "Songs My Mother Taught Me" and "Ride of the Valkyries" are also used as background music for Kanon's figure-skating competition. In fact, the former is an important motif and the title for Kanon's chapter. The rest of the background music is also notable for being remixes of classical pieces.

Web Original

 * The Moonlight Sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven is featured in Dirty the Pooh and the Hundred-Acre Shitpile, Chapter Three when Pooh eats Piglet alive.
 * Charlie the Unicorn: The Candy Mountain Song is sung to the tune of "Clarinet Polka".
 * Homestuck: A Vaudeville-era song by Eddie Morton, "I'm a Member of the Midnight Crew," is sampled in "Black" and later covered in Volume 8.
 * Chopin's Minute Waltz plays in the background on Cooking With Dog, a cooking show hosted by a Poodle. The piece is also called the Puppy Waltz.

Western Animation

 * The Ren and Stimpy Show frequently used Romantic Era music in the background; Tchiakovsky's Nutcracker Suite and Dvorak's Symphony #9 "From the New World" were particularly popular.
 * The yodeling song used in the title card for "The Boy Who Cried Rat" was later used in The Mighty B! episode "Bee Afraid".
 * The Road Runner's theme in Looney Tunes is from Smetana's Bartered Bride. A great deal of Looney Tunes music are actually classical tunes. Examples include tunes from Rossini's Barber of Seville and Liszt's second Hungarian Rhapsody, and Felix Mendelssohn's "Spring Song".
 * Mendelssohn's "Fingal's Cave" was always played when the Mynah Bird showed up in Chuck Jones' "Inki" series.
 * Franz Liszt's second Hungarian Rhapsody just might be the most used work in Western Animation. Looney Tunes used it in "Rhapsody Rabbit", Tom and Jerry used it in "Cat Concerto" (these two were so similar, each studio accused the other of plagiarism), Woody Woodpecker used it, and it was used in the Donald Duck/Daffy Dueling Pianos skit at the Ink & Paint Club in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?.
 * The Smurfs has this so smurfing much. See The Other Wiki for more details.
 * Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles uses a remix of Beethoven's "'Pathetique' Sonata #8 Op. 13".
 * The made for video Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers had songs with music from various classical pieces, including Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Offenbach's Can-Can, and Tchaikovsky's Dance of the Reed Flutes. The finale took place during an opera made up of selections of operettas by Gilbert and Sullivan.
 * Disney's version of Sleeping Beauty uses music from Tchaikovsky's ballet version of the same story.
 * Fantasia. (The movie wasn't a success when first released in 1940; this was acknowledged in one edition of The Man Who Came to Dinner which had Sheridan Whiteside consoling Walt Disney over the phone: "Don't worry about Fantasia. It wasn't your fault... Beethoven hasn't had a hit for years.")
 * Also Fantasia/2000, though several of the pieces are actually still under copyright.
 * The Spectacular Spider-Man has made great use of public domain music, mostly in ending credits, to play with a theme (holidays were the most frequent). One episode had Spidey beat up bad guys to Mozart. Yes, it was awesome!
 * SpongeBob SquarePants uses a portion of Vivaldi's Spring from the Four Seasons suite, a version of Johann Strauss' Blue Danube Waltz, Jacques Offenbach's Infernal Galop (Can-Can) and a number of others.
 * Also, the NFL song "The Lineman" is probably better known as the theme of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy than its original use.
 * Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog incorporates both "In the Hall of the Mountain King" and "Flight of the Bumblebee" in the opening theme.
 * One of the songs on the Street Fighter cartoon's soundtrack is a rendition of "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor", which notably plays over M. Bison's infamous "YES! YES!" scene.
 * While they did a few original songs (most notably, "Witch Doctor"), the 1960s-era Chipmunks otherwise did mostly public domain songs, albeit their own personal takes on them (e.g., "Old Macdonald Cha-Cha-Cha").
 * Invoked/parodied in an episode of American Dad when Roger joins Steve's band and plays rock n roll version of "Jimmy Cracked Corn" and "Ba Ba Black Sheep". He even goes on to say they have over a hundred hits already.
 * Animaniacs: Wakko's Wish has a musical number sung to the tune of the second "Hungarian Rhapsody".