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I'd like some ideas as what music for orchestra you think is very, very popular to the masses. I would like to arrange one or two of these pieces for piano quartet -- that is, 2 pianos, 8 hands. I coach some high school students, all of which are in the "intermediate" level, in playing piano quartets. Piano quartet music -- be it original pieces or arrangements, are hard to come by, so I have been making arrangements myself. Here are the arrangements I've done so far:

Bizet: Farandole from L'Arlesienne Suite No. 2
Handel: Hornpipe from Water Music
Haydn: Surprise Symphony (excerpt from mvt. 2)
Khatchaturian: Sabre Dance


Here are some classical pieces which I think are popular to everyone. Please add to the list. (Don't count orchestral pieces that are arrangements, like Brahms' Hungarian Dances.)

Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 5 (mvt. 1), 6, 9 (mvt. 4)
Bizet: Carmen Suites, L'Arlesienne Suites
Dukas: Sorceror's Apprentice
Elgar: Pomp & Circumstance marches
Mozart: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
Ponchielli: Dance of the Hours
Rossini: William Tell Overture, Barber of Seville Overture
Tchaikovsky: Nutcracker Suite
Wagner: Ride of the Valkyries


Thanks,
pd

add:

Saint-Saens: introduction and rondo capriccioso
Boccherini: minuette

Shostakovich Symphony No. 5!!!

Tchaikovsky 1812, Romeo and Juliet, Marche Slav.

Beethoven: Egmont Overture

a good one i just heard on radio today (which i haven't heard for years):

Edward Elgar: Saluer de amour(?) - love greeting

I realize that this is a subjective exercise. We have different ideas on what would be considered popular to everybody's ears. For instance, I would agree with Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture and Romeo & Juliet, and Boccherini's Minue. (How could I have forgotten these?) I wouldn't agree that everyone is familiar with the Saint-Saëns (never heard of this), the Shostakovich (or this), Tchaikovsky's Marche Slav, Beethoven's Egmont Overture, or Elgar's Salut d'Amour (gorgeous piece, one of the few I can play on the violin ). Now I think of it, one could disagree with my own recommendation of Bizet's Carmen Suites and L'Arlesienne Suites. (I do think that parts of Carmen are well known, like Habañera, the overture, and Toreador.)

JMHO! Any more recommendations?


pd

it's perhaps subjective, but the Saint-Saens Intro and Rondo Capr. for violin and orchestra (if you can play violin especially) is a very popular piece and among his most well known pieces ever.

I'd love to hear the fourth Schumann symphony on the piano, but it's not very pianistic.

Ha! A challenge!

Are you familiar with the Tchaikovsky Marche Slave? I'd bet that you'd recognize it.

How about Strauss Blue Danube Waltz?

Entrance of the Gladiators - I forgot the composer's name (it's that famous circus music)

Skater's Waltz - forgot the composer for that one, too!

Borodin - Polovtsian Dances (the theme that was borrowed a century later for "A Stranger in Paradise")

Mozart - Symphony No. 40

Barber, Overture to School for Scandal.

In the Hall of the Mountain King

So then you don't want the orchestral transcription for Liszt's hungarian rhapsody No. 2. Too bad, since that is a very fun piece.

Saint-Saens: Carnival of the Animals

Rimsky-Korsakov: Flight of the Bumblebee

Smetena: The Moldau

Just a few natural suggestions...

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons

I'm listening to Carmignola's recording now... It's pretty good, but I'm not sure I like some of his interpretations. But it is nice to hear the old-style baroque orchestra!