Classical music has often incorporated elements or even taken material from popular music. Examples include occasional music such as Brahms’ use of student drinking songs in his Academic Festival Overture, genres exemplified by Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera, and the influence of jazz on early- and mid-twentieth century composers including Maurice Ravel, as exemplified by the movement entitled “Blues” in his sonata for violin and piano. Certain postmodern, minimalist and post minimalist classical composers acknowledge a debt to popular music.

There are, likewise, numerous examples of influence flowing in the opposite direction, including popular songs based on classical music, the use to which Pachelbel’s Canon has been put since the 1970s, and the musical crossover phenomenon, where classical musicians have achieved success in the popular music arena (one notable example is the Hooked on Classics series of recordings made by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the early 1980s). Some rock bands such as Emerson, Lake & Palmer have recorded classical compositions.

Composers of classical music have often made use of folk music (music created by musicians who are commonly not classically trained, often from a purely oral tradition). Some composers, like Dvoák and Smetana, have used folk themes to impart a nationalist flavor to their work, while others (like Bartók) have used specific themes, lifted whole from their folk-music origins.
Certain staples of classical music are often used commercially (that is, either in advertising or in the soundtracks of movies made for entertainment). In television commercials, several loud, bombastically rhythmic orchestral passages have become cliches, particularly the opening of Richard Strauss’ . Also sprach Zarathustra (made famous in 2001: A Space Odyssey) and the opening section “O Fortuna” of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana; other examples in the same vein are the Dies Irae from the Verdi Requiem, Edvard Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King from Peer Gynt, the opening bars of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries from Die Walküre, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee, and excerpts of Aaron Copland’s Rodeo.

During the 1990s, several research papers and popular books emergence touting the so-called Mozart effect: a temporary, small elevation of scores on certain tests as a result of listening to Mozart.One of the co-authors of the original studies of the Mozart effect commented “I don’t think it can hurt. I’m all for exposing children to wonderful cultural experiences. But I do think the money could be better spent on music education programs.”

Throughout history, parents have often made sure that their children receive classical music training from a young age. Some parents pursue music lessons for their children for social reasons or in an effort to instill a useful sense of self-discipline. Some consider that a degree of knowledge of important works of classical music is part of a good general education.

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