I'm not sure exactly how
obscure this is, but it bugged me for
ten years of my
life, so I thought I'd share it with anyone in a similar situation.
"Intermezzo Sinfonico" from Cavalliera Rusticana by Mascagni
Tissue paper hawkers
Kleenex used this in an advert circa
1982, which I have for
posterity since my parents taped me lots of
Christmas TV before I was born. The
plot of this
commercial is concerned with a
small boy and his
mother and
father, who appear to be attending some sort of
Communist rally in an undetermined location.
Anyway, the kid is separated from his parents by a
marching band of
Cuban revolutionaries playing the sort of exciting
Latin/
martial hybrid music usually associated with these sort of events (really,
I shit you not). In
floods of tears, he wanders into a local
newsagent, where he is reunited with his dad, who gently lifts him onto his
shoulders while attending to his tears with Kleenex. At that point, possibly the most
gorgeous five notes
strings have ever played swell up in the
background as they leave the store.
I think if this advert was played to me in music lessons when i started
school I would have a wider interest in
classical music rather than the two or three rather arbitrary composers I have time for now.