Classical music has a long relationship with the movies: Brief Encounter (1945), for example, made Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto a popular classic. Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra – or rather its first two minutes! – conjures up images of space travel or rockets rising majestically into the sky (thanks to Stanley Kubrick).

Or the music can be used ironically – Barber’s intense and passionate Adagio juxtaposed with the horrors of combat in Vietnam – or to add a sonic dimension of napalming the jungle in Apocalypse Now; helicopters taking the place of Wagner’s Valkyries.

(All of these recordings are available to stream via Spotify, as well as purchase on Amazon)

Barber Adagio ('Platoon') Los Angeles PO / Leonard Bernstein (DG) CD from Amazon / Download from Amazon

Wagner Ride of the Valkyries ('Apocalypse Now') LPO / Sir Mark Elder (CfP) CD from Amazon / Download from Amazon

Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No 2 ('Brief Encounter') Leif Ove Andsnes; BPO / Antonio Pappano (EMI) CD from Amazon / Download from Amazon

Rimsky-Korsakov Flight of the Bumble Bee ('Shine') Academy of St Martin in the Fields / Sir Neville Marriner (CfP) Download from Amazon

R Strauss Also sprach Zarathustra ('2001: A Space Odyssey') BPO / Herbert von Karajan (DG) CD from Amazon / Download from Amazon

Mahler Symphony No 5 – Adagietto ('Death in Venice') New Philharmonia / Sir John Barbirolli (EMI) CD from Amazon / Download from Amazon

Mascagni Cavalleria rusticana – Intermezzo ('Godfather 3') Philharmonia / Giuseppe Sinopoli (DG) CD from Amazon / Download from Amazon

Verdi La forza del destino Overture ('Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources') BPO / Herbert von Karajan (DG) CD from Amazon / Download from Amazon

Vivaldi Four Seasons ('Kramer v Kramer’) Giuliano Carmignola; Venice Baroque Orch / Andrea Marcon (Sony Classical) CD from Amazon / Download from Amazon

Pachelbel Canon ('Ordinary People') The English Concert / Trevor Pinnock (Archiv) Download from Amazon

What recordings would appear in your Top 10? Why not add to our list by posting a comment below. (You need to be registered –  which is free – and logged in).