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Context LyricalDissonance / Classical

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3%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
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6* The Polish National Anthem has an upbeat, cheerful tune, but the translation of the lyrics towards the end is anything ''but'' cheerful.
7-->''Father, in tears\
8Says to his Basia\
9"Just listen, it seems that our people\
10Are beating the drums"\
11March, march''
12* Creator/GilbertAndSullivan have "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdJg6Duzzf4 With Catlike Tread]]" from ''Theatre/ThePiratesOfPenzance''. A song about how sneakily the titular pirates are breaking into the Major General's home... annotated ''Fortissimo'' (Italian, and musician, for ''"Really Loud"''), and set to the sound of blaring trumpets, rumbling kettle drums, and crashing cymbals.
13%%** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkJdEFf_Qg4 Gilbert and Sullivan]] perform "Baby Got Back". (Administrivia/WeblinksAreNotExamples)
14* Music/JosephHaydn had a bit of fun with this in the Agnus Dei portion of his Creation Mass. The lyrics (translated from Latin) are "Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us". Haydn proceeded to write the ''happiest'' Agnus Dei [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3SWqM-ZQww he could think of]].
15* The words of the first number from Claudio Monteverdi's ''Scherzi musicali cioè arie et madrigali'', "Maladetto sia l'aspetto", translate as "Cursed be the looks that have set my heart on fire. Alas! unhappy me, for I suffer cruel torment and will surely die, nor can any but you ease my suffering," while set to a lively and carefree melody in the major [[{{Scales}} key]].
16* Music/WolfgangAmadeusMozart:
17** The quite beautiful, six-part canon entitled [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C78HBp-Youk "Lick Me in the Arse"]].
18** "Batti, batti o bel Masetto" ("Beat me, oh lovely Masetto") from ''Theatre/DonGiovanni'' is a calm and tender love song in which a woman begs her fiance to beat her. Though to be fair, the subtext of the aria basically comes down to a teasing, "You love me way too much to beat me, even if I did cheat on you like you think I did."
19** "Der Hölle Rache", or "Hell's Vengeance", is one of those classical pieces everyone recognizes but nobody can name. It's an aria from the opera ''Theatre/TheMagicFlute'', in which an enraged queen threatens damnation and disownment upon her daughter if the girl doesn't kill one of the queen's enemies. The general tone of the piece, however, is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02yf6RHIQjQ somewhat less than fiendish]].
20* Carl Orff's ''Music/CarminaBurana'' contains some of the most instantly recognisable music in the world. The first four minutes, better known as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5b7tgkdFH0&ab_channel=Mamanzord "O Fortuna"]], is quite probably the most famously epic piece of music ever written, and the platinum-iridium standard for OminousLatinChanting besides. The lyrics? The ''Carmina Burana'' covers a wide variety of subjects, and most are utterly mundane. "O Fortuna" itself is about ''bad luck''. More specifically, it's the lament of a student emo-ing out because he just gambled away the last of his drinking money.
21* Music/GiacomoPuccini: In ''Theatre/{{Tosca}}'', the evil chief of police plots to [[ScarpiaUltimatum blackmail a woman into having sex with him in order to save the man she loves]], then [[YouSaidYouWouldLetThemGo has the man killed anyway]], while all around him parishioners beg for God's mercy, all set to some of the most gorgeously beautiful music the composer ever wrote.
22%%** The aria "O mio babbino caro" from ''Theatre/GianniSchicchi'', as Lauretta's pleading with her father to let her marry the man she loves, or she'll kill herself. (Administrivia/ZeroContextExample; how is the music dissonant to the lyrics?)
23%%** ''Theatre/{{Turandot}}'' gives us [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3kpbPv2vPo "Nessun Dorma"]], one of the most famous arias in all of opera... about the fact that nobody in Beijing is sleeping that night trying to find out Calaf's name because ''every man, woman and child in the city will be slaughtered'' if they fail to discover it by dawn. (Administrivia/WeblinksAreNotExamples)
24* Any serious opera by Music/GioachinoRossini. It seems the man was practically incapable of writing anything ''not'' upbeat and cheerful, even if the lyrics call for vengeance, anguish, distress, fear, etc.
25* Creator/AnnaRussell's parody-Lied (German art song), entitled [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz47EtitT0I "Schlumph"]], is in a tragic musical style, with heavy chordal piano textures and doleful harmonies that never leave the minor key. The words are... rather silly, a combination of stereotypical tourist German vocabulary with pseudo-German gobbledigook. Incidentally, while "Schlumph" doesn't mean anything, ''schlumpf'' is German for "[[Franchise/TheSmurfs smurf]]".
26* The trailer for ''Film/TheSocialNetwork'' features a harmonized choral arrangement of Music/{{Radiohead}}'s "Creep", a song about a man wishing he could have a woman he thinks is too good for him, by the Belgian choir Scala & Kolacny Brothers.[[note]]Incidentally, it's from their 2004 album ''On The Rocks''[[/note]] It's weirdly haunting and awesome.
27* Music/FranzSchubert's "Trout" lieder ([[CoveredUp not the piano-and-strings quintet, but the song it's based on]]) [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF9DrUXowBo slips into this at the end]]. The singer starts by describing the titular fish in the stream and a fisherman trying to catch it. The song turns tense in the later half as the fisherman finally snags it, only to return to the cheery, upbeat motif as the singer recalls staring at the caught trout in outrage.
28* The rather sweet lullaby Mariya sings at the end of Music/PyotrIlyichTchaikovsky's ''Mazeppa''. It would be quite beautiful if [[spoiler:she wasn't A) completely mad, B) holding and rocking a dying man who she thinks is a child, who dies half-way through, and C) about to freeze to death]].
29* On Christopher Tin's 2009 album ''Music/CallingAllDawns'', there is a song called "Se E Pra Vir Que Venha", which has a rather upbeat tempo and is even a bit of an ear worm, but the Portuguese lyrics? It's about the narrator waiting for her own death to come, and she's even quite joyful about it. Not long after that, though, there's "Rassemblons-Nous", [[MoodWhiplash which is a pumping anthem]] [[ScrewDestiny about the opposite]].

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