Radio 4 had a programme in say the late 60s for the older listener with the Clog Dance from La Fille Mal Gardee.

It was not aimed at my age group at the time I heard it.

On the Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet thread, our sponsered ( sic ) links threw up an offer to purchase "The Apprentice" ringtone. And, of course, it is them Montagues and Capulets innit ?

  Wm Walton's 'Coronation March' (1937) was well placed in "Justice", a Yorkshire TV series of the early 1970s with Margaret Lockwood as a QC.     Good scripts and production standards.   I think I played in a couple of them but clearly recall my role, as prosecutor, pressing a murder charge on a fine young actor, Richard Beckinsale who, alas, didn't survive the decade.      Walton's march introduced the required grandeur at the opening and closing credits.

It can't have been the same programme as that, Ron, but there was/is another horsey BBC show (Showjumping from Hickstead?) that uses Mozart's Musical Joke.

Ivanhoe c1972/3 BBC tv.  Tchaik sym 4 last movement intro - and very thrilling it was.
Oddest combination of uses for a composer's music? Death in Venice and Castrol Oil, admittedly different pieces.  Any other takers?

I can't resist posting an extract from Daniel Barenboim's 2006 Reith lectures:

And the most extraordinary example of offensive usage of music, because it underlines some kind of association which I fail to recognise, was shown to me one day when watching the television in Chicago and seeing a commercial of a company called American Standard. And it showed a plumber running very very fast in great agitation, opening the door to a toilet and showing why this company actually cleans the toilet better than other companies. And you know what music was played to that?

(FEW BARS OF A RECORDING PLAYED)

The Lachrymose from Mozart's Requiem. Now ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry, I'm probably immodest enough to think I have a sense of humour but I can't laugh at this. And I laugh even less when I read some, a document which I've brought here to read to you in its entirety. It was published, I'm afraid I don't know in what newspaper, but it is the Editor's note. The following is a letter sent in by Christine Statmuller of Basking Ridge, it is in reference to her previous letter which ran in the April issue of The Catholic Spirit. 'Thanks for printing my letter in which I objected to the use of music from Mozart's Requiem by American Standard to advertise their new champion toilet. As you can see from the enclosed letter below, it achieved results, thanks to the letters from other incensed readers.' And the letter is as follows:- 'Thank you for contacting American Standard with your concerns about the background music in the current television commercial for our champion toilet. We appreciate that you have taken the time to communicate with us, and share your feelings on a matter that clearly is very important to you.'

(LAUGHTER)

'When we first selected Mozart's Requiem, we didn't know of its religious significance.'

(LAUGHTER)

'We actually learned about it from a small number of customers like you, who also contacted us. Although there is ample precedent for commercial use of spiritually theme music, we have decided to change to a passage from Wagner's Tannhauser Overture,'

(LAUGHTER)

'which music experts have assured us does not have religious importance.'

(LAUGHTER)

'The new music will begin airing in June.'

(LAUGHTER)

I think that says it all!

(LAUGHTER & APPLAUSE)

The use of a famous (but clearly not famous enough!) piece of religious music to advertise a toilet might look like some kind of sacrilege but, given that from the point of view of the advertising industry all commodities are basically equivalent (which Daniel Barenboim and the irate TV viewer he cites seem to be unable to see through the fog of their righteous indignation), it's no different in principle from using any music to advertise anything. Music is used all the time as a code for some particular kind of "lifestyle" or "aspiration" which an advertiser wishes to identify with a particular brand. Personally I tend to find that offensive in the way I find all such insidious appurtenances of capitalism offensive, but it isn't that difficult to see through.

I agree with Ollie - having heard the lecture when broadcast, I remember Barenboim's tone suggesting that he was scandalised by the fact that the only objection that the advertisers seemed to recognise as being valid was the religious one.  This passage follows on from a description of his despair at hearing Brahms' Violin Concerto in a hotel lift.

He goes on to say:

And now we have the whole association for descriptive marketing in the United States, which is how use descriptive marketing, how to use music as description and how to market it that way - in other words what they are saying to the public is you don't have to concentrate, you don't have to listen, you don't have to know anything about it, just come and you will find some association, and we will show you so many things that have nothing to do with the music and this way you will go into the music. And I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, is that the answer to the so-called crisis in classical music? Accessibility does not come through populism, accessibility comes through more interest and more knowledge, and not telling people don't worry you'll be all right, just sit there, buy your ticket, sit there, shut your ears, and you will think of something. That is in fact what we are telling them. And this is criminal. And this is something which has bothered me more and more and more over the years. Music in itself has nothing to do with a society that in a way rejects what I would call publicly accepted standards of life, and of intelligence, and of human existence, and takes the easy way out with a kind of political correctness which does only a few things, all of them in my view negative.

Full text of lecture here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2006/lecture2.shtml