Pirates Classical Walk-up

“Bad Blood” is not, in fact, McCutchen’s current walk-up song, but it’s hard to keep track of what is. “I’m the type of person that gets tired of the same song pretty fast, so I want to say every series I change my walk-up music,” he said.

We’ll stick with “Bad Blood,” which the star center fielder used “for probably two or three series.” On a recent Pirates’ music list, McCutchen was the only player whose walk-up song featured a solo female artist. I chose St. Hildegard of Bingen’s “O rubor sanguinis” (“O redness of blood,” conveniently enough), which commemorates a group of female martyrs killed by the Huns.

“It’s really dark,” McCutchen said, laughing, upon listening to the Latin chant. “It definitely sounds like, I’d be watching ‘300’ right now, and it’s right as they’re about to go into battle or something.”

Verdi's magnificent, familiar setting of the Requiem Mass reaches for the divine and nearly gets there. With "Heaven Knows," Burnett seems to seek a similar level of divine truth, and this familiar, surging choral work meets the challenge, while Verdi's epic bass drum mirrors the percussion part of the pitcher's chosen song.

“That’s Amore,” Dean Martin’s 1952 classic, cradles the stadium rather than rocks it. It begs for a selection drawn from the Italian operatic tradition, and the aria “La donna e mobile” from Verdi’s “Rigoletto” fits the bill.

When I played the aria for Cervelli, he knowingly asked, “Pavarotti?” and started to hum along.

But would he swap it out for “That’s Amore”? Don’t count on it: “I think that the people really like ‘That’s Amore,’ so I’m not going to change it,” he said. “It’s a perfect song for the city.”

Rodriguez says his walk-up songs play to his Cuban-American roots, but he does classical too -- he started listening to Mozart when his wife was pregnant.

The name “Last Forever” reminded me of a feeling that sets in while listening to Ravel’s “Bolero,” an orchestral standby characterized by its repeating snare drum line and somewhat maddening melody that crescendos throughout the whole work. When I explained my logic, Rodriguez said, “That’s good to know. That’s the song you get from my song? You don’t want to listen to it anymore?” It was nothing personal, I assured him.

"El Chubi," a repetitive song full of nonsense lyrics, begs for several replacements from the classical genre. Perhaps a throat-singing work by the Canadian composer Derek Charke or the American composer Ken Ueno? An investigation into the relative merits of absolute music vs. operas, setting off the tensions between composers such as Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner?

Nah. Let's just stick to funky rhythms, which reminded me of the machine-like flavor of “The Chairman Dances.”

Since "Astro" is out of this world, I thought Gustav Holst's "The Planets" -- specifically the pounding first movement, "Mars, the Bringer of War" – would be an appropriate surrogate.

As Walker listened to the piece, he nodded his head in apparent agreement.

“I could come out to that,” he said. “This is just what you’re going for. You gotta have a strong beat.”

Success!

"Desde Abajo," meaning "from below" in Spanish, has an aspirational quality that reminded me of Wagner's musical language, embodied by this stunning overture. Our clip begins at my favorite moment in the work, a soaring melody from the strings.

Electronic dance music and Russian ballet don’t always cross paths, but the pulsing quality of “Booyah” calls for this raucous dance from Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring.”

Melancon is last but not least, and as a closer, he’s used to that.

The soft-spoken flamethrower takes to the pitcher’s mound alongside AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck," and the fast licks reminded me of an unusual recording of Steve Reich’s “Piano Phase” by the harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani, whose diabolical evenness embodies the electric character of the guitars.

“It’s awesome,” Melancon said, listening intently to the piece. “I feel like it’d be really cool if then it went into ‘Thunderstruck.’ I see the similarities. It’s really neat.”

Puff Daddy's “Come With Me” samples the familiar Led Zeppelin song "Kashmir.” Composers have long drawn from musical sources other than their own minds and souls: They rearrange other works for different instruments, recycle folksongs or repurpose other composers' music altogether. The American composer who best exemplified the tradition of recasting folk songs for the concert hall was Aaron Copland, whose uplifting "Hoedown" does just that.