This is an ever-expanding list of tunes that will never die.
When I say "tunes", I mean tunes, not necessarily entire works. The basic criterion is that it's something that's uplifting to the spirit, and that you can whistle (ok, I know you can whistle Beethoven's entire Choral Symphony, but let's get serious).
- Heinrich Baermann - Adagio in D flat for clarinet and piano (long misattributed to Wagner)
- William Bolcom - Ghost Rag No. 1
- Borodin - In the Steppes of Central Asia
- Brahms - Alto Rhapsody, Op. 53 - finale
- Bruch - Concerto in E minor for clarinet, viola & orchestra, Op. 88
- Delius - Florida Suite - 1st movement
- Dvořák - Romance in F minor for violin & orchestra
- Dvořák - Silent Woods, B. 182
- Elgar - Spanish Serenade
- Elgar - Nimrod from Enigma Variations
- Gluck - Aria Unser Dummer pöbel meint from The Pilgrims to Mecca (Mozart wrote variations on it, and Tchaikovsky orchestrated the variations as the final movement of Mozartiana)
- Gluck - Aria Che faro senza Euridice from Orfeo
- Godowsky - Alt Wien from "Triakontameron"
- Gounod - '"Kyrie" from the St Cecilia Mass
- Handel - Hornpipe from Water Music
- Handel - For Unto Us a Child is Born from Messiah
- Haydn - Kyrie Eleison from Missa Solemnis in B flat (Harmonie Messe)
- Elena Kats-Chernin - Russian Rag
- Fritz Kreisler - Liebesleid, Liebesfreud
- Hamish MacCunn - Overture The Land of the Mountain and the Flood - main theme
- Moszkowski - main theme from Polonaise in D, Op. 17, No. 1
- Mozart - Ave verum corpus, K. 618
- Mozart - Trio in E flat for clarinet, viola & piano, K.498 ‘Kegelstatt’ - final movement
- Randy Newman - Dexter's Tune from the film Awakenings - the saddest piece of music ever written
- Piazzolla - Le Grand Tango
- Puccini - Duet "Hai ben raggione" from Il tabarro
- Rachmaninoff - Vocalise
- Saint-Saëns - "Softly awakes my heart" from Samson and Delilah
- Franz Schmidt - The theme on which Variations on a Hussar Song is based
- Schubert - Piano Sonata in C major, D. 840 "Reliquie" - Andante (C minor)
- Schubert - Piano Trio No. 1 in B flat, D.898 - 1st movement
- Schubert - slow movement from String Quintet in C, D. 956
- Schubert - The Shepherd on the Rock, D. 965
- Scriabin - Fantasy in B minor, Op. 28
- Sibelius - Canzonetta from Kuolema
- Richard Strauss - Waltzes from Der Rosenkavalier
- Richard Strauss - Zueignung
- Tárrega - Recuerdos de la Alhambra
- Tchaikovsky - Amid the din of a ball, Op. 38/3
- Tchaikovsky - Song of the Forests, Op. 47/5
- Verdi - Ingemisco from Requiem
- Verdi - Aria Ah si, ben mio coll'essere from Il trovatore
- Villa-Lobos - Aria from Bachianas brasileiras No. 5
- Villa-Lobos - Song of the Black Swan
- Wagner - "The Entry of the Guests" from Tannhäuser
- Wagner - Siegfried Idyll
- Wolf - Italian Serenade