Music Chat: Borrowing, Plagiarism, and Coincidence--The Real Deal 

Borrowing was common practice in Medieval and Renaissance music, which you recently touched on when discussing John Taverner. Liturgical composers would take melodies from secular songs and use them as a cantus firmus for their masses, which now seems strikingly contemporary and pretty darn cool.

It amazes me that with 12 notes we can copyright anything. Popular song writers sue each other all the time, alleging copyright infraction. I think when we hear a tune we really like it is because it reminds us of one we enjoyed earlier. There's a quote attributed to Robert Schumann that I think says it all..."composing music is trying to remember a melody that''s never been written before".

I always loved the part of Bernstein's UNANSWERED QUESTION lectures where he discusses the many elements of Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE that seem to echo ROMEO AND JULIET of Berlioz. When applying such analysis to films, I don't guess about authorial intention. One can focus on facts with confidence because intended or not, there they are.

A noteworthy example is the Last Trump from Mahler's Second Symphony: it is a direct borrowing and almost an orchestrated quotation from the opening of Beethoven's op. 111, which, according to La Grange, Mahler was practicing at the time he was composing the Second Symphony.

My favorite musical "borrowing" is Luciano Berio's use of Mahler's Symphony No.2, third movement as a base for multiple fragments and quotations from several other composers. It still btings a smile to my face.

Long before you made the same point in a video of yours, I was thoroughly bewildered, when a friend of mine in a blind-guessing game played a snippet, that turned out to be the funeral march from Donizetti's Dom Sébastien (Donizetti's last opera before he went insane because of syphilis). The music was hauntingly beautiful, and the march melody and some of the eerie accompaniment figures were almost to a 't' the theme from the Trauermarch in the 1st movement of Mahler's 5th Symphony. Like a precious stone with a rather different look, when put in utterly different sockets, but still the same stone! Donizetti's opera was premiered 1843, Mahler's Symphony composed almost 70 years later, 1901-02. The opera was performed for the first time, slightly revised and in German, at the Vienna Court Opera in 1845. The opera, though, wasn't performed during Mahler's tenure at the Hofoper. So whether he knew the opera from earlier on in his conducting career, and/or if the poignant funeral march just at some point indelibly had imprinted on him, will be a matter of concern to be hopefully addressed on a later visit to the library to consult an exhaustive Mahler biography. Never the less, whether the quote was a conscious and deliberate use of the thematic material, might not be a fact easily divulged, but no matter what the answer to the question, this doesn't subtract from its precious beauty, whether in the socket out of a Donizettian mould or of a ditto Mahlearian one! Actually, the familiarity adds somewhat to the experience of either piece. Keep on listening - and the game of intertextuality equally going forth! 😉

I've always found that there is a prominent section in the first movement of Brahms' fourth symphony that sounds like a tango rhythm. Perhaps there was a side to old man Brahms that we didn't know about.

My favorite: "Have yourself a merry little Christmas" with Bach's fifth Brndenburg Concerto, Irving Berlin singling the doubled notes and slowing them to make them singable.

The one I can't shake is there is a tune in Barber's "School of Scandal" overture that pops up in the scherzo(second movement) of Copland's Symphony #3. I call it the "trio" section but it technically might not be.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc! You tickled my lawyer heart. I think it's fun to point out those moments that sound bizarrely like pop music, like "Oh, Give Me a Home" in the first movement of Brahms' First Piano Concerto, or "I'll Be Seeing You" in the finale of Mahler 3, or the original Star Trek theme in Mahler 1 & 7.

I do think people overestimate how familiar composers were with other people’s music back in the day. Just because two composers were writing music at roughly the same time doesn’t mean they heard each other’s music, even if they were both pretty successful/popular. We’re used to a time where we have easy access to music from anywhere written by anyone, and we might assume someone like Chopin was familiar with all of Hayden’s music like we are, when maybe the reality is that Chopin never heard a single note of Haydn (not saying that’s true, I’m just making up an example). Like you said, music travelled MUCH more slowly back in 19th century (if it even travelled in the first place!).

Another composer who was free about borrowing, Schnittke...in one of his quartets, he quotes Beethoven and Shostakovich in the first 10 bars, and it is also quoted in the score, as if he wants you to have a specific frame of reference for the piece as a whole...that great polystylist!!!

Practical, unemotional, objective analysis! (Difficult to find on any topic anywhere...) Thanks again, Dave!

The beginning of the Lento of Beethoven's 16th quartet and the opening of the Adagio of the Mahler 3d sound pretty much the same to me-but so what? It's what happens to the theme afterward that matters. A tune is just a building block; the genius lies in the structure built upon it.

I love some of Stravinsky’s borrowings during his neoclassical period, such as the references to Bach’s Third Brandenburg in the Dumbarton Oaks Concerto. The middle movement of the Symphony of Psalms feels to me as if its fugue subject was inspired by the Thema Regium of the Musical Offering.

Speaking of Brahms Symphony No 1, I am struck by the similarities between the beginning of the first movement and the beginning of the first movement of Ferdinand Ries' Symphony No 4

I hadn't noticed the connection between Tristan and the last movement of Bruckner's 9th; however I have long been aware of the similarity between that Bruckner quote and the very start of the last movement of Mahler's 9th -- where he does almost the exact same thing! It wasn't the first time, either. The opening of Mahler's famous "Adagietto" is nicked straight from the closing pages of the slow movement of Bruckner's 6th. And my evidence is: it sounds like it. 🙂

Its not where a composer has knocked it off, its what the composer does with it; 'origin' is one thing, but what the various composers' do with it makes it their own........surely.

Just an anecdote to show sometimes the composer could not be aware of the borrowing. In my composition class, we were told to write a melody in a west european scale. I was quite happy with mine until I noticed I have unconsciously wtitten the exact melody from the third movement of Bartok's solo violin sonata. Also, when asked to write a fuge I (also unconsciously) "borrowed" the subject from Bach's preludes. They simply were in my mind and I didn't notice at the moment they were other's.

There are so many examples of coincidental similarities: I listened to Joly Braga Santos' 3rd Symphony recently and a recurring theme throughout the movements sounds very much like the theme to Galaxy Quest. Had David Newman, who scored the film, heard the Symphony? Who knows? Only him. Otto Klemperer's Merry Waltz includes a theme that sounds very much like part of John William's score for Superman. Did JW know the Merry Waltz? Years ago a theme popped into my head, and as I thought it was rather good, I thought I'd try and develop it. I later realised that the theme came from Korngold's Violin Concerto and Prince and the Pauper score. I must have heard it, liked it, absorbed it and forgotten about it.

I love hearing these coincidences or acts of homage. Taking your Brahms 1, Beethoven 9 cue, I have always enjoyed how Mahler tried to join himself to that tradition by the opening trombone theme in Symphony No. 3. Once you know the link you always hear it that way from then on! I also like it when it is a process that is copied: Vaughan Williams’s ‘cribbing’ of LvB 5 in his Sym 4 for instance. I usually see it as a legitimate statement if something good comes from it.

Very good topic for discussion here...maybe it can be explored more down the road. I do believe we have a new quote for t-shirts, "remember there are only 12 notes." 👍

Franz Luszt' Spanish Rhapsody comes to mind. I wonder if he heard Glinka"s Capriccioso Brilliante (Spanish Overture #1). The solo violin part is practically identical in each work However,the Spanish Rhapsody was originally written for piano

It's interesting to me how much we have collectively changed our view on the borrowing of music; it used to be something of a compliment whereas now borrowing or quoting is akin to theft of intellectual property. Someone with a greater memory will be able to give an exact number, but how many concerti did Bach "borrow" from Vivaldi? Mozart's first four piano concerti are, likewise, thoroughly based on the works of CPE Bach, Johann Christian Back, and so forth. I do agree that it is fun to listen for them. Maybe this is well known and I just haven't heard anyone mention it, but one example that I find really similar is the closing duet from Siegfried (Lachen will ich dich lieben) and the fugue from Mozart's K. 383a.

I love this topic and wish we could spend more time on it. For example, I hear Wagner all over Bruckner and knowing how much much he revered him can't help but conclude that the symphonist is at the very least paying homage, and rather excessively so, imo. More broadly I find myself thinking a lot about the across the board influence of Wagner and Beethoven and feel this would make a wonderful study.

One of my favorite "discoveries" is that Mahler's setting of the words "Um Mitternacht" is almost identical to Weber's setting of those words in Euryanthe, an opera that Mahler likely knew.

A more apt comparison of Bruckner's 9th Adagio would be with the main theme of Wagner's Faust overture.

Another great story (I don't have the footnote, and it's really too good to be true, but...) has it that Schumann accused Brahms of stealing one of his melodies, to which Brahms replied, "yeah, but look what I did with it!"

Glazunov's 1st Piano Concerto borrows from Rachmaninov's 2nd Symphony. Perhaps this is simply the zeitgeist and both were tuned into the same cosmic radio station...

Baroque composers borrowed from each other all the time.

A fine exposition on a touchy subject. I doubt that Stockhausen intended to quote the iconic opening fanfare of Hoyt Curtin's JETSONS theme 2/3rds through his LICHTER-WASSER, but he sure did. Because there are only 12 notes. On the other hand, you've got guys like Charles Ives and Luciano Berio building these immense sound collages from well-known songs or compositions... and no one thinks of them as plagiarising. And who could forget that moment in Crumb's MAKROKOSMOS II where the strumming of piano strings and clashing of tone clusters somehow evolves into a clear passage from the HAMMERKLAVIER sonata?

There's an interesting article by Swedish musicologist Tillman concering how Hallden, Stenhammar, Peterson-berger amd Alfven borrowed from Wagner and Beethoven. Some borrowing may be unconscious and in other cases conscious, but it is obvious that such things occur.

There's the borrowing of a recurring tune from the Mahler 3rd adagio for the song, "I'll Be Seeing You" (read about it through someone's RU-vid comments, natch).

My favorite coincidence: What would later be the first phrase of "Stars and Stripes Forever" appears in the first movement (exposition and recapitulation) of Beethoven's Fourth Cello Sonata.

Perhaps the most notable example of accidental borrowing comes from Stravinsky (who once said something along the lines of "Mediocre artists borrow; great artists steal"). When writing Petrushka he thought he remembered an old Russian folk song (da da dum, da da dum, dum dum dum) which unfortunately for him turned out to be a French popular song of the day that he had obviously heard while in Paris. Unfortunately, because he subsequently had to give up a share of his royalties to the French writers.

Of course, Mahler borrowed - -sorry, 'quoted' - all over the place: Beethoven, Wagner, Verdi, Handel, brass band music, folk songs and dances, etc...

Allthough not mentioned in the headline you touch on it in your reasoning, and that is composers use of citations. Using a citation is obviously done to add a dimension, a message in the work. I would love to have you bring out some examples and reason around the possible intentions of the composer. Even self-citations.

Talking about Mahler 7th, the beginning of the second Nachtmusik (Andante amoroso) sounds a lot like the Prelude of Tristan...

Sigmund Spaeth, known as The Tune Detective, frequently demonstrated the so-called derivations of popular songs from the classics. Not to accuse anybody of plagiarism, since he often testified in plagiarism lawsuits for the defense, but to illustrate the ubiquity of certain musical patterns, rhythms, note sequences, forms, those "twelve notes" in music. Of course, bel canto composers like Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini played it safe and plagiarized from themselves. But even Wagner did when he lifted the "cloister" theme from Das Liebesverbot, orchestration and all, and made it an important motive in Tannhäuser.

A friend has told me he believes Puccini stole his tune for Liu's aria, "Tu che di gel sei cinta," in Turandot from Stravinsky's "Spring Rounds" in the Rite of Spring. It's absurd, but fun, to think of Stravinsky's music coming to Puccini's aid in the melody department. The similarities are certainly there, but they hardly amount to a lifted melody.

I am sure that I heard a quote from Liszt's Dante Symphony, it was quite long, maybe even 20 seconds, I am trying to remember which one it was.

The interlude between scenes 3 and 4 of Rheingold contains a little eight-bar parody of the overture to Marriage Of Figaro. Fight me.

Then, of course there’s Schubert’s near exact quotation of the Ode to Joy theme in the finale of his own Ninth Symphony.

I have the fanciful idea that the theme from Fawlty Towers resembled the theme in Rossini's Il Viaggio A Reims Overture. About comical goings-on in a dodgy hotel, is it just a coincidence?

I'm curious to know if the initial analyst also made a connection between the main theme of Bruckner's 8th Symphony and the Siegfried leitmotif.

What would Grieg be without tapping into norwegian folk music? Something inspired him, something he lifted, something he grabbed. I still hear folk musicians in Norway say: Why listen to Grieg when you can listen to the original?

Maybe a good concept for a new SERIES (?)

Man this must have been a pain for John William to hear 😂😂😂.

John Williams borrowed a lot of Korngold film scores. Star Wars sounds quite similar to Kings Row. It's almost a steal

the question is interesting....coincidence or borrowing...? All in all, it remains the work of musicologists to look into this fact of musicology, namely whether the copy remains a trivial or important fact..... amusing in any case to see these motifs come back which remind us of something we heard ,,,, Did Beethoven for the theme of the first movement of his heroic symphonies know the opening of Mozart's Bastien and Bastienne....? Or did Wagner at the beginning of the 3rd act of Tristan and Isolde want to pay homage to the pastoral symphonies of Beethoven....? or did mahler in the 1st movement of his first symphonies deliberately borrow this motif that we hear in the middle of the finale of the second symphonies of brahms.....question without answer to this day....and then is it important to know......?

Handel was the consummate borrower, because he. so often, borrowed from himself. The chorus "For Unto Us a Child is Born" is note for note from a previously written work, for example. A funny borrowing was when Strauss borrowed Funiculi, Funicula for his tone poem "Aus Italien" thinking it was a folk song.