Similarities in various pieces of music

[MrGongGong]

The bit of the American National Anthem that goes "we wish you a merry Christmas"

[kernelbogey]

[...] Brahms's 1st Symphony contains his own clear homage to that same tune (last movement).

Homage, sampling, quoting, plagiarising.... I'm reflecting on the use of differently nuanced words for the same activity....

Homage is a term often used about scenes in films which deliberately echo the work of another,usually venerated, director. I'm not entirely clear about 'sampling' as it's a practice from a style of music I don't listen to. But in academic life, plagiarism is a serious misdemeanour. What are the ethical considerations in music?

[Roehre]

The opening of the second movement of Brahms's 3rd Symphony, and the second theme of the overture to Zampa (Herold). They're even scored similarly (clarinet solo over winds). Zampa had received more than 500 performances by the time the symphony came along. The overture's hardly played now, but it used to be very popular indeed.

Similarities between the very same opening of Brahms 3 and the opening of Schumann 3 "Rhenish", even acknowledged by Brahms himself.

[Roehre]

Beethoven's Choral Fantasia [1808] contains what sounds like an obvious first attempt at 'that tune' from the last movement of the Ninth.

Which theme itself is a song by Beethoven Seufzer eines Geliebten WoO 118 (1794 or 1795),

[Pabmusic]

Homage, sampling, quoting, plagiarising.... What are the ethical considerations in music?

I'm not so sure there are any. Composers have lifted music from each other quite a lot over the years. In fact it was very common in baroque times. J S Bach was not averse to borrowing from others, for instance. I suppose you can distinguish between (a) something short, upon which you base your own music (the 'In Nomine' phrase by Dunstable, which spawned so many others' music - Gibbons's The Cryes of London, for instance); (b) a quotation used as a quotation (Bartok quoting the Leningrad Symphony in the Concerto for orchestra; (c) an original piece of your own which has features of someone else's music, without being a clear copy (Brahms's 'Beethoven 9' theme in the First Symphony); and (d) an outright crib, or attempt to pass off someone else's work, or just their style, as your own (I can't think of any of these of course).

[Pabmusic]

Which theme itself is a song by Beethoven Seufzer eines Geliebten WoO 118 (1794 or 1795),

Thank you. I didn't know that.

[Roehre]

(d) an outright crib, or attempt to pass off someone else's work, or just their style, as your own (I can't think of any of these).

Handel using movements from Telemann's Tafelmusik and published them as his own without any changes .
A year or so ago an Early Music show had this part of Handel's way of keeping up with demand as subject - .

[Roehre]

I'm not so sure there are any. Composers have lifted music from each other quite a lot over the years. In fact it was very common in baroque times. J S Bach was not averse to borrowing from others, for instance. I suppose you can distinguish between (a) something short, upon which you base your own music (the 'In Nomine' phrase by Dunstable, which spawned so many others' music - Gibbons's The Cryes of London, for instance); (b) a quotation used as a quotation (Bartok quoting the Leningrad Symphony in the Concerto for orchestra; (c) an original piece of your own which has features of someone else's music, without being a clear copy (Brahms's 'Beethoven 9' theme in the First Symphony); and (d) an outright crib, or attempt to pass off someone else's work, or just their style, as your own (I can't think of any of these).

I don't think there are any.
However, quoting music under copyright might land you in hot water. I recall Turnage piece "Hammered out" in the Proms two years ago.
Hugh Wood's Piano concerto opus 31 (1991), of which the slow movements is a set of variations, acknowledges the copyright of the theme "Sweet Lorraine".
Given the enormous amount of themes from popular operas and other works produced on an almost industrial scale in the 18th and 19th century, this would have been a nice source of income for these themes' original composers.
Liszt would have had a very substantial amount of claims/royalties to pay, wouldn't he?

[Pabmusic]

I don't think there are any.
Liszt would have had a very substantial amount of claims/royalties to pay, wouldn't he?

He certainly would. I've just remembered reading that Josef Strauss almost certainly provided several pieces for his elder brother to introduce under his own name, if Johann was busy/ill/flirting or whatever. No-one knows which pieces, more's the pity.

[Stanfordian]

With my comparison between the Delibes 'Les Chasseresses' (Fanfare) from ‘Sylvia’ and Wagner’s overture to the ‘The Flying Dutchman’ I was thinking more of the overall impression of mood and character of the works rather than note for note similarities. When I heard Delibes’s Les Chasseresses on the radio the other day for a while I thought that I was hearing 'The Flying Dutchman'.

However, going onto more obvious musical similarities I’m always struck how the excitable flourish at the end of the main theme of the minuet from Haydn's Symphony No.104 in D major sounds so remarkably like Ron Goodwin’s ‘Miss Jane Marple theme’ to the Margaret Rutherford series of Miss Marple films. Also how Geoffrey Burgon’s theme music to ‘Brideshead Revisited’ sounds so much like the slow movement from Albinoni’s Oboe Concerto in D minor Op. 9/2.

[Petrushka]

Beethoven's Choral Fantasia contains what sounds like an obvious first attempt at 'that tune' from the last movement of the Ninth. And of course, Brahms's 1st Symphony contains his own clear homage to that same tune (last movement).

...and the very opening of Mahler's 3rd is a direct quote of the Brahms. Was this deliberate or unintentional?

Schubert also seems to make homage to Beethoven in his own 9th with a melody that is strongly reminiscent of 'that tune'. There is also a point in the Schubert that reminds me of Wagner's Meistersinger.

[MrGongGong]

I'm not so sure there are any. .

really ??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_(What_the_Fuck_Is_Going_On%3F)

http://www.plunderphonics.com/xhtml/xplunder.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plunderphonics

etc etc

[Pabmusic]

really ??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_(What_the_Fuck_Is_Going_On%3F)

http://www.plunderphonics.com/xhtml/xplunder.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plunderphonics

etc etc

Thank you for the education! Truth is, I was being tactful and trying to avoid potentially libellous comments about [...] or [...] or Andrew Lloyd Webber.

[Nick Armstrong]

There seems to me to be a large measure of overlap between this thread and an earlier one http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...ighlight=heard

Similarities more often than not (in my experience) can colour a work to its detriment - save in cases such as Mahler 3 - Brahms 1. Apart from such echoes / quotes / references, I personally don't want to hear Miss Marple peeping out from behind a phrase in a Haydn Symphony etc etc. As mentioned before, Mahler 9 and Rachmaninov's 4th piano concerto have been spoiled for me by awareness of similarities. So I try not to pick up too much on accidental cross-references...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

However, going onto more obvious musical similarities I’m always struck how the excitable flourish at the end of the main theme of the minuet from Haydn's Symphony No.104 in D major sounds so remarkably like Ron Goodwin’s ‘Miss Jane Marple theme’ to the Margaret Rutherford series of Miss Marple films.

Ah! It always reminds me of the second theme of the Notturno of Borodin's Second String Quartet.