Anyone interested in musical "borrowing"?

[everran]

Hello folks,

I have a long list of melodies / thematic material appropriated between various composers, many of which may have gone unnoticed heretofore.

If anyone's interested in this sort of thing I can start dropping names! As a titillating example, you can find the inspiration to John Williams' theme to Schindler's List in the bassoon section of Mahler's 8th. Or, Liszt's 'Grand Galop Chromatique' derives from the overture to William Tell.

Let me know if you care about this! 

[liszt1022]

The Liszt example seems pretty flimsy.

[everran]

Not at all. The Grand Galop was composed in the same year Liszt transcribed William Tell for piano. Rossini's opera, however, premiered the same year as Mendelssohn's Scherzo No. 2, to which it bears a strong resemblance.

[everran]

How about this? Liszt: Liebestraum No. 3 -> Schumann: Carnaval, 'Chopin' -> Chopin: Nocturne No. 1, Op. 15.

[michael_c]

This is a fascinating subject. I think it may have been even more prevalent in former centuries than it is now. Mozart was a great borrower stealer, capable, for instance, of taking a complete symphony by Michael Haydn, adding a slow introduction and passing it off as his own work. I think this would be harder to do today without getting caught and ending up in a nasty lawsuit.

[everran]

Speaking of Mozart, listen to the overture to 'Les Petits Riens' for a surprise.  

I feel there's so much which still hasn't been noticed. For instance... Gershwin's use of the principle theme from Beethoven's G major concerto for his 'Rhapsody in Blue'. Hear the resemblance?

[ted]

Given the colossal size of incoming musical data over many years, and the even greater memory of a creative brain, conscious and unconscious, it surprises me that it doesn't happen much more often. At the more mundane, personal level it occurs with me all the time, but never through conscious imitation. While listening to an improvisation I realise that I have quoted a pop song I heard at the shopping mall last Friday fortnight and since forgotten. Two people here commented independently that several cells of a recent improvisation were a dead ringer for Franck, a composer whose music I don't recall ever hearing.

All this is either unconscious memory or simple coincidence; the only conscious quotes I ever play are from myself. So if it happens to a present day amateur under enormously eclectic input of data, I can understand how it must have featured all the time with those constantly exposed to data of much more restricted idiom and convention.

[everran]

Your tenses and points of view are so confused I can make no sense of what you wrote.

I started this thread because I have notebook filled with recorded instances of appropriation in music and thought someone would be interested. If you're out there, let me know!

[8_octaves]

Let me know if you care about this! 

Hi everran,

musical "borrowing" is very interesting. And what it makes even more interesting in my opinion, is the fact, that in former times nobody seems to have cared about if a composer "borrowed" themes or whole parts from others' works.

The "problematic" aspect is the following: Century after century passes. Year after year. And the more years pass, the smaller gets the chance for people to invent really NEW melodies..

Secondly: People - and in final instance: even we ourselves - may forget about the REAL origins of musical works. And then call a composer a "genius", (who, in fact, only took e.g. a folksong or a children's song he heard (which already existed before), and then, he eventually built it in a rondo of a piano-concerto, et - voila ! - a genius is born! 

(But it can go the "other way round", too, or, at least, may have gone: A real genius invented a super melody, which then entered the area of folklore and folksongs.)

But, as I said, I'm of the opinion that nobody (in former times) worried about borrowing.

Let's have a look at some works I came across some time ago in discussions:

https://petrucci.mus.auth.gr/imglnks/usimg/9/9e/IMSLP32168-PMLP73184-Quidant_etudgal.pdf

https://petrucci.mus.auth.gr/imglnks/usimg/4/4c/IMSLP07735-Gottschalk_Tournament_Galop.pdf

Here clearly Gottschalk has borrowed, since Quidant's version was composed earlier (at least that's what my sources say: Offergeld-Catalogue and some quotations of concert reviews.)

But was Quidant really the "first"? Nobody seems to know.

____

https://conquest.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/9/98/IMSLP07708-Gottschalk_La_Gallina.pdf

https://petrucci.mus.auth.gr/imglnks/usimg/d/d9/IMSLP05446-Joplin_-_Peacherine_Rag.pdf

Here, the connections are (I promise) very very difficult to discuss, may be we should leave that for later.
(They would, e.g., have to do with Joplin's piano teacher, and with the question, if he could maybe have introduced Joplin to Gottschalk's works or if Joplin could have heard the works on the streets (which some people would estimate as VERY possible. As do I, concerning both of these ideas.)

____

https://javanese.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/1/1b/IMSLP12042-Badarzewska_The_Maidens_Prayer.pdf


https://petrucci.mus.auth.gr/imglnks/usimg/c/c5/IMSLP29547-PMLP66308-Gottschalk_-_Ne_m_oubliez_pas__piano_.pdf

Here, we know that "Forget Me Not" is Gottschalk's last composition, so Badarzewska was first. But may be the similarities aren't so clear like those in the galops mentioned above.

But I don't want do go too deep into detail here: I'll conclude with a quotation I once read in a German magazine: I translate:

"There's no melody today, no motif, no musical idea which isn't already existing somewhere."

Maybe, this is so. 

Cordially, 8_octaves!

[stevensk]

These two are quite similar or what do you think?

[alistaircrane4]

So something like Schubert Ganymed and Chopin Mazurka Op.24 no.3

[everran]

This is fascinating, as I've found almost no examples of Chopin borrowing (except from himself). Anything else?

[alistaircrane4]

This is fascinating, as I've found almost no examples of Chopin borrowing (except from himself). Anything else?

It was a joke. The only thing that is similar between them are the starting keys and a descending pattern in the opening of both.

[everran]

Actually the mazurka sounds a bit like Schumann's "Kuriose Geschichte". Anyway, what was your point?

[alistaircrane4]

Actually the mazurka sounds a bit like Schumann's "Kuriose Geschichte". Anyway, what was your point?

I stated my point already. Clearly you don't like when someone prove their statements. As you seem to want to bring up a piece that is more like the mazurka after I explained what I meant.

[everran]

I stated my point already. Clearly you don't like when someone prove their statements.

If the statement was a joke, what did you prove?

[alistaircrane4]

If the statement was a joke, what did you prove?

Re read what I wrote and you'll see I mentioned the descending passage. The joke was that he did not borrow it. They just happen to sound similar.