I was wondering whether any friends suffer from the same (musical!) problem as me, i.e. when listening to a particular composition, hearing an apparent reference to another piece of music which nobody else seems ever to have commented on? Example: has anyone ever spotted an apparent appearance of Till Eulenspiegel in the finale of Gernsheim 4? Or is it me? ???
I'm always finding stuff like that, albeit not always verbatim quotes. For instance, after finally picking up the Taubert/Rosenhain CD from Hyperion the parallels between the ends of the first movements of the Rosenhain and Anton Rubinstein's PC 1 are glaringly evident to me (solo clarinet, surprise final fortissimo - not exact, but I wouldn't be surprised if Rubi was familiar with the Rosenhain.)
I think I have already pointed this out before.
Kabalevsky Piano Concerto No. 3 - Second movement (II. Andante con moto) sounds exactly the same as Dvoraks famous Humoresque No 7 in G Flat Major - second (Piu lento) section. Anyone else notice the similarity?
I recently listend to Khachaturian's 2nd Symphony and I swear there was a bit that sounded straight out of a Herrmann score -- Vertigo I believe. of course, the Khachaturian was written first...
No it's not just you, Alan. I suppose that some similarities are deliberately placed there by composers, more are the unconscious recall in one composer's score of something he heard, or read, by another and which impressed itself upon his subconscious, and most are pure chance - a function of the fact that composers writing contemporaneously are subject to the same influences, writing within the same artistic aesthetic.
My two examples: I hear the melodic echoes of "The Blue Danube" in a couple of places in the scherzo movement of Rufinatscha's Sixth and there's an almost direct quote (melody, harmony, orchestration) in the slow movement of Tchaikovsky's Fifth of a passage in the corresponding movement in Raff's Tenth. I offer no explanations in either case....
I can certainly detect an affinity between the Scherzo of Spohr's 5th symphony and the late Victorian Music Hall song, "Two lovely black eyes". Maybe the writer of the latter piece had heard a performance of the Spohr symphony many years earlier at , say, the Crystal Palace, then one of London's principle concert venues.
My transcriptions of both these works can be found on the Noteworthy Scriptorium.
Quote from: Mark Thomas on Monday 07 February 2011, 07:34
...and there's an almost direct quote (melody, harmony, orchestration) in the slow movement of Tchaikovsky's Fifth of a passage in the corresponding movement in Raff's Tenth. I offer no explanations in either case....
That's grand larceny, surely?
It's probably nothing, but the end of the third movement of Steinberg's 1st string quartet in A major (1907) (available in recording and parts on IMSLP) sounds for ... 30 seconds? more?... not quite sure... very similar to an almost corresponding moment (give or take orchestration!) in a symphony written by Nicolai Myaskovsky (symphony no.2, op.11, C-sharp minor) written a few years later- except for key, and the fact that the Myaskovsky follows the extended and elaborated cadential passage with a gradual increase in tempo attacca into his finale (a section that anticipates a theme and themelet prominent in the latter.) Myaskovsky knew Steinberg's music, or at least he did awhile later when he arranged several Steinberg works (symphony no.3, a tone-poem, at least) for piano 4-hands I think, and when he dedicated his own 11th symphony to the other composer. No idea if he knew Steinberg's quartet, though.
Another example- Schmidt's 4th symphony, an important cello melody (main slow section, slow 'movement' if you like, main theme) - and an earlier work by Hans von Bülow - was discussed without a firm conclusion in this forum awhile back...
Alan wrote:
QuoteThat's grand larceny, surely?
On Raff's behalf, I'd rather remember that "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."
When I first encountered Mahler, I was put off by the prominence of phrases or periods that sounded like quotes of earlier composers. Case in point: I just couldn't understand why in a monumental work like the first movement of symphony 8, the composer would quote the maudlin "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" tune from Chopin's opus 66. The fault, of course. was in my ears, not in Mahler's (or Chopin's). Still, the resemblance posed a barrier to proper listening.
Schubert's quotes in D.944 of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" finale, to the contrary, never presented any such barrier to me. Probably for the same reason that Clementi's overt but subtle uses of "God Save the Queen" in his symphony 3 strike me as simply brilliant.
May I (not so) humbly present the all-time grand champion at this (disallowing PDQ Bach and the other comedians): José Alberto Kaplan. http://www.cchla.ufpb.br/compomus/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=66:cd-jose-alberto-kaplan-obras-orquestrais-patrocinado-pelo-fic-governo-da-paraiba&catid=14:cdsregistros-de-audio&Itemid=10 (http://www.cchla.ufpb.br/compomus/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=66:cd-jose-alberto-kaplan-obras-orquestrais-patrocinado-pelo-fic-governo-da-paraiba&catid=14:cdsregistros-de-audio&Itemid=10)
Just listen to his Piano Concerto! Or his Abertura Festiva! (you can hear them on that page)
Does anyone happen to know the story behind these pieces? For instance, has JAK himself written an artistic statement about them?
-J
--
Jim Moskowitz
The Unknown Composers Page: http://kith.org/jimmosk/TOC.html
My latest list of unusual classical CDs for auction: http://tinyurl.com/jimsCDs
I dunno recognize anything in a quick scan of Abertura Festiva (which using Google Translate he seems to say is a fantasy on pre-existing themes, with transformed motifs or some such)....but the PC, wow. Almost sounds like the type of knock off one would hear in a cartoon, just enough to be legal but close enough to be obvious. And all three movements too!
The overture's eerie precedent is Copland's El Salón México. Still haven't recognized anything familiar about the violin concerto though.
I don't remember the Chopin tune in the Mahler Eighth (I've even sung in the latter piece - I'm one of 200 people in the chorus on the Ozawa recording), but I can't hear the beginning of the final movement of the Mahler Third without thinking of "I'll Be Seeing You in All the Old Familiar Places."
Quote from: dafrieze on Tuesday 08 February 2011, 18:48
I don't remember the Chopin tune in the Mahler Eighth (I've even sung in the latter piece - I'm one of 200 people in the chorus on the Ozawa recording), but I can't hear the beginning of the final movement of the Mahler Third without thinking of "I'll Be Seeing You in All the Old Familiar Places."
Usually just makes me think of Beethoven op.135/iii.
To add one more example, Medtner wrote a piano sonata in C minor (http://imslp.org/wiki/Piano_Sonata,_Op.25/1_(Medtner,_Nikolai_Karlovich)), "Skazka-Sonata" (Folktale-sonata is one possible translation; not Fairytale, though, please), his op.25/1 in C minor, around 1910-11. The second of the three sections opens with a melody in E-flat -
Bes G... As Bes Es which may "remind" a lot of people, for its first four notes especially and allowing for the different rhythm, of a famous tune in the same key from Rachmaninoff's Paganini Variations (written, of course, several decades later. The two composers were very good friends, of course.) (It reminded my father, though, of a popular tune from around the time the Medtner was written... can't remember the name offhand unfortunately!)
(It is btw dedicated to Alexander Goedicke, whose edition of the score it is that is uploaded to IMSLP.) Anyhow!
Quote from: eschiss1 on Tuesday 08 February 2011, 23:18
Quote from: dafrieze on Tuesday 08 February 2011, 18:48
I don't remember the Chopin tune in the Mahler Eighth (I've even sung in the latter piece - I'm one of 200 people in the chorus on the Ozawa recording), but I can't hear the beginning of the final movement of the Mahler Third without thinking of "I'll Be Seeing You in All the Old Familiar Places."
Usually just makes me think of Beethoven op.135/iii.
To add one more example, Medtner wrote a piano sonata in C minor (http://imslp.org/wiki/Piano_Sonata,_Op.25/1_(Medtner,_Nikolai_Karlovich)), "Skazka-Sonata" (Folktale-sonata is one possible translation; not Fairytale, though, please), his op.25/1 in C minor, around 1910-11. The second of the three sections opens with a melody in E-flat - Bes G... As Bes Es which may "remind" a lot of people, for its first four notes especially and allowing for the different rhythm, of a famous tune in the same key from Rachmaninoff's Paganini Variations (written, of course, several decades later. The two composers were very good friends, of course.) (It reminded my father, though, of a popular tune from around the time the Medtner was written... can't remember the name offhand unfortunately!)
(It is btw dedicated to Alexander Goedicke, whose edition of the score it is that is uploaded to IMSLP.) Anyhow!
If you're referring to the 18th Variation from the Rachmanonoff work, I think it's in D-flat not E-flat. I could be mistaken, of course. And the entire variation is an augmented inversion of the Paganini theme upon which the work is based (the 24th Caprice).
ah, the whole variation? I knew the opening of it was (the Medtner relation just made for a pleasant coincidence really- sorry. Though I recall John Wiser suggesting in a Fanfare review that Rach's 4th concerto and Medtner's 2nd, dedicated to each other, were subtly related, not thematically so much as structurally- or something. Anyhow. Digressions...) You're right- D-flat (the score, parts and reductions are all in US-copyright so I'll have to check Dover or look at the score at the library to be 99.44-100% sure, but other sources do more or less confirm that. I'd thought it was in the tritone, for some reason... it made a sort of sense!)
Yes, Eric. The whole variation is an inversion of the entire theme. Most ingenious.
No, it's me too. There's a passage near the beginning of Richard Strauss' Don Juan -- the warm, melting tune starting 7 bars after letter B, if I can put it that way -- that's note-for-note (in terms of melody and harmony) the same as the opening of the 2nd movement of Ferdinand Ries's Symphony no 4 (the Strauss is in E Major and the Ries in C Major but otherwise...) My jaw dropped when I first hear the Ries last year!
There's a passage towards the end of Rangstrom's Third Symphony that is echt-Vertigo (also to an extent the slow movement fro Poulenc's Concerto for Two Pianos), but then there's hardly any piece by Rangstrom without a Herrmannesque phrase or two.
Speaking of Strauss, there's a place in the Burleske for Piano and Orchestra that you can basically sing "There's a place for us"...
Quote from: jimmosk on Tuesday 08 February 2011, 06:28
May I (not so) humbly present the all-time grand champion at this (disallowing PDQ Bach and the other comedians): José Alberto Kaplan. http://www.compomus.mus.br/cds.php?ler=cd_kaplan (http://www.compomus.mus.br/cds.php?ler=cd_kaplan)
Just listen to his Piano Concerto! Or his Abertura Festiva! (you can hear them on that page)
Jim, have you succeeded in downloading the 2nd and 3rd movement of the concerto entirely? Here, I can't download the entire files apparently.
Two of my favorites:
There's a theme in Tosca, that sounds remarkably like Charlie Chaplin's "Smile" for a phrase. I can't listen to Tosca without thinking about it. Of course, Tosca came first.
The other is from Korngold's score to Kings Row. There's a theme that is remarkably similar to a theme in Sibelius' Finlandia. I wonder if Korngold was aware of it?
I always think of "Bali Ha'i" (from the musical South Pacific.) when I hear part of the 2nd group from Zemlinsky's 1st string quartet (1896), Allegro con fuoco opening mvt (there's this brief turn of phrase, repeated a few times. Ok, an odd thought and not the exact notes, but I do think I mean always. And vice versa, as South Pacific was revived recently.) This one is just me... :)
Eric
There is a prominent horn call in Scene 2 of Sullivan's The Golden Legend, just after Ursula has sung
"Alas that I should live to see
Thy death, beloved, and to stand
Above thy grave".
that is a dead-ringer for the opening of Tara's Theme from Gone with the Wind! :o
Yeah, but Tara's Theme ALSO sounds a good deal like the finale of Beethoven's "Waldstein" Sonata.
Quote from: Albion on Monday 14 March 2011, 17:28
There is a prominent horn call in Scene 2 of Sullivan's The Golden Legend, just after Ursula has sung
"Alas that I should live to see
Thy death, beloved, and to stand
Above thy grave".
that is a dead-ringer for the opening of Tara's Theme from Gone with the Wind! :o
I am always tickled by Ursula's
first line in Scene 2 of the Golden Legend: "Slowly, slowly up the wall." I have been up there with her many, many times. (Tut-tut! Such unwarranted levity!)
BTW has anybody else spotted Till Eulenspiegel in the finale of Gernsheim 4 yet? Is it me?
1. The Tara theme also turns up in Beethoven's 5th Cello Sonata (2nd mvmnt I think)
2. The main theme of Lawrence of Arabia is something of an idee fixe in Lalo's Piano Concerto
3. I hear Bali Hai in the opening of the last movement of the Dvorak 7th Symphony.
About Till and the Finale of Gernsheim 4, I have to humbly say that I don't notice musical links (apart from a generalized jocular mood).
Quote from: alberto on Wednesday 16 March 2011, 17:32
About Till and the Finale of Gernsheim 4, I have to humbly say that I don't notice musical links (apart from a generalized jocular mood).
Hint: it's a pretty obvious violin solo in the Gernsheim...
Quote from: Alan Howe on Wednesday 16 March 2011, 18:54
Quote from: alberto on Wednesday 16 March 2011, 17:32
About Till and the Finale of Gernsheim 4, I have to humbly say that I don't notice musical links (apart from a generalized jocular mood).
Hint: it's a pretty obvious violin solo in the Gernsheim...
Yes, Alan, I can - and not only in that violin solo but also in the section between letters H and I where those little triplet figures develop a chromatic twist at the end, especially when they come in thirds off the beat.
Oh good. It's you too, Lionel!
A recurring passage from the Scherzo of Furtwängler 2 and "The Farmer and the Cowman should be Friends" :)
What I want to know is whether Gernsheim deliberately quoted from Till Eulenspiegel...
Quote from: Alan Howe on Saturday 19 March 2011, 10:52
What I want to know is whether Gernsheim deliberately quoted from Till Eulenspiegel...
I think both pieces were written at about the same time (1895) so it could be Strauss quoting Gernsheim! I imagine that unless it's referred to in correspondence or a diary by either of them, we'll never know.
Till was first performed on 5th November 1895 and Gernsheim 4 on 22nd January 1896!!
Quote from: Alan Howe on Saturday 19 March 2011, 20:22
Till was first performed on 5th November 1895 and Gernsheim 4 on 22nd January 1896!!
Wow - the things you know! Ah well then, unless Gernsheim had the chance to examine the score of Till before that performance
and was a phenomenally fast worker, I'd reckon it's coincidental!
Gernsheim premiere information for a lot of his works here (http://books.google.com/books?id=TEQQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1022) - if you're in the US. That link can be found on the IMSLP category for Gernsheim. (Apologies for being a party-unmentionable...)
I think you're right, Lionel. It's me after all...
I've just been listening to Stanford 4 and about two and a half minutes into the second movement the music seemed to be morphing into the slow movement of Elgar 2. Is it me - again?
There's more at approx 7 mins in...
No, Alan, it's not you: the off-beat falling string semiquavers are common to both works. Given the prickly (not to say acrimonious) relationship between the two composers, it would indeed be the ultimate irony if something of Stanford had indeed found it's way into Elgar's score. Both works are, by the way, quite glorious independent of comparisons.
:)
I'm not at home at present so: which work came first?
And yes, Albion, you're right - two glorious works.
Fairly sure Stanford 4 late 19th c, Elgar 2 first decade of 20th... ah. Stanford 4 - composed 1888, premiered? 14 Jan. 1889. Elgar 2: composed 1909-11 (28 February), published 1911, premiered I gather 1911 May 24 London. (ok... 2nd decade.)
Quote from: jimmosk on Tuesday 08 February 2011, 17:25
The overture's eerie precedent is Copland's El Salón México. Still haven't recognized anything familiar about the violin concerto though.
The late Jose Alberto Kaplan utilized "intertextuality" in many of his works: that is, he often used well-known works by major composers as a framework (melodically, rhythmically, harmonically, in orchestration, etc.) while superimposing on this local/regional elements that many outside of his original Argentina and adopted country (Brazil) probably would not recognize. Therefore, many people hear the "plagiarism" without noticing the other creative elements involved. Kaplan's autobiography has been published in Portuguese. There he still doesn't give what most people would consider appropriate credit to the composers he borrows from. I noted in my online piano-and-orchestra discography years ago that Shostakovich's Piano Concerto 2 = Kaplan's Piano Concerto. However, he doesn't mention this or that Bartok's Piano Concerto 3 = Kaplan's Violin Concerto, Ginastera's Piano Sonata 1 = Kaplan's Piano Sonata, etc.
I actually did that myself a couple time, but nothing so blatent as the Shostakovich rip....using the chord progression and style but still making a piece my own rather than something that is called on TVTropes "The Jimmy Hart Version".
Hooray! It's not just me!
BTW I'm enjoying a Stanford symphony-fest at the moment. No.1 this morning and No.2 as I write this. Riches indeed. These works would grace any concert hall.
Of course, following a Stanford-fest it seemed only logical to hold a Parry-fest - and once again I am astonished to hear so many pre-echoes of Elgar, this time in Parry's 4th Symphony, a quite sublime work. It's high time such magnificent music was performed regularly in the concert hall. I am certain that audiences would be both staggered by the quality of the music.
I assume others of you can also hear what I think I'm hearing...
You've whetted my appetite, Alan. Can't wait to get home (in this respect at least) to crack open the old Stanford and Parry jewel boxes. Unaccounatbly, I don't even have Stanford's Fifth (my favorite of his canon) on my iPod!
Heck, I heard foreshadows of Elgar in the Parry PC!
In Casella Symphony op.63 (n.3) are there in the Finale reminiscences from the Finale of Mahler Seventh? I hear them, even if I rate Casella op.63 (more than an undisputed masterpiece) a masterful and very personal work. (The occasion is the new Naxos record: in my opinion good, even if inferior to the CPO in level of orchestral playing).
for some reason I thought I heard foreshadowings of Elgar in the finale of Martucci concerto 2...
(and Casella is known too for his transcription of Mahler 7, so that last interests. I haven't heard his symphonies yet I think despite the recent recordings..., more his chamber works - starting some years ago with one of his cello sonatas on the radio - and some other things.)
what do you think about balakirev PC1 2nd theme and Arensky PC 2nd theme? different atmosphere, but the melodic lines are very similar. Bye Andrea
Near the end of Schumann's Der Konigssohn there is a direct quote of the famous "laugh motif" at the beginning of the Woody Woodpecker theme song. Is this cosmic, or were composers George Tibbles and Ramey Idriss well versed in Schumann esoterica?
It's cosmic, as Rodney Trotter would have said ;)
Alan, Parry's Fourth is indeed a sublime work; especially the poignant nobilmente theme in the last movement. i think he is the consistently greatest of the unsung composers!:) Steve.PS and the jaunty Boycean opening of symphony 3.!
shakira?s hips don't lie and Britten's n.5 from five waltzts?