Can You Tell Which Composer is a Cheat?

How much of a role does borrowing, or indeed "stealing" play in being a creative artist? I look at a number of musical examples, many of whom are long established as 'greats' of the classical music canon. Do great artists really steal?
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[@brandbird]

“It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to." - Jean-Luc Godard

[@NahreSol]

Wonderful video full of insights and great examples!!!

[@yoverale]

Ohh Nahre and David on the same musical Universe, i may be dreaming 🤩 I deeply love what you both do, when you share with us your musical perspectives. Muchas gracias 🙏🏻

[@anaghshetty]

also this introduced me to new composers

[@Tizohip]

i l0ve y0ur channel t00

[@andrewroams]

2:17 - David Bruce is 6'3'' tall. That's 190 cm. Meanwhile his head is about 2'9'' which is 84 cm.

[@fredericktarr8266]

He is a head and shoulders on a pair of feet.

[@JohnSpawn1]

David Bruce aka Bobblehead Bruce.

[@rosswhitaker9305]

Apparently Ades is around 6'8".

[@wiesorix]

Obviously, he needs enough space for his giant musical brain

[@felixdeckers8863]

The romantic idea of originality did not yet fully exist in the time of Händel. JS Bach for example did a LOT of "stealing" as well, and Vivaldi too.

[@MrDrumStikz]

Considering the Bach family made a game out of singing different songs in counterpoint (and made sure to include the melodies to dirty songs in his church music), great artists were stealing all the time.

[@Kieselwyrm]

Exactly, and the genius of composers was nothing highly regarded. They were employed by the rich and the nobility.

[@bb1111116]

Well said. The 18th century had a very different mindset compared to our copyright centered world today. Composers around the time of Handel, Bach and Vivaldi repeatedly borrowed from others. A pastiche is a work of music that imitates the work of one or more other composers. It was a common practice. 18th century composers would arrange the music from others and not necessarily give credit to the original. That kind of borrowing was frequently done then. 18th composers were under great pressure to produce a huge output. Borrowing was a shortcut to help make that happen.

[@cooltrades7469]

Examples?Please.

[@cooltrades7469]

@@bb1111116 Quote the works please.It would help.

[@johnchessant3012]

"Do great artists really steal?" John Williams: *chuckles nervously*

[@CosmicTeapot]

I'm sure this was just meant as a joke, but just in case it wasn't, I have to say that I am always bewildered by the large amount of people evaluating John William's film work as if it were concert music. It shouldn't be judged by these standards, a concert music composer has free rein over the music he/she writes where as a film composer has to first and foremost serve the director and the story he want's to tell, and all of which in very limited time with many constraints. Apples and oranges.

[@zacharywilliams5566]

@@CosmicTeapot That’s very true, his job’s a lot different than your average concert music composer, but I do feel he stole quite a bit more than he should’ve

[@ETBrooD]

​@@CosmicTeapot John Williams was more restricted in his artistic freedom. So what? That doesn't mean his music can't be evaluated as concert music. In fact I'd say having an extraordinarily large amount of liberty isn't necessarily a good thing. If classical composers had bent themselves a bit more to the market pressures of the masses, maybe so much of the classical genre wouldn't have become an obscure art form for the purpose of intellectual masturbation. John Williams stands tall among other classical composers and his works deserve great respect. Not any less so because he wrote for film, but rather moreso because he had the guts and the necessary wisdom to pull it off.

[@wilh3lmmusic]

He copied holst

[@CosmicTeapot]

@@ETBrooD What a bizarre interpretation of my comment. I never expressed the sentiment that JW's music was inferior to concert music or even easier. I merely stated that film composers and concert music composers have entirely different jobs that shouldn't be judged by the same standards. Originality and ingenuity/breaking the rules is not essential to film music. The priority is writing music that serves best the film and the story. You don't have the last word, the director has. They are your client, not the audience, and if they give you a temp track for a scene (say, Holst's planets for example) and tell you "I want something like this" then you have to do it or he's just gonna fire you and hire someone else that will do it... or even worse, just buy the rights for the music he chose for the temp track and directly use that. It's just completely ignorant to accuse a film composer of plagiarism or theft when you don't know how that business works. And it's idiotic to call them inferior or less creative than concert music composers who don't have these artistic constraints.

[@jonadabtheunsightly]

When Handel was writing music, it was a completely different time. Copyright as a concept really did not exist yet. Bach, another composer of roughly the same era, routinely took existing works, sometimes his own and sometimes those of other composers, and reworked them in some way, e.g., adapting them for a different instrument. No one, I hope, is going to question Bach's capacity for originality; he was known in his day as much for improvisational performance, as for composition. The era simply had different expectations, compared to now.

[@Whatismusic123]

copyright is a dogshit law

[@codonauta]

Mozart took a lot of material of Handel’s compositions too. The first 2 movements of his famous Requiem came from Handel, from Messias and Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline. We find the famous Commendatore aria (don Giovanni ) in Handel’s Saul, Act 3 Handel. A lot of parts of the Great Mass in C minor by Mozart was took from Handel too.

[@catholicmetalhead398]

yep, in fact like jazz, the baroque era was about putting your own interpretations of an existing tune and improvising with it, J.S. BACH in fact improvised most of his music the same way MILES DAVIS did... albeit in different contexts.

[@variegatus]

I'm so pleased to hear that Tchaikovsky was a hero of Stravinsky. Helps explain why Stravinsky's music is so warm and reassuring even though he shatters musical conventions left and right. He's a magnificent arranger who transformed great melodies into miracles. Copland had this rare gift as well.

[@pianopolly]

Different subject, but this reminds me of a story I heard about Clara Wieck (who later became Clara Schumann). When she played the piano in salons for some guests of her father's, she did so oftentimes without scores - she knew the pieces by heart and didn't need them. This, I was told, was viewed by some patrons as Clara "claiming" the work of other composers as her own or even implying that she was merely improvising. In a way she was percieved as stealing music simply by performing it.

[@virtuousvibes2852]

Stravinsky is quoted as saying: "A great composer does not imitate; he steals", and i feel quite comfortable with that

[@jayducharme]

I've heard many times that in the Classical and Baroque periods, the originality of your theme was far less important than the ingenuity you showed with how you could create variations on that theme. It was during the Romantic period that the theme itself became more important than the variations. I still like creating original themes as best I can as a challenge, because it can seem like every musical theme has already been written. What I've been doing over the past few years is incorporating an "Easter egg" into each piece I write, a little one or two bar musical quote from a composer I admire. I prefer having the quotes be from something completely incompatible with the style of the piece I'm writing. I bury them in the orchestration so that they're pretty much hidden away and only the performer might notice them. But I choose really obscure quotes, so even then few people (if any) will recognize them. It's just a fun little technical exercise for me.

[@friesiamans1966]

i hear you, haha... :-)

[@neilwalsh3977]

I like this approach - I think it's important to honour music by learning from the music that was into what is

[@friesiamans1966]

where can we hear your music?

[@jayducharme]

@@friesiamans1966 Most of my music is on all the major streaming services. Just search for my name. The latest piece that has those Easter eggs (three of them, actually) is Mt. Tom Suite. Two are fairly obvious. Good luck with the third one. 😁

[@friesiamans1966]

@@jayducharme thank you, i´ll search - late easter this year... :-)

[@screwaccountnames]

1:00 Now that pun didn't swerve any porpoise

[@dacoconutnut9503]

I don't know, I steal and I'm not a great artist

[@professorpancakes6545]

You're clearly not stealing enough!

[@claytonr.young-music912]

Are you sure it's truly stolen then?

[@junlee7237]

Seems like you gotta work on your stealing

[@mogmason6920]

Hello Mr. Lloyd Webber!

[@cisium1184]

We're talking about music here, not Clark Bars. ;-)

[@maestrorafaelribeiro]

I like an anedocte about Beethoven. He wrote some music and then discarded it, stating it wasn't his, but Mozart's idea. He then began to rewrite it. Later, scholars found that neither passages resembled any of Mozart's works. It's very interesting to see that process going on. Recently, I got the a similar problem: wrote down melody, harmony, but later I remembered where I heard it from! In my case, the music did really existed before I created it, but what about borrowing? Why not? Right now, I stopped working on this piece and proceeded to work on others, but I might soon get back to it. I agree 100% with this video.

[@cisium1184]

I take a lot of comfort from Paul McCartney's story how he was sure the tune to "Yesterday" couldn't be original, and played it for all his friends to try to find out where it came from.

[@BraindeadCRY]

This D. Bruce guy certainly looks like a shady sort of character, that much is for sure

[@Lobstrominous]

yep do not approach note

[@lucaswallo8127]

What

[@adamchenadamov]

Lol

[@christopherrowley7506]

Coming from the folk music sphere, I think intellectual copyright is one of the silliest things. Plus, hardly any artists end up wholly owning their own songs anyway, so the argument that it protects artists is a bit flawed. If your music is entirely original, then I'd say it is entirely rootless. It is connection that makes music potent. Connections of all kind. And we're entirely too disconnected one generation to the next, especially in terms of music--thanks capitalism for needing to market new music to each generation. Got to keep it all new all the time. So that's one reason why I think folk traditions are so important: keeping connections between generations. There's something very beautiful in experiencing a song you grew up with, and something even more beautiful watching someone else have the same experience with that thing. We yearn for consistency, but copyright and capitalism demands something new all the time, so we get endless pop and country songs that sound the same but that are legally distinct. It's sad that these songs that we grow attached to are doomed to die in the ether of time because copyright refuses to allow them to live a natural life.

[@stevenuttley]

But without intellectual property how are writers and composers to be remunerated for their work?

[@christopherrowley7506]

@@stevenuttley Artist stipends have proven to work well in numerous countries. Also specific commissions: if you want your advertisement or movie to have unique music, then you'll have to pay someone to write it. This also includes being commissioned to write for specific recordings--if you write for Katy Parry, then every time she sells a copy of that recording you get a share. Other people are free to use any melody or text in that song you wrote, but the recording itself is copyrighted (which is distinct from intellectual property).

[@stevenuttley]

@@christopherrowley7506 it's not distinct at all. It's mechanical copyright which is just as much a part of IP law as written copyright. There is only such a thing as selling a recording because the original company has a copyright. If not I can buy one copy of Katy Perry's latest single (for example) and reissue at a lower price on my own label. Without IP law that would be perfectly legal.

[@christopherrowley7506]

@@stevenuttley first off, you ignored all my other points. Secondly, I was talking about intellectual property as an idea, not necessarily the exact intricacies of actual copyright law. So that's my bad on not being more clear. The fundamental idea of intellectual property is being able to copyright the idea of a thing, and not just the thing itself. A recording is a thing, whereas a melody is an idea. A melody only exists once translated into a medium: ones and zeros in a digital recording, the performance of a musician on an acoustic guitar, etc. If you want to copyright a page of sheet music, fine. But you can't own the notes represented on that sheet--I disagree with anyone that says otherwise. We're starting to see how ridiculous the law gets--check out Adam Neely's (and others) coverage on some of the ridiculous claims. Also some people are using brute force algorithms to create and copyright every possible melody in 12 tone music, so we'll see how meaningful copyrighting a melody remains. Again, the current laws mainly serve to benefit investment companies like Universal Music Group, and not the artists themselves. Artists would get along fine if the actual IP laws were changed (although I'm not meaning deleting every aspect of their current implementation, since the current implementation stretches beyond the fundamental idea of ip anyway).

[@finneganlindsay]

Of course you had to make it about capitalism but you're disregarding the biggest artistic movement that is completely disconnected, which are avant garde composers and the such, which are generally seen as "Anti-establishment". The real problem is most likely just modern society in general but who knows

[@MegaMech]

Borrowing music is part of musical tradition. It isnt a composition technique. It's expected.

[@imateapot51]

I improvise and play by ear. I was a piano major in college and was classically trained. But I prefer to improvise. Ideas come to me and I have no idea if they are original. I can do variations on any theme I hear. So I could steal easily. But when you hear music all the time and then a few months later a song you heard once in a supermarket and you can play it by ear, who knows how original you are.

[@Stemma3]

When you borrow, is not yours forever. When you steal it is now yours forever.

[@JohnSpawn1]

I'm glad you bring up the original T. S. Eliot quote. I remember looking it up on Quote Investigator after being somewhat annoyed by variations of the quote popping up everywhere (and often in very mindless ways). Let me add that I think it matters how old the original work is from which one borrows and how successful/known the artist is/was. Borrowing from Dante or Homer is not the same thing as borrowing from an obsure novel that came out last year. The bigger someone's reputation (and maybe also wealth) is the easier it should be to credit the influences one is concious of.

[@Rubrickety]

Tangentially, the excited smile on the face of the woman conducting around 18:30 was nice to see. Both female conductors and conductors showing joy are far too rare.

[@RhapsodyOfJoy]

That's Alondra de la Parra. A wonderful, talented and indeed very expressive Mexican conductor.

[@whycantiremainanonymous8091]

But using others' materials was standard and acceptable practice in Händel's time. J.S. Bach, his contemporary, used melodies from Protestant hymns, reorchestrated Pergolesi, used ideas from Händel and his good friend Telemann. Nobody thought anything is wrong with that.

[@danielboydmusic]

Imagine a time before recorded music, when listening to a piece performed was a rare experience. I would expect that themes and ideas would be "re-imagined" all the time, with little to no risk of public shaming or legal consequence. Just a thought... For example, in present day patent law, ownership is not guaranteed to the person who originated the idea, but rather to the first person to bring it to market. (So I've been told... I'm not an attorney.) But, yea... imagine the power dynamics of say, a lesser known composer performing in a small church, with someone like Handel in the back of the room, nodding his head along with the music.

[@AhimSaah]

The biggest steal in the history are both Chopin's piano concertos. He literally copied out sections of Hummel's concertos in A minor and in B minor, the themes are similar, the structure of movements, techical elements, orchestration. The very long embelishments are just developments of Hummel's slightly shorter embelishments. Also the end chromatic section of Chopin's etude op. 10/4 is a direct copy of a passage from Hummel's concerto. Of course Chopin's harmony is more advance and his melodies perhaps more beautiful but still, this is world's best kept secret (in the pianistic world at least!). Pianists often see Chopin as a genius that fell down from the skies. Genius he absolutely was, but from the skies he did not fall, in reality he owns a great deal to Hummel in terms of his stile. I once played Hummel's A minor concerto to my students and they said: 'Wow, Hummel really copied Chopin!' Of course Hummel's concertos were written when Chopin was still a toddler but this goes to show that it's obvious.

[@9sunsjuddleponk]

I’m wary of calling a certain harmony stealing, theres only 12 notes, and only so many ways to end a cadence, or progress a harmony in conjunction with a set context. I’ve had many many many times, were I compose something and it is eerily similar to another piece or motif. There’s limited supply!! Thats why I want to work with microtones too. However I can’t say for certain wether chopin stole: I know he was worried about people thinking that, and actually changed some original pieces to make it appear less so.

[@mazeppa1231]

Wow, I never knew this. Definitely gonna have to check it out once I have the time.

[@mreverything4663]

This is so wonderfully edited! Bravo 👏

[@nitephysh]

Very interesting video! The even quality and depth throughout all your various videos is impressive!

[@ZsigmondKaraMusic]

Your production quality (as the content of your videos as always) is stellar!

[@jsk7591]

Discovering you and your content may be the best my luckiest and best accomplishment of the year. Carry on!

[@skibassist01]

So interesting hearing about the background of consolation of rain! That particular movement is one of my favorites of it. And it is a masterpiece!

During the baroque era there wasnt a concept of intellectual property and copyright like today, people borrowed/stole material from others all the time ( Bach borrowed from Vivaldi for example), and themes like "La follia" were used by many composers. In some cases it could have been a matter of being practical, using or copying good musical material was just common sense among composers. In a time were there were few copies of musical works, people wrote down and copied pieces all the time and sometimes these were later mistaken for their own work by historians and musicologists.

[@maximilianociaffi5802]

Thanks for the great video, David. Handel's were really different times, especially regarding this sort of thing and its public perception. People were also a lot more slapdash about citing sources in general, and about preparing text of any sort for publication... It certainly doesn't explain the mystery, or helps pass judgement on the ethical questions, but I think it's worth considering.

[@maldivirdragonwitch]

Do we even have to mention your video skills in this one? Brilliant, thank you for sharing this with us!

[@darrenlucas804]

Thoroughly interesting, really well done, thanks again, David!

[@mrmangoberry8394]

I love how Bernstein is wearing the same thing one both sides for the Berlioz/Wagner bit.

[@NotAboveAverage]

Saving this to watch after work, can't freaking wait!

[@mikeoas]

The concept of a "triggering idea" did remind me of Brahms' 3rd Symphony, whose first movement uses and expands upon an small melodic idea from the first movement of Robert Schumann's own 3rd Symphony. I can't remember if Brahms explicitly acknowledged it at the time, but that was almost certainly an homage to Schumann (who was a mentor of his).

[@GaryGP40]

Another is the "Ode to Joy" styled motif from the Finale of Brahms's First, which, perhaps apocryphally, someone made mention of at the premiere and Brahms's retort was "yes, and any fool can hear it."

[@bennettprice5097]

Peter Schickele noted that the innovative PDQ Bach, recognizing that borrowing and copying was accepted, then went one step further and invented carbon paper.

[@jackmcrider]

James P. Johnson used the A-theme from the 1914 "Carolina Fox Trot" as the B-theme in his 1917 "Carolina Shout".

[@claytonr.young-music912]

The way I've had to make sense of the quote is like this: When something is borrowed, it is still acknowledged that it belongs to the person who previously had it; therefore, in musical borrowing it is not seen as the composer's own. Like if you are listening to some composer and you go "that really sounds a lot like Wagner". On the other hand, when an artist steals something, it becomes theirs. For example, John Williams stole the opening of the fourth movement of Dvořák's ninth symphony to use in _Jaws_. While it can be easily seen where it came from, you wouldn't say it's in the style of Dvořák; the style is Williams'. Often things are stolen in such a way that no one even realizes where they were stolen from. Only the composer knows, because they made so many changes that integrated it into their style.

[@dextrodemon]

i always thought it was more about being able to replicate the original work in a new form, rather than copying it and ending up with mere pastiche, not about attribution and ownership and such.

[@therealjohngalaxy]

Fantastic video! Great inspiration! Keep it up!

[@RhapsodyOfJoy]

Thank you so much Maestro for the wonderful video. I've just finished listening to your album "The North Wind was a Woman" on Idagio, is was such a delight. Bravo, sir👏 💐

[@billsybainbridge3362]

Great video! As a life-long improviser (today my version is best described as "Taqsim Americana"), the idea of "Channeling" a piece, style, or composer has long seemed a natural outgrowth of collective consciousness that I first experienced during group improv through moments best described as "The Central Groove", wherein seemingly a "wrong note" CANNOT be played, even with presumably independent input from the group members. By the way, after many other life experiences through many different fields of endeavor, I believe that "The Central Groove" concept can extend to all things we do in groups- sports, workgroups, etc. all are capable of these rare, subconsciously connected "epiphanies of capability" wherein the results truly are greater than the sum of their parts.

[@Go4PlanB]

Fascinating. Thank you once again

[@jessesmac]

I've got a section in a piano piece that, without fail, provokes a response of, "Hmm, reminds me of Ginastera," and it's always funny to me because I ripped the part nearly directly from the opening riff of Moon Tooth's "Igneous" and will directly say so.

[@jorgepeterbarton]

As long as the second part of the quote is remembered, is often: "bad artists imitate" not just "all artists borrow". So id say imitation of style, with original material is usually mediochre, whilst using e.g. a Motif or Pastiche or homage to a different level with your own style is VERY different. Rock examples of that are numerous, but unrecognisable, from the Doors to Radiohead, well neither did not introduce a completely original revolutionary style whilst stealing the odd chord progression intentionally or unintentionally, so thats kind of the point. Then there is the whole set of 'sample based' genres as well as in visual arts, pop-art, found-art etc.!

[@I.amthatrealJuan]

Your detective/crime scene theme makes this topic much more entertaining. Seeing major composers of the past and present in mugshots was hilarious.

[@phantomvhs3537]

This is just what I needed for my creative composing block, thank you!

[@adamedison6831]

This video changed my life. Thank you!

[@BryanWLepore]

Fascinating piece I particularly enjoy hearing something on a distant speaker, but there are just enough other sounds interfering with it that a new song almost emerges. It is best when the identity of the song is unknown. This is difficult to explain in writing.

[@Daves_PianoAndPipes]

Well produced video with some very interesting insights. I never heard of Thomas Adès before, I really wanna listen more now. Thanks for inspiring me!

[@nathanbarnes4740]

The baroque idea of taking another composer's music and rearranging it (like Bach did for a number of "his" concertos) was very widely practiced. The concepts of IP and originality didn't really exist in those times like they do now. I'm not saying it makes it entirely above board, but in the historical context it was quite common. However, great video as always! Very interesting topic to ponder.

[@simonpaulaustin]

Hugely informative video. Thanks. I am reminded of Paul McCartney repeatedly asking others if they had heard the melody of ‘Yesterday’ before, in order to reassure himself that it was indeed original and his. I do the same with my own melodies. Perhaps from now on I can be a little more relaxed because if I do inadvertantly steal something in the future, thanks to this video, I know I’ll be in good company.

Thanks for the great video David! A thing to consider with the case of Haendel and the era he lived in is that they weren't really considering the idea of posterity and remembrance. It was exceptionnal if an opera or a piece was performed for more than a year or two before more or less falling into oblivion. They also weren't necessarily looking to create masterworks of originality, but rather to answer a command; and they were sometimes several composers on the job for a single work. Being remembered and being original weren't the main motivations of composers, as it was hardly thinkable that the future generations would dive into old manuscripts to make such analyses and comparisons. The eagerness to have one's genius recognized and it's themes and ideas "copyrighted" is quite recent indeed!^^

[@finlaymiles9798]

Love this video - thanks!

[@russkalen2337]

A great video and a topic that interests me as a composer. But in this world of litigious copyright holders it doesn't quite answer the question of what I can post as my own and what, if any permission I must seek from a source that formed my seed idea. I liked your examples.

[@DHWOO]

Love this topic. Thoughts on Schnittke?

[@bentleycharles779]

Fantastic, Mr.Bruce.

[@dudleybrooks515]

I play and listen to a lot of Balinese classical music, including "new classical" music composed since the time (1910s-1920s) when Balinese composers stopped being anonymous. Their attitude towards originality, ownership, etc., is much more like that of 18th-century Western composers: whole chunks can be lifted from pre-existing classics, or from the composer's own previous works (like Bach did). Or a choreographer commissioning the music for a new dance can say "make this section 'like' such and such a section of Taruna Jaya", etc. -- with "like" meaning something to a Balinese that a non-Balinese might not hear. OTOH, even when performing an established classic, every ensemble, every musical director, makes little tweaks in it to "make it his own". The "identity" of even a classic is rather fluid.

[@tboorer]

Thanks Mr Bruce - I'm sure you've heard it before, but like your music, your videos are absolutely brilliant.

[@miphka66]

What a great video, thank you very much for making it

[@OphatTaerattanachai]

I would love to hear some discussions on the 3rd movement of Berio's Sinfonia because that was a lot of using other people's materials to create your own.

[@neo-eclesiastul9386]

Well, that's funny. Will Parker approached the same subject a couple of days ago

[@diannelovesyou]

Well isn't that a funny coincidence

[@johnb6723]

Could be a classic example of great minds thinking alike.

[@artemlyubchenko3022]

Yes, I watch him too! That's pretty weird.

[@LordQueezle]

Although in all fairness to David Bruce, I think it takes more than just a couple days to steal a video... Perhaps simply repurposing...?

[@artemlyubchenko3022]

@@LordQueezle I just checked the Will’s video, he knew about it before!

[@philhomes233]

The one that always makes me wince is Lloyd Wobbler's 'I don't know how to love him' which is a direct lift of the slow movement of Mendelssohn's Violin concerto.

[@huntrrams]

Awesome video! You can also compare this to modern sampling too.

[@albuch520]

Great video! 👍

[@StanislawPusep]

Excellent video, thank you!!! Regarding Handel: all the evidence points that before the romanticism they really did not give a damn about the attribution! I daresay, referencing and quoting is the default modus operandi of artists of all cultures and times, EXCEPT everything after romanticism

[@jaumbz]

Bortkiewicz music is full of references/borrows of other composers. It's fun to listen to. :P

[@karolakkolo123]

But he also has his original style. I love Bortkiewicz

[@jaumbz]

@@karolakkolo123 Oh, for sure! His music is great!

[@eduf2000]

Consolation of Rain reminds me a bit of Amnerika by Frank Zappa… both are lovely

[@CarlosLalonde]

Very creative video! Great job!

[@gmdavies6758]

Really interesting - thank you 🙂

[@Hailey_Paige_1937]

My two favorite “stolen” pieces of music are Debussy’s “Arabesque No. 1.” (Hear Liszt’s “Sposalizio” to understand what I mean--I prefer the Liszt!!)--and Chopin’s “Fantasy Impromptu” (Original theme/chord progressions by Ignaz Moscheles: “Impromptu In E-flat Major Op. 89”).

[@jacquestaulard3088]

That was great! In the popular arts of our day (well, last 100+ years) theft/use without attribution, 'covering' and more is typical Hollywood, Rock and Roll, Jazz, Blues, and (yes, I have to say it) software!

[@kurtdoe1]

Great video. Thought provoking. But it's missing a discussion of the work of John Williams and where that fits with theft vs homage.

[@alantaylor2694]

hmm...Austro-Germanic functional harmonies...just what I was thinking! lol. Interesting vid and I love your mug shot!

[@brendaboykin3281]

Thank you. Quite interesting 🌹🌹🌹

[@dudleybrooks515]

I once answered "Yes!" to a novice's question in a newsgroup about whether Pulcinella was typical of Stravinsky's work ... but couldn't explain why. Thank you for providing the explanation. (It was also written at a time when Diaghilev was commissioning many composers to orchestrate Baroque works for ballets, e.g. Tommasini orchestrating Scarlatti for the ballet The Good-Humored Ladies. As you say, Stravinsky went beyond mere ochestration.) And the Tchaikovsky homage Baiser de la Fée is almost sui generis as a complete reconception of another composer's works. On casual listening, it is so "obviously" Tchaikovsky. But playing it, seeing all the details, it is *completely* Stravinsky! One respect in which Stravinsky really "stole" (or, better, "digested") is that so many of his works after Pulcinella resemble Pulcinella and so many of his works after Baiser resemble Baiser.

[@koseybrown5763]

yooooo, shout out Adrian Spence and Camerata! Always playing those contemporary chamber pieces!

[@dleov4645]

Love your videos!

[@djrbfmbfm-woa]

thank you. david. big fan. of both you and Mr Igor. j.

[@gljm]

And speaking of Leonard Bernstein, the opening notes of his song "There's A Place For Us" from "West Side Story" is a direct quote from the 2nd movement of Beethoven's "Emperor Concerto", and the opening notes to his song "Ohio" from "Wonderful Town" is a direct quote from Brahms' Second Piano Concertos' slow movement.

[@johnrobertson1795]

And in the trio "Quiet!" in Act II of Candide you will hear a great similarity to the theme in the finale of Borodin's 2nd String Quartet.

[@ET-PianistComposer]

Another moment of Wagner borrowing from others is with the Dresden Amen. He used it in Tannhäuser, I think in Das Liebesverbot, and most notably in Parsifal where it appears as the leitmotif for the Holy Grail.

[@HeimburgerMusic]

Well, this certainly makes me feel better about doing video game re-orchestrations that straddle the line between arrangement and new material.

[@fburton8]

Was it stealing, or just Handeling stolen goods?

[@Nooticus]

Excellent video!

[@neilwalsh3977]

I love the Ades Mazurka - very beautiful

[@SFgamer]

There's a difference between stealing (plagiarism), borrowing, reusing other artist's pieces. Might I add, using pre-existing works, a reference for your own.

[@amnongravenmur9024]

I just wanted to say that I loved the crime dossier motif in this video.

[@claytonr.young-music912]

Classical musicians: is this plagiarism? Is this okay? Jazz musicians: We're not sure where that tune came from, but it's fun to improvise variations on it, so we play it all the time.

[@mattheasboelter5217]

This smells suspiciously like Jay Ducharme's comment about the baroque period being more about varying the theme, haha. It's definitely really interesting how many similarities there are between the approach and style of baroque music vs jazz.

[@claytonr.young-music912]

@@mattheasboelter5217 It certainly is. Basso Continuo in an orchestra is analogous to the rhythm section of a big band. Both lead the ensemble, fill out the harmony, and don't always have fully written out parts. Additionally, works for a single voice or instrument with Continuo remind of lead sheets; figured bass works sort of like chord symbols. Also, the players in both styles are the ones who come up with most of the ornaments. It's also worth noting how baroque ensembles weren't standardized the way orchestras today are. It's more like big bands from the '40s, where there were standard instruments and common setups, but every group could be different. Last, but not least, the use of improvisation.

[@profel.3487]

Well, on the subject of variations in jazz, it doesn't happen that way. There are two cases, the counterfact and the standards. Generally, the beboppers, to improvise directly, took the chord progressions of already known songs, the famous standards, creating a new melody, generally short (the head) since the essence of the pieces was improvisation. This worked for two reasons: 1) the standards had legally registered the melody, but not the chords, so if you borrowed them nothing would happen 2) the essence of jazz is in the IIm7-V7-Imaj7, and like all the songs contained it, because nothing happened either. BUT, everyone knew what song they were getting things out of, it was something well known and easily recognizable. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_jazz_contrafacts). The idea was not to steal, but to show how "modern" and "complex" the song could become in the hands of beboppers, who picked up their favorite songs, after having played them a thousand times more in big band ensembles. On the other hand, standars are famous theater, swing or bop songs. One can simply play over them, respecting the original head, and creating variations on the theme, but acknowledging the creator in copyright. In summary, in both cases the original author is recognized, only that in the counterfact he is not named (although it is evident), while the standard does

[@loganstrong5426]

I'm commenting this before watching the whole video, so forgive me if you say it, but here's my interpretation of what the quote itself means: When you borrow something, you intend to give it back. You have to keep it nice, you use it only as intended. If I borrow your drill, I'm not going to rip out the motor and use it for an improvised RC car. But when you STEAL, it's yours. You do whatever you want with it, and don't intend on giving it back. In fact, it's probably BETTER to tear it apart, because then nobody will ever know you stole it. What this means in a musical sense is that when you borrow, you intend to "give back." In my mind, this is what most quotations or arrangements are. You intend the audience to acknowledge the original, and you are probably going to keep it close to the original to make sure it stays nice. Stealing, in a musical sense, you don't want people to think of the original. It's yours now. So, bad thieves will keep it as is and hope nobody notices, but good thieves... They'll tear it apart, dissect every piece and rebuild it. They'll take tiny bits and put them all over so you will never even notice the original is there. That's what it means when great composers steal.

[@zmhmusic]

Variations on a theme by Beyoncé, sounds lovely

[@FyoungK]

Andrew Lloyd Webber is smiling and listening to Echoes again and again.

[@R-N88]

Also at Mendelssohn's Violin concert

[@adriendecroy7254]

Re Berlioz vs Wagner. I don't know if I agree really about borrowing a feel. It's easy to see the similarities between the excerpts quoted, but I end up wondering how many thousands more works which pre-date both, would lead us to a similar conclusion if stacked next to them. There are a lot of timbres and textures you can get out of an orchestra, but there are some that are used over and over and over, and probably for good reason, because they subjectively sound "good". I'm glad that the writers of the late 19C were not so weighted down by a need to be different in ALL respects from their forebears, so they could actually write beautiful music. Something which seems to have all changed in the 20C. We don't expect chefs to invent new ingredients, or avoid any ingredients used by any other chef. There simply aren't enough to go around. I think it's better to just create freely without exhausting all your energy trying to find things to avoid inadvertently emulating.

[@edurbrow]

Maybe a second installment of this would be good. If you go back a bit further you get into cantus firmus, the parody mass and lute entabulations that ranged from strict transcriptions to very ornamented fantasies. Michael Tilmouth and Richard Sherr write of the genre: The essential feature of parody technique is that not merely a single part is appropriated to form a cantus firmus in the derived work, but the whole substance of the source - its themes, rhythms, chords and chord progressions - is absorbed into the new piece and subjected to free variation in such a way that a fusion of old and new elements is achieved.[2]

[@paulo-g6837]

At 12:19 you wrote: "Prelude and Leibestod from Tristan and Isolde". "Leibestod" would mean "Death of the Body" in contrast to "Liebestod", the Death through or by Love. Thats a quite funny mix-up of letters :D But nice video! I think its a big part of art to re-interprete works or ideas from other pieces and there is no shame in it, as long as you dont call it your own.

[@user-bj9vx5uk8k]

A valuable analysis.

[@matthewbenedict5923]

Nice animations!

[@rmidthun]

Quotation can also be mockery, take the case of Golliwog's Cakewalk by Debussy. The music shifts from a cakewalk (predecessor of ragtime) about halfway through to quotes from Tristan and Isolde. (There are LOTS of quotes from that opera in classical music). Here though, partway through the quote, the music is interrupted (by Golliwog laughing, presumably), a second attempt is made which is also interrupted, then a sort of chaotic merging of the two themes is played before going back to the cakewalk theme. This is a fun piece of music to play and listen to, although I have to admit that Golliwog himself is one of the worst racist caricatures in history.

[@mrose8748]

Hello Mr. Bruce, would you be willing to do some videos where you review and give advice to submitted compositions (similar to Adam Neeley's how to not suck at music). I love your videos and compositions (particularly the lick quartet), and would really appreciate some feedback! :)

[@hickorymccay2994]

Often I do thefts from rock and roll songs. I have one piece where I quote two Zappa songs (one is What's New In Baltimore, already a pseudo-classical thing, and the other is a messed-up pop song that I do not feel like disclosing except that it has a simple melody in F Lydian), and another which has a major quotation (i.e three whole musical phrases) from Whipping Post by the Allman Brothers.

[@twanswagtencomposer]

A good reference is the book 'Steal like an Artist' from Austin Kleon

[@Overlycomplicatedswede]

I never realized how much Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky borrowed from each other (two legendary composers I love listening too worked from each others ideas which is really cool) Me as a bass trombone player I absolutely love listening to people like mahler,bruckner,strauss. Either way really interesting video