What are some pieces (or specific passages) that remind you of other pieces?
Have you ever listened to a piece and had a jolt when you hit a particular passage- because it sounds *exactly* like another piece? I've been listening to Bruckner's symphonies for the first time, and part of the second movement of his seventh (which is gorgeous) sounded just like Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.
Listen specifically to the Bruckner at 2:38 and the Mussorgsky at 5:45:
Tell me that isn't eerie! Even in the four minutes of the Bruckner leading up to that point, I kept having the Mussorgsky theme pop into my head. Of course a lot of composers deliberately quote themes by other composers, but I haven't found anything that indicates that Bruckner deliberately took this from Mussorgsky. Maybe one of you will know.
Have you ever had this feeling? What pieces remind you strongly of pieces by other composers, and do think the similarity is deliberate on the part of the composer or due to chance?
Links would be good if you can find them :) Thanks!
Anonymous2010-07-30T21:04:00Z
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Mozart used the melody from Clementi's B flat sonata, first movement, in one of his operas. I had known this but had never actually heard the Mozart piece, but while listening to a compilation cd called "Everybody's Mozart", I finally heard the piece, unfortunately I still don't know what it is, which I why I will look that up now...of course! Its the overture to Die Zauberflote. Listen to this Clementi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAlUpCzrcwE: (holy crap! and while listening to that absent mindedly, its crazy how horowitz adds on lisztian/rachmaninoff sounding pyrotechnics to it at one point) and now listen to the melody that appears around 0:59 in Die Zauberflote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEnH_niAKWQ Its bizarre that Mozart should quote Clementi since he apparently did not have much respect for him, at least as a pianist.
Of course pointing out direct quotes that I already knew to exist is not quite as exciting as discovering the related sounding compositions.
With Chabrier's "Fete polonaise", I hear something that sounds vaguely like Tchaikovsky in the 1812, and then after some of his spanish/pre-Stravinsky rhythmic jumping around, he goes into Johann Strauss mode. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbNhugsSW7c When I first heard this, I forgot I was listening to Chabrier at points until he broke into his quirky rhythms and exotic french/spanish sounding motifs. Cool piece. With the chorus in here, it sounds like Verdi practically. This is of course a more vague, observation of styles.
Also, for the Bruckner and Mussorgsky, try the 1812 overture by Tchaikovsky. It has the same grand three notes rising with similar chords, but its followed by a new melodic progression. What I'm saying probably sounds like gibberish; I refer to the part of it(1812 right before the famous finale when the bells are going off and all that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2W1Wi2U9sQ listen to 1:40 and tell me that is not the same thing you were noting between Mussorgsky and Bruckner. I think Mussorgsky came first.
I've discovered some others in the past. I'll have to edit when I get back to you another good one if I can.
Well, why don't I pick on young Beethoven? Listen to his F minor sonata(first one, first movement), the starting motif. As fun a composition as this is, the rising aspect of the theme sounds exactly like the beginning to the finale to Mozart's 40th symphony, but it diverges pretty quickly. Beethoven definitely plays around with Mozart's melodic material in his earlier compositions. That isn't a very significant connection, so I made it significant by weakly saying how Beethoven does sound a lot like Mozart in his early melodic writing(the first symphony is a great example). Its one of the things I like about him actually.
Also I realized that Rossini's Semiramide Overture has a variant of that Clementi/Mozart motif with different notes, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbr50k2AfQc, its around 5:07. Not that big of a deal, but I'm happy I thought of it.
Also, the first "promenade" in "pictures" by Mussorgsky, though the melody is not the same, seems similar in its "oriental" feel to the opening of Chopin's first ballade.
I guess that's it for me, all I can really think of right now.
Interesting that you mention Bruckner though I can't listen to the clip yet as I'm at work and so I'll revisit later and also include a link for the final 'Adagio' movement of his 9th Symphony because somewhere around two thirds in there is an almost sort of wistful string melody that suddenly arises and it sounds uncannily like Ralph Vaughan Wiilliams. I noticed it the first time I listened to it, I'm sure others have heard it too, I don't think I'm being insane? ( :
<late edit> the brief passage appears at the beginning of this excerpt, really around 15 minutes into the movement. Frankly rather bizzare video acompaniment? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOtC98aP7Uc
Funny that pno4tay mentioned the Chopin Fantasie-Impromptu as possible inspiration for another composition. Chopin was a little embarrassed about that piece because the opening c# minor arpeggio sounds like that in the last movement of the Moonlight Sonata.
One of the Brahms violin sonatas opens like the Prize Song from Der Meistersinger. Someone asked him if he noticed the resemblance. He said, Sure! Any fool can see that!"
Woe unto anyone who writes anything which sounds like anything by Puccini. Someone wrote a popular song in which the refrain starts out, "I found my love in Avalon." The first eight notes are like eight consecutive notes in "E luvecan le stelle" from Tosca. Puccini's publishers sued, and the publishers got a settlement which, in my opinion, is just ridiculous.
In Phantom of the Opera, there is a passage which sounds like the waltz from Girl of the Golden West. Puccini's heirs met with Llyod Webber, and the outcome of that is known only to Llyod Webber and Puccini's heirs.
Poulenc quotes himself throughout all his works. There are so many, it's difficult to say. There's a passage from the Two-Piano Concerto in one of the Improvisations, a passage from the Flute Sonata in another one, the opening of the Gloria and the opening of "Hymne" from "Trois Pieces pour Piano are identical.
But one that really hits me is the Impromptu in C Sharp Minor, op. 28 no. 3 by Hugo Reinhold. Although the opening themes are not exactly similar, the harmonic patterns, passagework later in the piece, and the lyrical middle section in D flat ALL but prove that he was using Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu as a model and trying to write a similar piece. And it IS - TOO similar.
Edited: a pianist showed me a Czerny Etude which was identical in its configuration to the First of the Chopin etudes. (this edit - I had initially and wrongly assigned a number to the Czerny Etude - in that light I do not know which number or opus it was - and was resoundingly corrected by a truly esteemed colleague!)
John Adams "Chamber Symphony" on first hearing reminded me enough, alternately, of both Stravinsky's Dumbarton Oaks Concerto and Schoenberg's Kammersymphonie Op.9 that I began to want to rather hear either of those. Later, I learned that Adams had the Schoenberg very much in mind as a model when composing his Chamber Symphony.