Lloyd Webber vs. Puccini — Page 2

Quoting Sousa in the middle of the attempted Roosevelt assassination in ASSASSINS is a reference to the type of music the military band would actually be playing at that event (and, for all I know, actually did play) PLUS it juxtaposes some of the most famous patriotic music in American history with the ultimate NON-patriotic act, trying to kill the president. A recurring theme in the show is that we view assassins as somehow "outside" American history and culture, but they view themselves as very much "American".

Now it's your turn: how does a quote from GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST help a scene in a Webber musical that actually takes place BEFORE the music being quoted was written?

Michael Feingold expressed it best in a review many years ago:
Listening to Andrew Lloyd Webber is like walking down the halls of a music conservatory with all its doors open.

Enough said.

The beginning of Music of the Night is also exactly the same as the beginning of Come to me, Bend to me from Brigadoon.

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"Still...my original point stands. He took practically the whole piece and just inserted drums as far as I am concerned. Takes balls to sit there and say you wouldn't change a note of something you blatantly copied."

It's called a variations on Paganini's Theme...

The fact is, all composers steal from each other. Puccini was just as guilty as Lloyd Webber, but no-one is old enough to remember. The important thing is, they don't necessarily do it on purpose, as has been mentioned many times in this thread.

No one would care if Phantom wasn't the most mega of hits

If Sondheim (oranyone else for that matter) had that same level of popularity, there would be obscure bands coming out every day to sue him...

Did Puccini need the money?

LOVE NEVER DIES is a copy too.
First time I heard it I said, I know that song.

While we're talking about Superstar plagiarism... (enter the expert fan):

* "I Don't Know How to Love Him" is from a violin concerto by Mendelssohn
* The main guitar riff in "Damned for All Time" owes more than inspiration to the Sixties Batman theme
* Other people have pointed out (non-specific) "influences" from Orff, Stravinsky, etc.

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The main guitar riff in "Damned for All Time" owes more than inspiration to the Sixties Batman theme

Two beats of double sixteenth notes is all they share in common. They're not even the same intervals.

Not to mention Bolero and Memory from CATS are nearly the same song.

The first 5-6 notes of Memory are similar to Bolero (though not exactly the same). Both use 6/8 time. That's as far as it goes.

The beginning of Music of the Night is also exactly the same as the beginning of Come to me, Bend to me from Brigadoon.

It's the first four notes. Both of which resemble the song School Days. Who stole what from whom?

Well, if you're going down this road then you have to include Sondheim's No One Is Alone/The Candy Man - same exact first six notes - so what?

Well, it's Sondheim, so he gets a pass. Webber is an object of contempt and Sondheim is an object of adoration. They must be treated differently, you see. It's funny because recently I was listening to an old Broadway flop and I distinctly heard a melody that sounded EXACTLY like a Sondheim tune. I wish I could remember what it was now (It might have been from Maggie Flynn or A Time for Singing). I thought about posting it on this board, but I knew it would just turn into a Webber attack and the Sondheim topic would be ignored.

As for the lawsuit, the only guilt Lloyd Webber had to admit to was that 12 notes match up (more than the allotted 7), whether intentional or not. A settlement probably would have been cheaper than rewriting and rerecording the score. Not so coincidentally, the lawsuit didn't occur until the show's success had been grounded.

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The first six notes of "Candy Man" and "No One is Alone" are NOT identical, they are different rhythmically.

This may be nothing more than an urban myth, but it has made it's way through the "theatre folk" on both coasts. I first heard it in NY in the '80s ...

It basically told a story of how Sondheim stole the entire Night Waltz theme (A Little Night Music) from an eager composition student who sent it to him for his opinion of the work. They apparently settled out of court sometime in the mid '70s.

I have NO proof or any idea if it's true. I do know that i heard this same story on both coasts from two unrelated sources. Again, it could easily be an urban myth, but it did make the rounds.

As far as all this plagiarism talk, it's extremely difficult to prove in a court of law. Things have to be identical. Not "sort of" identical or "almost" identical. I've been a member of ASCAP for over 20 years now, and I spoke one time at length with a music lawyer about the subject. He said the works in question usually had to have 9 consecutive notes and/or lyrics to be considered plagiarism. (This was before the "sampling" craze which initially resulted in many law suits---and samples are different, because it's a copyrighted recording. Sampling any part of a recording, even just one recognizable chord or riff is an infringement). You also have to prove access to the material in question when you sue for copyright infringement. That gets very tricky as well, trying to prove beyond question that the composer heard the work before he wrote his own piece.

Here's an interesting Wiki article on the subject. You might also want to check out "musical quotations," too, which are intentional notes used to suggest a song without fully plagiarizing it. Puccini took a bit of the Star Spangled Banner in Madame Butterfly to help characterize his American officer. Things like that.



Wiki link

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Updated On: 9/5/11 at 11:47 AM

"Two beats of double sixteenth notes is all they share in common. They're not even the same intervals."

It's two bars, and they are.

Best12, I heard the same story about NIGHT MUSIC, but it was about Boris Aronson, not Sondheim. A student said the idea of the trees was stolen from him by his teacher, Boris. I think these stories are from disgruntled students who were looking for some attention. Knowing the talents of Steve and Boris, I tend to believe they don't have to steal from amyone.

I think part of the issue here is that while yes, most composers do borrow/quote from others before them, it seems as if it's a running theme with Webber. Whether it's intentional or not, it seems that many of his most famous melodies/songs happen to be stolen from previous composers.

Also, while this is obviously just an opinion, I'd venture a guess and say that most people believe that Bernstein, Puccini (or even Sondheim) are superior to Webber as composers. Therefore, while you may hear some Copland in Bernstein (Copland was very much a mentor to him), and the main theme of "Somewhere" from WSS comes from Beethoven's Emperor Concerto, it's what they eventually did with those themes, or their body of work as a whole.

I'm not necessarily condoning the act of stealing melodies, however, I'd say that based upon their entire body of work, there is some sort of "justification" for composers like Puccini, Bernstein, and Sondheim to quote/borrow once in a while.

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