But Steve, where does it stop?

Some music critic took Leonard Bernstein to task for "plagiarizing" Beethoven, pointing out that for the song "There's a Place of Us" in West Side Story, Bernstein had used a passage from the slow movement of Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto, "The Emperor." "Plagiarize!?" snorted Bernstein. "That's a bit harsh. Yes, I did use the tune. Composers have always borrowed from each other. Standard operating procedure. Besides, that's far too beautiful a melody to be used only once!"

In fact, according to Carl Czerny, a friend of Beethoven's, the slow middle movement of the concerto is based on an Austrian pilgrim hymn (!).

So—for enlightenment and education of the listener who was upset by my playing a Beethoven piano concerto and who seemed to believe that Beethoven should not be played because Adolph Hitler happened to be fond of his music, I would suggest that he should also beware of Bernstein and avoid listening to music from Broadway musicals like West Side Story. And a great deal of other music! Because unless you have a very good memory for a lot of melodic and harmonic figures, you might inadvertently find yourself listening to something that will leave you morally and ethically polluted. Perhaps he should stop listening to music altogether!

I am certainly aware of the evil in the world, and I am hardly idle when it comes to trying to combat it whenever I can. But speaking of pollution, I am not going to pollute my own aesthetic enjoyment of music or any of the other arts by researching and carefully scrutinizing the moral character of every artist whose work I consider listening to, seeing, playing, or singing in order to determine whether I should be doing so or not. The moral character of the artist died with him. The art lives on. And unless it consists of propaganda for something that is morally remiss, it is no longer a moral issue.

A work of Art stands or falls on its own merits. What baggage the artist may or may not have carried is not relevant.

Don Firth