Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers

Subject: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: bubblyrat
Date: 05 Mar 07 - 12:25 PM

On a different thread,I got to thinking about the popular songs that have "borrowed " tunes from famous composers, and how maybe it deserved a thread of its own . For example :-
" No Other Love Have I "------ Richard Rodgers , "Victory at Sea -??

   " Hold my Hand, I"m a Stranger in Paradise"----- Rimsky Korsakov ?
   
    then there was a Christmas ' hit' in Britain a few years ago that used the Troika from Prokofiev"s " Lt. Kije" .( Can"t remember the title !)

    Any more ??

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 Mar 07 - 12:35 PM

"Hold My Hand, I'm a Stranger in Paradise" is from the musical "Kismet", which used tunes by Borodin (mainly "Prince Igor" and the Second String Quartet).

The main folk borrowing from classical music these days has to be people adapting Italian opera arias into football chants.

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: Alec
Date: 05 Mar 07 - 12:39 PM

The Christmas song was "I believe in Father Christmas" by Greg Lake.
"Joybringer" by Manfred Mann draws creatively on "Jupiter" from The Planet Suite by Holst.
"A Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procol Harum utilises "Air on a G string."
"Lady Lynda" by the Beach Boys utilises "Jesu,Joy of Man's Desiring"by Bach.
"Because" by The Beatles has a melody which was arrived at by reversing the chord changes of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata"
"Could it be magic?" by Barry Manilow & "A Lover's Concerto" by The Toy's are also popular songs written to Classical Melodies.
Anyone remember which?

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: sapper82
Date: 05 Mar 07 - 02:18 PM

If I had Words by ?Bob & Marcia??; Sant-Sans Organ Symphony
Lover's Concerto was from one of the sketches of JSB's Anna Magdelana Notebook.

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: Artful Codger
Date: 05 Mar 07 - 04:45 PM

"John of Dreams", lifted from Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony.

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: oldhippie
Date: 05 Mar 07 - 05:20 PM

Just a comment on the post by Alec. I never liked the song "A Whiter Shade of Pale" until I heard the version recorded by Doro Pesch. Though not a folkie, the woman can sing, especially that song!

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: Jim Lad
Date: 05 Mar 07 - 05:22 PM

Classical Composers constantly borrowed old folk tunes.
The pendulum has swung full circle!

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: greg stephens
Date: 05 Mar 07 - 05:48 PM

Whiter Shade of Pale doesnt directly use the Bach melody Air on a G String. It sort of imitates, or parodies it.

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: mrdux
Date: 05 Mar 07 - 06:21 PM

"Baubles, Bangles and Beads," also from Kismet, takes its melody from Borodin's String Quartet in D.

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: bubblyrat
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 05:47 AM

I have just remembered "Tea for Two ", but what / who was that from ?? The "farce" starring Terry-Thomas as WW2 pilot was brilliant !!

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: bubblyrat
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 05:50 AM

Oh !! And Bobby Darin"s " Sailing "-----Debussy, La Mer ??

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 05:54 AM

Did "Tea for Two" not move in the other direction - was it picked up by Shostakovitch?

Regards

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: Scrump
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 06:08 AM

Some more for the list (sorry if I repeat any that have already been mentioned):

Hot Diggity (Dog Ziggity Boom)- Perry Como (based on Chabrier's Espana Rhapsody)

Like I Do by Maureen Evans; and Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah by Allan Sherman: both used the same tune from Ponchielli "Dance of the Hours"

More Than Love - Ken Dodd, based on Beethoven's "Pathetique" piano sonata (I think others may have recorded this before Doddy but I can't remember for sure/who it was?)

Emerald City - The Seekers - tune from Beethoven's 9th Symphony

Night of Fear - The Move - used a 'riff' from Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture

Song Sung Blue by Neil Diamond has a marked similarity to Mozart's piano concerto no. 21, 2nd Movement (used in film "Elvira Madigan") - not sure if he "borrowed" it consciously or not?

Could it be Magic - Barry Manilow (covered by Donna Summer) - used tune from Chopin's "Prelude in C minor"

Lady Lynda - Beach Boys. Used tune from Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring (JS Bach)

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: Scrump
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 06:11 AM

I have just remembered "Tea for Two ", but what / who was that from ??

"Tea for Two" was from the 1920s musical "No, No, Nanette".

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: bubblyrat
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 06:15 AM

But was the tune by Shosta Clove-hitch ??

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: Scrump
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 06:22 AM

From Wikipedia: "Tea for Two is the name of a song with music by Vincent Youmans and lyrics by Irving Caesar for the 1925 musical No, No, Nanette. The song is sung from the viewpoint of a lovestruck man, who plans the future with his new woman in mind.

This was recomposed in 1928 in under an hour as the Tahiti-Trot by Dmitri Shostakovich, acting on a bet between him and the conductor Nikolai Malko."

So it sounds as if Mr Clove-Hitch 'copied' the tune from Youmans rather than the other way round.

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 06:22 AM

Other way round? He (if it was he) used it ina "Jazz Suite".

Regards

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: bubblyrat
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 07:04 AM

Now I have a terrible vision in my mind, of Dawn French,teacup in hand, listening to that tune, and asking "What"s that ? " while the old boy says " No No No No No--Nanette " -!!

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: Scrump
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 07:25 AM

Now I have a terrible vision in my mind, of Dawn French,teacup in hand, listening to that tune, and asking "What"s that ? " while the old boy says " No No No No No--Nanette " -!!

It wouldn't surprise me if they had actually used that gag (it sounds familiar)

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 07:39 AM

"Oh !! And Bobby Darin"s " Sailing "-----Debussy, La Mer ??"

Charles Trenet I think. Debussy's sea is quite different.

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: Scrump
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 07:43 AM

I thought the Bobby Darin song was called "La Mer" (the Trenet song), not Sailing (I thought that was Sutherlnad Bros/Quiver, and Rod Stewart?)

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 08:29 AM

Paul Simon's "American Tune was from a Bach piece- though I seem to remember reading that Bach himself got the idea from an earlier piece."I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" is, in part at least, a classical piece- can't recall who.

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: MartinRyan
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 09:05 AM

Shostakovitch Tahiti Trot and Tea for Two

Regards

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: bubblyrat
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 12:04 PM

Sorry !! Bobby Darin song was called" Beyond the Sea " I think, not "sailing " obviously !! But I have never heard of Sharl Tennay --I still think there"s a link with Debussy, but then maybe it was Walter de La Mer !!This is getting complicated ( but fun !! )

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: Tootler
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 06:42 PM

"Stranger in Paradise" was from Borodin's Polovetsian Dances.

I thought Paul Simon's "American Tune" was adapted from a theme in Bach's Christmas Oratorio, but I have come across the basic theme in Tune books for wind instruments as "Passion Chorale" (Still by J S Bach).

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: JennieG
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 01:32 AM

"I'm always chasing rainbows" is, I think, by Chopin.

And casting my mind back a long long way.....a pop song from a tune that Resphigi used in one of his "Ancient Airs and Dances", the Burgermasque dance....the pop song escapes my brain at the moment but it will come to me I'm sure. Probably at 3am.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 05:26 AM

Debussy did write a program piece called "La mer" but it's nothing kike the Charles Trenet song.

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: autolycus
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 01:13 PM

"Full Moon and Empty Arms"(Kaye-Mossman) Rachmaninoff 2nd Piano Concerto

    "Gypsy Moon" (Borganoff,1932)       Sarasate , Zigeunerweisen

    "The Lamp is Low"(DeRose-Shefter-Parrish) Pavane pour un Infante Defunte

    "Moon Love" (kostalanetz)    Tchaikovsky 5th Symphony(2nd movement)

    "Till the End of Time" (Kaye - Mossman) Chopin Polonaise Op.53

    "If You mare but a Dream" (Jaffe-Fulton-Bonx) Rubenstein Romance

    "So Deep is the Night" (Knight) Chopin Etude in E, No.3

   The entire scores of the musicals Kismet,Blossom Time,Song of NorwaY,Summer Song were based on the music of,respectively,BorodinSchubert,Grieg and Dvorak.




    "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" (Carroll,1918) Fantaisie-Impromptu in C sharp minor.



    Just a selection.






       Ivor

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: autolycus
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 05:13 PM

The Fantasie-Impromptu by Chopin,that is.






       Ivor

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: Stringsinger
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 09:05 PM

Did you mention Dvorak's New World Symphony?

Microcomos by Bela Bartok.   1000+ fiddle tunes by Bartok used in his works.

"How Insensitive" Bossa Nova based on Chopin's E minor prelude.

Much Schubert is now folk music in Germany.

Italian Christmas folk song used in Tschaikovsky's (I think it was Capriccio Espanol) I'm not too up on the names of the pieces.

"Tonight We Love" based on Tschaikovsky piano concerto.

"Full Moon and Empty Arms" theme from Rachmaninov's piano concerto.

"Hatikvah" Smetana's Moldau.

Some stuff anyway.

Frank

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: autolycus
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 02:26 AM

It's not clear that Hatikvah is based on Smetana's Moldau (of Vltava) - there is a thread about the origins of Hatikvah.

   The work Tchaikovsky used that italian folk-song in was the multi-lingual Caprice Italien. (Capriccio Espagnol by Ripshis-Corsetsoff)






       Ivor

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: Scrump
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 04:29 AM

Mozart certainly based a lot of his music on folk tunes, but he was a prodigious composer so I don't know what percentage of his work leaned on folk music, as opposed to his original music.

Wikipedia (link here) lists the composers below as ones who have used folk music, but strangely their list doesn't include Mozart; nor does it give any details, but it might be a starting point for anyone wanting to investigate further (if you go to the link I gave, you will find the links to the Wikipedia entries for all these composers):

Béla Bartók
Johannes Brahms
Frédéric Chopin
Aaron Copland
Henry Cowell
Antonín Dvoøák
Franz Joseph Haydn
Edvard Grieg
Zoltán Kodály
Franz Liszt
Seán Ó Riada
Christian Sinding
Bedøich Smetana
Ralph Vaughan Williams
George Enescu

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: Mark Dowding
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 07:55 AM

Keith Marsden used bits of classical pieces in his tunes - the one that springs to mind is Vivaldi's Four Seasons (Winter?) in "The Drovers". He used others but very subtley and by the time you thought you knew what it was, the tune had passed on to something original!

Ralph McTell did "Dreams of You" using "Jesu' Joy of Man's Desiring"

Sting had a theme from Prokofiev's "Lieutenant Kije" going through his song "Russians"

Cheers
Mark

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: Scrump
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 08:09 AM

Mark's comment above re Keith Marsden reminded me of Joseph Cooper, the classical pianist who appeared on the BBC panel game show Face The Music (I think it was on radio and TV), where he would play a popular tune in the style of a classical composer - the panel would have to identify the tune and the composer. They were very cleverly done, and sometimes the tune was very well hidden beneath the arrangement. I can't remember any specific examples - maybe somebody might find some on the web.

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 07:30 PM

"Groovy kind of Love" by Wayne Fontana and the Mind-benders (1965?) borrows heavily from a Clementi piano sonatina.
Bobby Darin - "Beyond the Sea" - not like Debussy's "La Mer", but does contain the line "and never again I'll go sailing" which is probably where the "Sailing" reference came from.
Ivan Drever's "Long December Night" intro is Pachelbel's Canon near enough.
And I used the "Dead March" from "Saul" by Handel for a song entitled "Doom, Gloom and Despondency" for the competition of the same name in Sidmouth last year.

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: Alec
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 02:38 AM

"Nut Rocker" by B.Bumble & The Stingers was,of course,merely a Rock 'n' Roll interpretation of the opening March from Tchaicovsky's "Nutcracker Suite".
Though not a patch on the original it is nevertheless a fun piece that I have always been rather fond of.

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: Scrump
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 02:59 AM

Yes, Alec, Nut Rocker is a good example of a pop treatment of a classical tune.

When this discussion started in another thread (the Walk in the Black Forest one) I gave a list of some songs that had used classical tunes, but I didn't include instrumentals. Nut Rocker is one, but there are many more. Here are some:

- Asia Minor by Kokomo (based on Grieg's Am Piano Cto)
- Saturday Night At The Duckpond by The Cougars (based on Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake)
- Mozart 40 by Waldo de los Rios (Mozart's 40th Symphony)
- Can Can 62 by Peter Jay & The Jaywalkers (based on Offenbach)
- Can Can by Bad Manners (ditto)
- In The Hall of The Mountain King by Nero & The Gladiators (Greig's Peer Gynt)
- Piltdown Rides Again by the Piltdown Men (Pop version of Rossini's Wm Tell Overture)
- Peter & The Wolf by Clyde Valley Stompers (trad jazz version of Prokofiev)
- Rondo by Kenny Ball (trad jazz, Mozart's Rondo alla Turca)
- Sabre Dance by Love Sculpture (Dave Edmunds - Khachaturian)
- Fanfare for the Common Man - ELP (Copland)

And another vocal one I forgot: The Toys' "Lovers Concerto", based on a minuet by JS Bach.

Did anyone mention Elvis' "Tonight is so Right for Love", based on Offenbach's Barcarolle? That tune was also used for a Donald Peers song "Please Don't Go".

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: Alec
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 03:10 AM

"Please Don't Go" by Donald Peers is a song that has a special place in my affections for personal reasons.
I remember my Dad sitting at the Piano,teaching me to sing it.
As a consequence it was,almost certainly,the first popular song that I ever learnt in its entirety.
Thank you Scrump,for evoking a very happy memory.
One of many things that music does superbly well.:0)

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: Scrump
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 09:52 AM

Glad I mentioned it Alec! :-)

As a teenager then (1968) I'm afraid the song (being a 'ballad' by one of the 'old school' type of singers) wasn't one of my favverits. I was more into Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Doors, Simon & Garfunkel, The Kinks, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, and other groovy stuff :-)

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: Alec
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 09:55 AM

All great stuff as well Scrump.There's room on the beach for everyone.:0)

Subject: RE: Origins: Borrowing from Classical Composers
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 Jan 12 - 01:54 PM

I think *most* of Emerson Lake and Palmer's output was ripoffs of art music.

The ickiest has to be their version of the main fanfare theme from Janacek's "Sinfonietta".