John Williams: Thief
While I’m on a music kick . . . a question for you classical music folks:
Am I the only person in the world who has noticed that the theme for “E.T.” is lifted directly from the final few bars of Dvořák’s “Dumky Trio”?
I assume not.
P.S. Also, the love theme from Superman sounds suspiciously like a recurring theme from Richard Strauss’s “Tod und Verklärung.” And anyone who has heard Holst’s “The Planets” hears a similarity between the “Mars” theme and the Darth Vader theme — though that is more a copying of style than a lifting of a particular theme, like the other two examples.
P.P.S. Does anyone know where a free .mp3 of the last movement of the Dumky trio is available on the Web? I can make the claim, but hearing is believing. Same question for the Richard Strauss piece.
There is nothing new under the sun.
jd watson (e27eeb) — 10/2/2005 @ 1:53 amIt’s well-known that John Williams gets his ideas from other “classical” music (the “classical” genre in most people’s minds covers music from Bach through the 20th century).
There’s no argument that he does it. You can think of it as borrowing or as inspiration by the genius of others. If he says “No! I don’t do that!” then he’s either lying or deluded.
But it’s common for musicians to borrow other’s ideas as their starting points. It’s very, very hard to have truly “unique” music. Even the attempts to bring world music into the common music styles is an admissions that musicians do so much borrowing from the existing pool of Western music that it’s tiresome, and time to find a wider pool to borrow from.
steve miller (640f49) — 10/2/2005 @ 6:31 amDead men can’t file plagiarim suits.
goddessoftheclassroom (6bc9b3) — 10/2/2005 @ 7:58 amTry Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Star Wars: The first 8 bars of the Sand People theme is lifted directly from the beginning of one of the movements in the Rite of Spring. I don’t remember the details at the moment, butI wrote a paper on that in my first college music history class. As I recall, he changed the voicing very slightly – either dropped or raised the oboe part an octave.
I think that it’s generally accepted that borrowing a theme or a tune is kosher – but eight measures of full orchestration seems to me to be pushing the line.
However, he makes way more money than me and is way more famous, so who cares what I think?
Teri (afca91) — 10/2/2005 @ 8:18 amThief is far too strong a word. “Unoriginal” perhaps. Milton Berle told other comedians’ jokes. The thing is when he did, they were funny.
There is nothing wrong with a composer giving a little added thrill to those who are ‘in the know’ about a previous piece of music being quoted. It gives you a chance to be clever and impress us 🙂
I’ve listened to less Dvorak than I thought, since I don’t remember hearing this trio. And since I’ve never seen ET, I wouldn’t have heard the quotation in the theme music anyway.
Lloyd (698ec8) — 10/2/2005 @ 8:36 amSee P.P.S. I’m looking for free .mp3s of these pieces.
Patterico (4e4b70) — 10/2/2005 @ 8:50 amUnless you’re referring to John Du-VORE-ack, I think we can safely assume the copyright ran out a long time ago.
Xrlq (428dfd) — 10/2/2005 @ 2:00 pmThe main theme from Star Wars comes from five or six notes by Beethoven. Forget from where exactly.
John Costello (54639c) — 10/2/2005 @ 3:43 pmI noticed both of the “P.S.”s, but I never noticed the Dvorak similarity.
No matter- Williams’s music is still trite and commonplace.
There was an age when Prokofiev and Shostakovich wrote the music to films. Sure, they were Soviet propaganda pieces, but damn, that was music.
Steve Donohue (2d2535) — 10/2/2005 @ 4:41 pmTo his credit, the original music being used by Lucas in the original Star Wars WAS the Planets. The only reason they ended up using Williams was because they couldn’t make the music fit perfectly over the movie cuts (something that Williams is unquestionably masterful at doing).
Here’s my favorite Williams E.T. inside joke: watch the Halloween scene. You’ll see a bunch of kids in costumes–one of them is Yoda, and right at that moment you can here “Yoda’s Theme” float above everything else. Just Williams saying, “Yes, I am a badass.”
Caveat: I majored in music composition in college, and as such, I personally have no use for Williams’ music. At this point in his career, everything he writes is a parody of his own self, something no composer should ever let music become. (When was the last time some Williams music came on and you couldn’t tell it was him?) Having said that, you’ve still got to give credit where credit is due: the man’s extremely prolific, and no one’s mastered to-the-second film-scoring like he has. If only he wouldn’t use the same piece over and over again for all of his movies…
Tom (fefa50) — 10/3/2005 @ 5:01 pmForgot to mention that the Holzt–>Williams connection in Star Wars is strictly because that was exactly what he had to do: use the Planets’ sound, but make it fit the movie exactly. And he did it, extremely well. However, as I stated above: I DO wish he’d write a second piece, instead of recycling the same Williamsy movie-music cliches over and over and over and over and over again.
Tom (764816) — 10/3/2005 @ 5:04 pmRather than concentrating on his “greatest hits” such as Star Wars and ET, perhaps you should check out Accidental Tourist, Amistad, even Stepmom. And his concert music is _nothing_ like his film scores. Williams is a working composer — a hired gun — who is required to shape his creations to the vision and timings of the director and editor. To do that and complete a full score in 10 weeks is pretty impressive, I think.
rmichael (37706e) — 11/30/2005 @ 5:23 amI was just now thinking that years ago I’d heard the ET theme in a Dvorak chamber work. So I Googled Dvorak + “John Williams” + ET.
Damn! 🙁
EveningStar (f99b5b) — 1/16/2006 @ 9:46 pmHome Alone, “We Overslept Again”: Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker; Trepak.
Dvorak’s 9th “New World Symphony” Mov. 3: Duel of Fates in Star Wars Episode I; Mov. 2 of the 9th: Jaws.
Christian Paarup (b50373) — 5/11/2006 @ 3:28 pmJohn Williams steals directly from Samuel Barber’s Second Essay for a theme in Harry Potter.
bob (d47a94) — 1/17/2007 @ 9:05 pmPerhaps it is his ability to adapt and place such timeless themes so appropriately in his scores. If you’ve got something that’s good, why not roll with it?
Just Enjoy It (547157) — 7/11/2007 @ 7:21 pmUsing pieces as inspiration is one thing. big deal everyone INCLUDING BACH has done it. Even borrowing and quoting is fine everyone INCLUDING BACH and John Lennon I might add (he stated he stole an elvis guitar lick to use in his song Run for your Life) big deal. what i have a problem with is lifting something (orchestration and all) completley and then trying to pass it off as your own composition. And I’m talking the entire thru line and not just a little phrase.
Josh (5ea627) — 8/16/2007 @ 4:47 amI just listened to dumky trio, and sorry, but I didn’t hear the E.T. theme. I think the arguments made against Williams can be made against any and every composer since Bach and beyond. So, technically, everyone who’s written music for the orchestra for the last few centuries is a thief according to this ideology. Bottom line, he’s written thousands of hours worth of music, he’s bound to sound like someone else every now and then. Let’s not forget, he, and everyone, is using the same instruments and same 88 notes. 8 bars or a few seconds isn’t enough to call anyone a “thief.” All too often, people modify his music to fit their argument, and that’s not good enough. The Greeks covered the five conflicts, and Shakespeare covered all the plot lines, so are we to stop making film and theatre? Just because a composer wrote a few noted in a row, doesn’t mean we should never hear those notes again. He doesn’t hit a home run all the time, but a ballplayer with a lifetime .350 batting average is considered phenomenal. Ok, enough with the analogies.
jeff (c82c93) — 9/8/2007 @ 10:19 pmJosh, you are a twat, think before you write crap! John Lennon & Paul McCartney stole the whole tune of “Three Blind Mice”, Three Blind Mice, See how they run” and changed it to “Love, Love, Love”. Plus the line “See how they run” is back again, this time in “Lady Madonna” and “I Am The Walrus”. He also stole from Chuck Berry and got sued, lol. thenm he denied that he’d stolen from him although he settled? mm right! John Williams never stole anything completely, including the them from E.T. This is not identical all three bars move up in the same way but are tweaked so they are not identical. If you want to listen to a piece of music that plagarizes and doesn’t add anything new to make it different then listen to Michael Kamen’s theme from “The Dead Zone”, it’s Sibelus 2nd Symphony. Alan Parker’s music from the final scene of Jaws 3-D is a blatant copy of “The Rite Of Spring”, James Horner’s OSCAR WINNING SCORE to “Field Of Dreams” is a copland rip off. He should have to give the Oscar back. Think twice before writing crap about Williams, if it’s that easy why don’t YOU do it??
Alice Keymer (0ce34e) — 9/20/2007 @ 7:03 pmI listen to music and it is clear that the star wars and jaws work is not entirely original or inspired, it is a simple copy of previous works that have been modified for a film score.
He should acknowledge the gift by citing the gifted composers who made it possible and we should thank him for putting such great works out for the public to enjoy.
Great American (c83f6f) — 11/20/2007 @ 3:06 pmCompare the Main theme from ET with the thrid movement of Howard Hanson’s symphony No. 2 “Romantic”- John williams totally steals the music!
p (5c3102) — 12/3/2007 @ 6:31 pmIt is definitely true that John Williams steals a lot of music. I was just listening to Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony and there are parts of that that sound strikingly similar to the Batman theme and the Leia/Han Solo love leitmotif from the three original Star Wars.
But really, it’s a moot point. Many of the greatest composers have blatantly stolen music from other sources. The Rite of Spring is an allusion to Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, and Stravinsky even said “A good composer does not imitate; he steals.” Mahler’s First Symphony’s first movement is obviously the melody from “Frère Jacques”. Beethoven’s “Diabelli Variations” are based on Anton Diabelli’s theme!
Though it might be argued that Williams isn’t being as creative or engaging with the material he lifts as Beethoven or Mahler are, it is also important to point out that film scoring always serves the film and are rarely very interesting to listen to outside of that context. When you score a film, you are working for a director, helping to realize his vision with stringent budget and time restraints, so most film scores take inspiration from where they can in the fairly short amount of time they have to produce a product.
I am very interested in where Williams lifted material from though and this list has been one of the most comprehensive listings of instances of musical thievery I’ve found, so please keep posting the references everyone! Thanks
William Beuche (77c480) — 6/13/2008 @ 11:49 am