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Musical quotation
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Musical quotation is the practice of directly quoting another work in a new composition. The quotation may be from the same composer's work (self-referential), or from a different composer's work (appropriation). It can also quote a folk tune or an anonymous work.
Sometimes the quotation is done for the purposes of characterization, as in Puccini's use of The Star-Spangled Banner in reference to the American character Lieutenant Pinkerton in his opera Madama Butterfly, or in Tchaikovsky's use of the Russian and French national anthems in the 1812 Overture, which depicted a battle between the Russian and French armies.
Sometimes, there is no explicit characterization involved, as in Luciano Berio using brief quotes from Gustav Mahler, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and others in his Sinfonia.
Musical quotation is widely used in animated cartoons.
cal quotation is to be distinguished from variation, where a composer takes a theme (their own or another's) and writes variations on it.
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Encyclopedia
Musical quotation is the practice of directly quoting another work in a new composition. The quotation may be from the same composer's work (self-referential), or from a different composer's work (appropriation). It can also quote a folk tune or an anonymous work.
Sometimes the quotation is done for the purposes of characterization, as in Puccini's use of The Star-Spangled Banner in reference to the American character Lieutenant Pinkerton in his opera Madama Butterfly, or in Tchaikovsky's use of the Russian and French national anthems in the 1812 Overture, which depicted a battle between the Russian and French armies.
Sometimes, there is no explicit characterization involved, as in Luciano Berio using brief quotes from Gustav Mahler, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and others in his Sinfonia.
Musical quotation is widely used in animated cartoons.
Quotation vs. variation
Musical quotation is to be distinguished from variation, where a composer takes a theme (their own or another's) and writes variations on it. In this case, the origin of the theme is usually acknowledged in the title (e.g. Johannes Brahms's Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn). In the case of quotations, there is usually no explicit acknowledgment. However, it sometimes appears in the score. For example, in Schumann's Carnaval, in the section "Florestan" he quotes a theme from his earlier work Papillons, Op. 2, and the inscription "(Papillon?)" is written underneath the notes. In the final section "Marche des Davidsbündler contre les Philistins", he again quotes the same theme, but without acknowledgement. In that final section, he also quotes another theme first first used in Papillons, the traditional "Grossvater Tanz" (Grandfather Dance), but this time the inscription is "Thème du XVIIème siècle".
Examples
Examples of musical quotations in classical music include:
- Arnold Bax quoted a theme from Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde in his 1919 symphonic poem Tintagel
- Alban Berg quoted Johann Sebastian Bach's chorale Es ist genug (It is enough) at the end of his Violin Concerto
- Georges Bizet used a song "El Arreglito" by Sebastián Iradier as the basis for the "Habanera" (L'amour est un oiseau rebelle) in his opera Carmen, believing it to be an anonymous folk song. When he discovered its true author, who had died only ten years earlier, he made an acknowledgment in the vocal score.
- Benjamin Britten quoted many other works (e.g., Wagner's "Tristan" chord) in his opera Albert Herring
- Claude Debussy quoted the opening of Tristan und Isolde disparagingly in the Golliwogg's Cakewalk from his Children's Corner suite for piano
- Umberto Giordano quoted the French national anthem La Marseillaise in his opera Andrea Chénier
- Charles Ives was particularly fond of quoting other composers' themes in his works. They can be found in works such as Three Places in New England and his Piano Sonata No. 2
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart quoted a theme by his recently deceased mentor Johann Christian Bach in his Piano Concerto No. 12
- Giacomo Puccini quoted the U.S. national anthem The Star-Spangled Banner in his opera Madama Butterfly
- Robert Schumann quoted La Marseillaise in his song The Two Grenadiers and his Carnival Jest from Vienna; he also quoted two themes from his Papillons, Op. 2 in his later work Carnaval, Op. 9
- Dmitri Shostakovich - various examples (detail to come)
- Richard Strauss quoted the funeral march from Beethoven's Eroica symphony (No. 3) in his Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings
- Strauss used many quotes from his own works in his symphonic poem Ein Heldenleben
- Strauss quoted Luigi Denza's song Funiculì, Funiculà in his symphonic poem Aus Italien, believing it was a folk song
- Sir Arthur Sullivan did quote actual melodies by Franz Schubert and Johann Sebastian Bach, but he was more adept at deliberately imitating the styles of other composers without actually quoting their works. The styles of Bellini, Bizet, Donizetti, Dvorák, Gounod, Handel, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Rossini, Verdi, Wagner and others can all be found in his works.
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky quoted the Russian national anthem (God Save The Tsar!), La Marseillaise, a Russian Orthodox plainchant (God Preserve Thy People), and some Russian folk songs, in his 1812 Overture. He used folk material in other compositions, such as the 4th Symphony and the 1st Piano Concerto
- Ralph Vaughan Williams quoted the theme from the Epilogue of the third movement of Arnold Bax's Symphony No. 3 in his Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra.
- Henryk Wieniawski quoted Alexander Varlamov's song The Red Sarafan in his fantasy for violin and piano, Souvenir de Moscow, Op. 6 (possibly believing it was a folk song).
The Gregorian plainchant melody Dies Irae has been quoted by Charles-Valentin Alkan, Johannes Brahms, Benjamin Britten, Joseph Haydn, Franz Liszt, Modest Mussorgsky, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Igor Stravinsky and many other composers in their works.
Quotation is also a tradition in jazz performance, especially of the bebop era. Charlie Parker, for instance, quoted Stravinsky's Rite of Spring in his solo on "Repetition", and "Country Gardens" on his Verve recording of "Lover Man"; Dizzy Gillespie quotes David Raksin's "Laura" on "Hot House" during the Massey Hall concert. Dexter Gordon and Sonny Rollins are especially famed among jazz fans for their addiction to quotation. Often the use of musical quotation has an ironic edge, whether the musician is aiming for an amusing juxtaposition or is making a more pointed commentary (as when a youthful Rollins, playing alongside Charlie Parker on Miles Davis's Collector's Items, throws in a snippet of "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better," or when the avant-garde saxophonist Ornette Coleman rebuffs a skeptical heckler at the Croydon Hall concert with a snippet of the jazz standard "Cherokee").
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See also
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