Beethoven ripped off Salieri!

[Aristus]

Most classical music enthusiasts know that Antonio Salieri was not the emibittered mediocrity of the play and film Amadeus. He was quite a talented, if not ingenious, composer, under whom Beethoven and other up-and-coming Romantic Era composers studied.

I'm listening to Salieri's 26 Variations On 'La Follia De Spagna" and variation number 6 sounds incredibly like one of the movements (I forget just which one right now) of Beethoven's 7th Symphony. Almost note-for note.

Score another win for Salieri!

[FreepFryer]

1. Check this out - La Folia has a long history of such musical 'inspiration' :)

From: http://www.gyrix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2246

One of the most extraordinary discoveries of the 20th century in studies of Beethoven’s music has been occurrence of an ancient theme and chord progressions known as ‘La Folia’ which the composer uses at least 3 times in his known compositions, each time hidden within his music.

a) Beethoven 5th Symphony, Second Movement, Bars 167 to 176
b) Beethoven Sonata No.3 for Cello and Piano, Op.69 , Second Movement (bars 1-8)
c) Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5, Op.73, First Movement (bars 38-45)

Use of ‘La Folia’ in an extrovert and wholly advertised way can be traced back to the 15th century and even earlier. There are many examples. It was really made famous for the first time by Lully in his theoretical writings. During the 18th century we have such works such as –

1. Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel (1714-1788)
12 Variationen auf die Folie d'Espagne in d mineur Wq118/9 H263 (1778): 12 variations

2. Bedard, Jean-Baptiste (1765-1818)
‘Folies d'Espagne’ (Theme and 11 variations)

3. Boccherini, Luigi (1743-1805)
Menuet from quintet Opus 40, number 1 in A (two violins, viola, two celli), Gerard 340 (c. 1785).

4. Cramer, Johann Baptist (1771-1858)
Follia di Spagna (1811) as part of Divertimento X for fortepiano
Theme and 4 variations (and starting the first four bars of the 5th variation). First published 1811 by W. Mitchell, London England.
5. Désargus, Xavier (c.1768-1832)
Études pour harp, Opus 6: Vingt quatre etudes pour la harpe sur les Folies d' Espagne

6 Falconieri Andrea (c.1585-1656) Folia and 10 Variations (1650)

7. Antonio Salieri in 1790/1 wrote 'Folia and 12 Variations for Orchestra'

Far rarer is for ‘La Folia’ to be hidden within music unannounced. It can be found also (hidden) in a secular cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach ‘Unser trefflicher lieber Kammerherr' (1742) from the ‘Bauernkantate’ (BWV 212).

http://www.folias.nl/html5f.html

[Aristus]

2. This is very interesting.

Thank you!

[FreepFryer]

3. You're most welcome - enjoy! (n/t)

[pangaia]

4. One of the early variations, didn;t count them,

uses the same dotted eighth rhythm as the 1st mvt of the Beethoven 7th.
Then a couple variations later one is a bit similar to the scherzo in the Beethoven 9th. Happens to be the same rhythm.

[elleng]

5. Interesting!

Coming up soon (will post link in lounge when it plays @ 1:29)

Violin Concerto
Ludwig van Beethoven
Itzhak Perlman (violin) | Berlin Philharmonic | Daniel Barenboim (conductor)