Lloyd Webber vs. Puccini

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 4:02pm

I always knew Lloyd Webber was said to have "stolen" melodies from classical composers but this shocked me.

I saw the Metropolitan Opera's HD broadcast of Puccini's "La Fanciulla del West" ("The Girl of the Golden West") and was stunned to hear that the main love theme was Phantom's "Music of the Night."

In the Puccini, the love theme reoccurs about a half-dozen times, so it's not like it's one or two notes or an accidental similarity. Each time I was appalled that Lloyd Webber could so brazenly take another composer's love theme and claim it as his own.

Well, apparently the Puccini estate was too. The opera was still in copyright, they sued and Lloyd Webber "settled out of court," so there was no public admission of wrongdoing and we'll never know how much Puccini's heirs got. Given the phenomenal success of Phantom over the years, I hope it was a lot.

This article about the recent San Francisco Opera production includes a YouTube with a recording of the love theme cued up to the "Music of the Night moment:

http://sfist.com/2010/06/25/hear_the_opera_andrew_lloyd_webber.php

(By the way, the broadcast features soprano Deborah Voigt and is well worth watching, even if the story is a little creaky.)

Updated On: 9/4/11 at 04:02 PM

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 4:08pm

very old news

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 4:09pm

I would love to know how much he settled for.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 4:20pm

Here's another. The Phantom phrase happens at the 0:41 point:

http://youtu.be/q-CtnLDcnjU

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 4:21pm

Many composers have fears that what seems a new melody they are creating in their heads is something they have heard earlier in life from somewhere.

There was a show at Joe's Pub a few years ago that went over a whole bunch of songs similar to Webber's.

He spent his life around a lot of music, it happens. Updated On: 9/4/11 at 04:21 PM

[ClapYo'Hands]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 4:24pm

I love how this fits in with the argument of Lloyd Webber being a crap composer...does this mean Puccini was too?

Realistically though, just because there are similarities it doesn't mean the piece was consciously plagiarised. I have written pieces of music before that I have realised sound like something else and have therefore changed them. However, there are only a certain amount of melodies humans can write before similarities appear. Lloyd Webber of course could have had this happen to him, but by the time The Music of the Night was heard by the Puccini estate and challenged, it had already become an instant hit. Why would Lloyd Webber even try and change it when The Phantom of the Opera was already taking off so quickly? I can see why he settled out of court if this is the case.

The important thing, of course, is to consider the number of things that Puccini undoubtedly stole. Consciously or other wise.

EDIT: nomdeplume, we're thinking along the same lines. Updated On: 9/4/11 at 04:24 PM

[algy]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 4:30pm

This is an old version, but I saw Kit and the Widow doing their latest version of this song at the BBC's Comedy Prom earlier this month - I think Pal Joey may appreciate it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz1IDmmcetQ

No one's uploaded the prom version. And their Sondheim song didn't make it to the TV broadcast. (again this is an earlier version)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbBh69Pa4PY&feature=related

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 4:30pm

And really, it was

Puccini vs. Webber

[redmustang]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 4:42pm

There ARE only so many notes on the scale.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 5:13pm

I know there are only so many notes, but I had never seen Fanciulla and was very curious about it.

Every time the love theme came up, I thought about Phantom of the Opera, as, I think, does nearly everyone.

The reason I think Lloyd Webber settled out of court is not just the similarity of the note progression. If that were all, one supposes his lawyers would have urged him on and he would have prevailed.

It's that the melody line in both cases is used to create the exact same emotional climax for the audience.

So it's not just a question of melodic similarity. It's a question of one artist appropriating another creative content and intent.

You can see it here at 6:39-6:50, with subtitles:

http://youtu.be/ageTFz1VzZQ

Updated On: 9/4/11 at 05:13 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 5:17pm

Here's another one. You can hear it at 0:31

http://youtu.be/lEcKQxHpdXo

Updated On: 9/4/11 at 05:17 PM

[metropolis10111]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 5:46pm

So if a composer takes a melody that is 'traditional' and uses it in his show should it be noted or let the audience think that it comes from the composer? Updated On: 9/4/11 at 05:46 PM

[sparrman]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 5:58pm

I had a similar reaction when I heard the opera at the Met many years ago. To be fair, it's really not much more than a phrase, but the orchestral harmonies underneath are identical too.

And really, there are phrases in Puccini's "humming chorus" from Butterfly that are as close to "Bring Him Home" from Les Mis. So Lloyd Webber is hardly the only one to know a good melody when he steals one.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 6:07pm

Not sure what "traditional" or "noted" means. Folk tunes are usually old enough to have fallen out of copyright protection, but Puccini is still protected, as are, obviously, Lloyd Webber's.

But "Music of the Night" and "Quello che tacete" (the name of the aria) have pretty much identical emotional content: a "bad" man possessed by obsessive love, attempting to convince a reluctant young woman to love him. (Not to mention that the Phantom, being a creature of the opera, would know all Puccini operas, even if Lloyd Webber were to claim he did not know this particular melody from Fanciulla.)

It would be as if I were to sit down and compose a musical about a political couple--say, Bill and Hillary Clinton--and I used the brief but climactic phrase from "A New Argentina" in which Evita sings "He supports you / For he loves you, / Understands you, / Is one of you...") with different lyrics:

Bill is charming,
Bill is handsome,
He needs votes and
He demands some

But that was all. The rest of the song would be different. But several times in the sequence and possibly in reprises, the incredible diva who played my Hillary would sing

Bill is charming,
Bill is handsome,
He needs votes and
He demands some

in the same sequence of thrilling notes Evita sings.

If Lloyd Webber sued me, I would settle out of court too.

Updated On: 9/4/11 at 06:07 PM

[SondheimFan5]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 6:08pm

The main theme in Sweeney ("Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd") is, intentionally, the Catholic Dies Irae backwards. But thats a little different.

[metropolis10111]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 6:21pm

But something like "How I Saved Roosevelt" from Assassins is note for note in a great many places the Washington Post March my Sousa... yet it's called a pastiche. When does pastiche become stealing ...must be ones point of view

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 6:39pm

For starters, when the original work is protected by copyright.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 7:08pm

Copyright and the fact that Sondheim INTENDS for his audience to hear and be aware of the tune from Sousa. It's a quotation, just as the inverted "Dies Irae" in Sweeney.

Thanks, joey. Yes, people have always said, "Well, Webber steals from Puccini." But my knowledge of Puccini wasn't sophisticated enough to hear it until the two tunes were played side by side.

Not that Webber is the only one who does this. Compare Romberg's "Serenade" with the violin solo between the first two scenes of Massenet's THAIS.

[metropolis10111]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 8:18pm

Copyright aside because I really feel that that is not the real issue here but is really who wrote what that argument could be made for Webber as well like this...


fact that Webber INTENDS for his audience to hear and be aware of the tune from Puccini....


I just don't buy that one author can do it and another can't .

[PitPro2004]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 8:34pm

If you REALLY want to hear what he has stolen, go and listen to Song and Dance. All he did was add a drum part to the Puccini piece, he never even tried to hide it.

What got me was an interview he did some odd years later when asked if he could go back in time and change or re-vamp a show of his or not; he said, regarding S&D that he wouldn't change a single note.

Well of course not, he lifted the entire thing!

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 8:39pm

"(Not to mention that the Phantom, being a creature of the opera, would know all Puccini operas, even if Lloyd Webber were to claim he did not know this particular melody from Fanciulla.)"

Except that Webber set the main course of the action in 1881, three years before Puccini's first opera, Le Villi, premiered in 1884.

So maybe Webber was suggesting that Puccini stole from the Phantom?

[Simon4]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 8:40pm

This video has been around on YouTube for a while
ALW - Genius or Plagiarist?

[PitPro2004]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 8:50pm

I don't know if there is a link online, but after Phantom opened, Opera Magazine printed an article that was marvelous and painstaking in it's research of every single opera Phantom's melodic lines are lifted from. (The article is VERY long). I will see if I can find the magazine sometime and link it here. Very interesting reading.

For anyone who cares...the issue has a black and white cover with headshot of Samuel Ramey on the front. Someone might be able to locate it on the net.

[chewy5000]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 8:55pm

I think you're thinking of Paganini?

[metropolis10111]

Posted: 9/4/11 at 9:16pm

But he even has said that S&D is based on variations of a Puccini theme.... I don't think Puccini wrote the WHOLE work, but rather Webber was looking to sort of riff on it .