Mikael Rasmusson replies to Wes Crone:

>>...  Many people have commented that Brahms' 1st symphony sounds like it
>>should be Beethoven's 10th and have also claimed that the anthem from the
>>finale in the Brahms sounds strikingly similar to the famous "Ode to Joy"
>>from The Beethoven 9th.  to me I say hogwash.  Sure they have similarities.
>
>It is that third bar of the main subject (ta ta-ta ta ta) in the finale
>which he borrowed from Beethoven. Brahms uses that bar to get things going.

Oh foot.  This reminds me of Sigmund Spaeth, the musical Tune Detective of
the Thirties, who "proved" that "Yes, We Have No Bananas" was stolen from
Handel's "Halleluia Chorus." It's one Beethoven bar - or is it half a bar?
- and the surrounding context is completely different.  I think Tovey said
it best:  the only similarity between the main theme of the finale of
Beethoven's 9th and that of the finale of Brahms's 1st is that Brahms's
melody is the only one remotely as good as Beethoven's.

Steve Schwartz