With all the talk about popular musicians' borrowing from the classics,
I wonder if anyone's interested in a thread on classical composers'
borrowings from each other.  Back in the early 70s I did a couple of
Classical Music Plagiarism Orgies on WHRB, and, as the saying goes, I got
a million of 'em.  A few of the better known:

1) The opening of Mahler's Third and the finale of Brahms' First

2) The finale of Brahms' First and Beethoven's "Ode to Joy"

3) The opening of Brahms' Second and the Eroica

4) The finale of Schumann's Second and the opening of Mendelssohn's Italian

5) The main "swan" theme from Tchaikovsky "Swan Lake" and a motif from
Wagner's Lohengrin

A couple of the lesser known:

1) The slow movement of Haydn's 88th and several spots in Beethoven,
including the Trio of the Scherzo of Opus 18, No. 5 and the first movement
of the Piano Sonata in c, Op. 10, No. 1

2) The slow introduction to the finale of Brahms' Piano Quintet and the
slow introduction to the finale of Beethoven's Quartetto Serioso

A couple of coincidences which are probably just coincidences:

1) Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" and a passage in Mozart's Misericordias Domini,
K. 222 (it's uncanny)

2) Beethoven's Eroica and the introduction to Mozart's teenage Singspiel
"Bastien et Bastienne"

One which to my knowledge no one has ever discussed in depth is the
relationship between Brahms 1st and Beethoven's 6th.  The sequences from
the beginning of the scherzo through to the opening of the finale are
strikingly similar: outdoor, rather rustic scherzo; faster and even more
rustic trio; dark, stormlike section; hymn tune.  At one point in the
trio of the Brahms there's a close thematic echo of the scherzo of the
Beethoven.  In addition, the new theme that appears at the climax of the
development of the first movement of the Brahms is almost note for note the
phrase which appears at the final clearing of the storm in the Beethoven.

An interesting question: how can we spot an unconscious or conscious
borrowing vs.  a deliberate allusion? Which, for example, is the echo of
Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" at the beginning of the development of the finale
of Schubert's Great C Major?

I apologize--I can blather on for days about this stuff...

Peter Goldstein
Juniata College
Huntingdon, PA