Rick Mabry:
>Listening to George Gershwin's piano concerto in F major today, at
>several points I was struck by the similarity of one particular passage
>to a part of the theme music to the old Perry Mason TV series. Has
>anyone noticed this, and if so, how striking do you consider the
>similarity?
Not at all. They're simply using the same kind of dissonance, voiced
in similar ways. It's no more striking than the similarity between the
opening to Handel's Hallelujah Chorus and "Yes, We Have No Bananas."
Further, if you really listen to the concerto, you'll find that particular
theme in the first movement and earlier in the last movement as well.
I suspect the reason why you noticed it where you did was that the tempi
and dynamics were similar.
Steve Schwartz