In this treatment of the life and work of Schafer, several examples of borrowing are discussed. Son of Heldenleben (1968) is based on Strauss's Ein Heldenleben, and it demonstrates Schafer's ambivalence toward the Romantic era. Strauss's first theme serves as a cantus firmus in extreme augmentation for most of the piece, and other borrowed themes are presented in a rush at the end of the work. Written for orchestra and tape, Schafer's piece praises and belittles Strauss simultaneously, a conflict which is audible. Besides the direct quotations, two tone rows are derived from Strauss. Adieu, Robert Schumann (1976) is an example of collage, as it uses quotations from several of Schumann's works, including Kreisleriana and Carnaval. Written for a contralto, who plays the role of Clara Schumann, and orchestra, the work takes place in the last days before Schumann's death in a mental institution. It exemplifies Schafer's ability to blend old and new styles to create something distinctly his own.

Works: Schafer: Son of Heldenleben (110-17), Adieu, Robert Schumann (158-60).

Sources: Richard Strauss: Ein Heldenleben, Robert Schumann: Kreisleriana, Carnaval.

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Jessica Sternfeld

Some modern composers have felt limited by the mainstream avant-garde movement and have turned elsewhere for inspiration. This includes uses of music of the East, a tradition which goes back to Debussy and consists mostly of stylistic modeling. It also includes the use of jazz, which brings a popular style to art music. Avant-garde composers have also looked to music of the past, mostly to medieval music. While many use general stylistic references, a few have used direct borrowings. For example, Peter Maxwell Davies's Missa super L'Homme Armé offers his criticism on the material he borrows, demonstrating that the mass has degenerated in modern society; hence, he interrupts the sacred reference with the foxtrot. Donatoni reduces borrowed material to small sound bites, offering no respect for the composer's ego or personality. These and other examples demonstrate that the search for outside inspiration has advantages as well as disadvantages; some composers seem to seek mere novelty or shock value, but fresh developments in the field have been interesting in any case.

Works: Berio: Sinfonia (141-2); Davies: Missa super L'Homme Armé (142); Donatoni: Etwas ruhiger im Ausdruck (143-4).

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Jessica Sternfeld

The opera Taverner by Peter Maxwell Davies highlights the composer's ability to portray the struggle between old and new musical styles. Davies has always been interested in musical borrowing. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, this was manifested by his interest in melodic fragments from the seventeenth century. In the 1970s, his interest turned toward theatrical venues and his borrowing became more extensive. The opera tells the story of the composer John Taverner and is based on Taverner's In Nomine, stated in full only at the end of the work. Throughout the work, Davies plays with certain intervals and phrases from Taverner's piece, including the whole tones found in the cantus firmus and the tritones that appear in several voices. By greatly slowing the harmonic motion, Davies is able to reinterpret the pitches and their functions as they stood in the original. This relates to the theme of the opera, which involves an examination of the artist being in league with the devil and with death.

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Jessica Sternfeld

Many twentieth-century composers are motivated to borrow musical materials out of a sense of nostalgia. Two practices can be found: that of Mahler and Ives and that of the neo-classicists. Mahler and Ives both used quoted material drawn from popular and folk culture, Mahler for the purpose of capturing the spirit of the people and thus enabling himself to speak for them, Ives for the purpose of presenting his observations of life and nature; both seldom develop their musical materials. Ives's process of composition is similar to that of the writer James Joyce, in that both begin with simple subjects and use them to create multi-layered meanings. In contrast to Mahler and Ives, the neo-classicists display their nostalgia through reference not to popular music but to the art music of the 18th century. Ironically, the listener finds neo-classicism, with its limited frame of reference, easier to grasp than the music of Ives and Mahler, which draws from a larger pool of resources.

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Sergio Bezerra, Randal Tucker, Jessica Sternfeld

This essay, written in 1975, is part of a collection of personal memoirs by the composer. Although many of his works involve borrowings of various kinds, this essay deals with the concept explicitly and presents a subjective, first-hand account of the process. In 1972, Henze wrote a piano piece he called "Prélude" which distantly recalled Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. Through further thinking and dreaming, the orchestra piece Tristan began to take shape. Part of the process involved a computer analysis of the first four measures of Act III of Wagner's opera. Tristan, written in 1973, uses tapes generated by the computer analysis of the Wagner excerpt as well as a full orchestra. Other quotations in the work include several bars of Brahms's First Symphony, which Henze explains is intended to represent an enemy, and Chopin's funeral march from his Sonata in B-flat major.

Works: Henze: Prélude (222), Tristan (223-29).

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Jessica Sternfeld

This issue of Tempo is dedicated to the works of Robin Holloway, and this article focuses on his chamber works. Scenes from Schumann involves paraphrases of six Schumann songs: two from Myrthen, one from Dichterliebe, and three from the Opus 39 Liederkreis. Holloway has "re-composed" them, delving into the songs and presenting them in enriched and intensified versions. Holloway's treatment of "Mondnacht" serves as an example. Along with harmonic changes, he adds borrowings from Wagner's Ring cycle and Tristan und Isolde, Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire, and Debussy's Rondes de printemps. Holloway's Fantasy-Pieces for wind quintet offer a more subtle borrowing technique, in this case drawing on the Opus 24 Liederkreis. Several other brief examples demonstrate Holloway's basically romantic style of borrowing, which creates a feeling of separation or removal from the older material.

Works: Holloway: Scenes from Schumann (21-2), Fantasy-Pieces (22-3), Evening with Angels (23), Concertino No. 3 (23).

Index Classifications: 1800s

Contributed by: Jessica Sternfeld

Peter Maxwell Davies's instrumental piece Second Fantasia on John Taverner's In Nomine demonstrates the ways in which Davies and Mahler think alike. In works of both composers, the borrowed material, which is the surface of the work, contradicts the full meaning of the work. Only in context with the rest of the piece can the significance of the borrowing be understood, and this technique creates an irony associated with the borrowing. Davies often passes the borrowed idea through filters, rendering it changed, even grotesque. In the Fantasia, Davies borrows Taverner's cantus firmus and distorts it in various ways. In the first movement, for example, he states it in the oboe with reasonable clarity, but in the scherzo it is distorted through excessive vibrato by a solo violin. This is comparable to processes in Mahler's Ninth Symphony. After an extended examination of the harmonic and tonal processes to which the borrowed material is subjected, one can see Davies's ironic dual-level process at work.

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Jessica Sternfeld

Rochberg, who began as an atonal composer, has reincorporated tonality into his style as a reaction against the limitation of expression in atonal music. His Third String Quartet juxtaposes sections of atonal music with sections that strongly suggest the styles of Beethoven and Mahler, without using direct quotation. For example, the quartet's finale resembles the finale of Mahler's Ninth Symphony in hamony, mood, use of pedal point, and melodic figures to the point where one can see the two passages as belonging to the same piece. Motivic unification is used to unite historical with modern styles. Rochberg uses the styles of Beethoven and Mahler because of their expressive connotations and incorporates them into a new context. This way of using the music of the past is not reactionary, but progressive.

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Jessica Sternfeld, Sergio Bezerra

In Perle's Songs of Praise and Lamentation for chorus and orchestra, the musical borrowings are closely linked to literary references. The work consists of three movements: the first is a setting in Hebrew of Psalm 18, verses 4-15; the second is an a cappella setting of four poems by Rainer Maria Rilke from his Sonnets to Orpheus; and the third sets a poem by John Hollander written for this piece. Perle's style as exemplified in this work rests on his personal theory of twelve-tone modality as well as on the influences of other composers. The work laments the deaths of a number of composers through the use of borrowed music. The borrowings include Gregorian chant, Hebrew chant, and a number of specific works that follow the theme of lamentation. For example, Perle uses Ockeghem's Déploration sur la mort de Binchois, followed by Josquin's La Déploration de Johan Okeghem, followed in turn by Vinders's Lamentatio super morte Josquin de Prés. In the third movement, the roles of poetry and music are woven together most tightly. Hollander's poem refers to past poets as Perle's music refers to composers.

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Jessica Sternfeld

Roy Harris was a prolific borrower of folk songs. Stehman treats Harris's work in chronological order and in divisions by genre, so references to borrowing can be found throughout the book. However, Stehman makes no attempt to differentiate between stylistic allusion, specific quotation, and simple arrangements. Several pieces are treated in more extended discussions, and these include explanations of how the folk songs are borrowed in the works. The Folksong Symphony serves as one of the examples of borrowing, as each of the seven movements draws on one or more folk melodies. This piece for orchestra and chorus involves some extensive manipulations of borrowed tunes, including fragmentation, canon, and fantasia-like effects. Harris's Tenth Symphony also makes use of a folk tune, as the third movement is based on When Johnny Comes Marching Home. Harris's only violin sonata is an example of his ability to use folk materials in an abstract way; the tune I'll Be True to My Love is subjected to development and variations. Stehman also discusses Harris's self-borrowing (187) and his use of folk music in pieces for solo piano (225-26) without going into detail about any one work.

Works: Harris: Folksong Symphony (72-79), Tenth Symphony (124-31), Pere Marquette Symphony (137-44), Violin Sonata (210-11).

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Jessica Sternfeld

Composers of recent years have had mixed feelings about the use of music of the past, and they have borrowed in a variety of ways. Surges of interest in borrowing arose around certain occasions. For example, the 400th anniversary of Gesualdo's birth inspired a number of new works in 1960, and this helped create interest in using the works of Monteverdi and Cavalli in the 1960s and 70s. Others have turned to Bach, including Lukas Foss with his innovative use of Bach's Von Himmel Hoch in his Baroque Variations. Beethoven's bicentennial in 1970 inspired composers including Stockhausen and Ginastera to borrow in various ways. Kagel's "meta-collage" of small quotations from Beethoven's most popular works offers an interesting example. The twentieth century has also seen a movement called New Romanticism, consisting of a return to 19th-century tonality. Rochberg's quotation technique led him to a more general stylistic modeling, whereas Berio's use of Mahler was intended to honor him specifically. Eventually, New Romanticism focused more on stylistic modeling than exact references, and with the addition of jazz and ragtime devices, composers achieved a "polystylistic juxtaposition." Many pieces are mentioned, and the article includes an extensive list of modern works and the works from which they borrow. Those listed below are discussed in more detail.

Works: Stravinsky: Monumentum pro Gesualdo ad CD annum (640); Davies: Tenebrae super Gesualdo (642); Foss: Baroque Variations (643); Kagel: Ludwig van (645); Rochberg: Third String Quartet (647-8); Berio: Sinfonia (648-9); Cage: Cheap Imitation (651).

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Jessica Sternfeld