Posted: 3/12/2016
Introduction
I am by no means an expert on classical music.
I did not grow up with classical music. I only really discovered classical music for myself a few years ago and for several months now I have been listening to all kinds of classical music from all kinds of composers from the past 400 years.
I am truly amazed about the richness and variation of classical music that has developed over the centuries.
About Pastiche
Definition: “an artistic work in a style that imitates that of another work, artist, or period” (Oxford Pocket Dictionary as quoted here, emphasis added)
Description by Encyclopaedia Britannica (EB): “Britannica does not currently have an article on this topic. … fraudulence in the arts
- In the composite fraud, or pastiche, the forger combines copies of various parts of another artist’s work to form a new composition and adds a few connecting elements of his own to make it a convincing presentation. This type of forgery is more difficult to detect than the copy. Such a combining of various elements from different pieces can be very deceptive, because a creative artist” (emphasis added)
I disagree with Encyclopedia Britannica that composite fraud should be associated with a pastiche. Actually, what EB is describing is also a process of invention or creativity out of which new things may emerge.
There is little doubt in my mind that classical composers imitated or, to use a modern term, plagiarized music from other composers. Imitation is the sincerest of flattery or acknowledgement! Without pastiche the world would have been a lot poorer!
Intellectual Property Rights - Specifically Copyright
As my blog amply attests, I am not a particular fan of excessive intellectual property rights or intellectual property rights are in the end not property rights at all, because ideas are rarely if ever developed or owned by a single person or company.
I don’t believe that classical music would have been so amazing had similar intellectual property rights existed and were enforced by government before classical music developed.
For the sake of argument, I will assume that copyrights were not really in effect on an international scale before the Berne Convention of 1886. Thus, until about 1886 copyrights were not widely accepted or enforced in Europe or America.
Examples Of Pastiche
This chapter is under construction and definitely not exhaustive as I do not have the time to do more research. Thus, a few stumbled upon examples have to suffice here.
“Mysliveček provided his younger friend Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with significant compositional models in the genres of symphony, Italian serious opera, and violin concerto; both Wolfgang and his father Leopold Mozart considered him an intimate friend from the time of their first meetings in Bologna in 1770 … He was close to the Mozart family, and there are frequent references to him in the Mozart correspondence.”
“His Violin Concerto No. 1, in G minor, Op. 26 (1866) is one of the most popular Romantic violin concertos. It uses several techniques from Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor. ”
“"[Joseph] Haydn later remembered Porpora thus: "There was no lack of Asino, Coglione, Birbante [ass, cullion, rascal], and pokes in the ribs, but I put up with it all, for I profited greatly from Porpora in singing, in composition, and in the Italian language."[1] He also said that he had learned from the maestro "the true fundamentals of composition".”
“Nevertheless, his compositions for the instrument mark an epoch in the history of chamber music. His influence was not confined to his own country. Johann Sebastian Bach studied the works of Corelli and based an organ fugue (BWV 579) on Corelli's Opus 3 of 1689. Handel's Opus 6 Concerti Grossi take Corelli's own older Opus 6 Concerti as models, rather than the later three-movement Venetian concerto of Antonio Vivaldi favoured by Bach.”
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