John Williams--Star Wars music (1 Viewer)

[The AntiDitka]

So I was listening to Holtz "The Planets" and couldn't help but notice some similarities with Mars and John Williams music. Thoughts?

 

[Zaphod]

From what I've heard, John Williams was asked by George Lucas to emulate the Planets for the score to Star Wars.

 

[superchuck500]

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

he 'creatively borrows' a lot
you can hear the jaws theme in Dvorak's New World Symphony

 

[Yatman]

LSU's own Bill Conti borrowed liberally from Tchaikovsky for The Right Stuff and won the music Oscar that year.

TRS is loaded with The Planets, too. Thief!

 

[Madmarsha]

he 'creatively borrows' a lot
you can hear the jaws theme in Dvorak's New World Symphony

 

[Madmarsha]

LSU's own Bill Conti borrowed liberally from Tchaikovsky for The Right Stuff and won the music Oscar that year.

TRS is loaded with The Planets, too. Thief!

Public domain, baby.

 

[Yatman]

..

Public domain, baby.

Trudat. Most folks don't know the original stuff anyway, so fair game.

Williams' music is usually exceptional and evocative. Perhaps people of the future will keep his tunes alive...

 

[superchuck500]

Perhaps people of the future will keep his tunes alive...

I think this song is from the future - and the future is funky

 

[tenordas]

This was well known among musicians right after the movie came out. Besides the rip-off of Mars for the Empire marching theme, Williams also stole the melody of the main Star Wars theme from Puccini's Gianni Schicchi, parts of the incidental music from Stravinski's Firebird Suite, and stole liberally from Wagner's Ring Cycle for several other themes in the music.

 

[Dago]

I think this song is from the future - and the future is funky

I had that album lol

 

[Sun Wukong]

Good artists copy, great artists steal.

 

[redmikeu2]

A little bit of Psycho is in New Hope.

 

[Saintman2884]

Sun, Led Zeppelin agrees with your statement in spades and actually, their plagiarism is almost beyond criminal it's so blatant. Dazed and Confused was ripped off and stolen IMHO, part of the main intro melody to Stairway to Heaven, many claim, is very similar to Spirit's 1968 song. Quite a few prominent old Mississippi Delta blues musicians had to sue Led Zeppelin to force them to grant them song-writing royalty credits.
Deep Purple's opening riff on "Black Night" has been accused of being lifted from Ricky Nelson's "Summertime". Although compared to Zeppelin, Deep Purple were actually choir boys in terms of cleverly plagiarizing legendary, obscure American blues artists.

 

[tenordas]

Good artists copy, great artists steal.

That quote is actually from Igor Stravinsky who said when asked by a reporter about accusations that he had borrowed themes from another composer, "Only amateurs borrow. Professionals steal."