Musical Borrowing
An Annotated Bibliography

Individual record

[+] Rosen, Charles. "Influence: Plagiarism and Inspiration." 19th-Century Music 4 (Fall 1980): 87-100. Reprinted in On Criticizing Music: Five Philosophical Perspectives, ed. Kingsley Price, 16-37. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981.

Influences on one composer by another's work are demonstrated between Haydn and Mozart. In the first of two examples, the rhythmic shape of Mozart's fugal Gigue for Piano, K. 574 parallels the gigue finale of Haydn's C Major Quartet, Op. 20, No. 2. Mozart was familiar with Haydn's quartets Op. 20 and imitated them closely for years. Similarities are also drawn between Haydn's Symphony No. 81 and Mozart's Prague Symphony, including the use of ostinati, a flatted seventh degree within the introductions, similar rhythmic patterns, and the use of new motifs. Influence through structural modeling is then illustrated by a comparison of the finales from Brahms's D Minor Piano Concerto and Beethoven's Piano Concerto in C Minor.

Works: Schubert: Piano Sonata in A Minor, D. 959 (93); Brahms: Piano Sonata in C Major, Op. 1 (93); Scherzo, Op. 4 (93); Piano Concerto No. 2 (94).

Index Classifications: 1700s, 1800s

Contributed by: Marc Moskovitz



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