# listening test: opera lift in 1970s mega-hit



## Donald Sauter (Apr 29, 2017)

I insist there is an unmistakable lift from a well-known opera by a well-known composer in this seventies pop song which I'm guessing you'll recognize even if you didn't listen to 1970s pop music. It's iconic (whatever that means).






Rules:

1. No fair web searching, even though it would be pretty hard to turn up the answer with a web search. My efforts to alert the pop world have fallen on deaf ears. (Wikipedia rejected my revelation, hummmph.)

2. Have fun.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Haven't a clue.


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## ma7730 (Jun 8, 2015)

nina foresti said:


> Haven't a clue.


I'm with you. Maybe it's something Mozart I don't know?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Rather painful. You might at least have told us what minute and second to skip to.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

not an opera but the Freddy Mercury piano section reminds me of "peter and the wolf theme" but then Queen song blends in other themes and melodies


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

ma7730 said:


> I'm with you. Maybe it's something Mozart I don't know?


I am with you both.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

So how long do we wait??????????????


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

This is not an answer but there's another Queen song from the 70s that strongly reminds me of the Andante from Carl Maria von Weber's 4th piano sonata.

Or, I guess, for me, it goes the other way around. I knew the Queen first. So even now, checking that it was the right piece, it brings to mind Queen, but I have lost track of which song it is!


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

One of my favorites is the purloining from _La Boheme_ by the _Phantom of the Opera_ where he sings, "Past the point of no return, no backward glances, OUR GAMES OF MAKE BELIEVE ARE AT AN END"
which follows the same melody as Puccini's aria where Mimi sings in the last act, " Sono andate, fingevo di dormire, PERCHE VOLLI CONTE SOLA RESTARE"


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## Donald Sauter (Apr 29, 2017)

> Rather painful. You might at least have told us what minute and second to skip to.

> So how long do we wait??????????????

All right, all right. Did everybody see Rule 2?  Just thought I'd give somebody a chance to show off his opera brains before doling out clues.

Start listening at about 3:17, just preceding the shouts of "Galileo! Galileo!" in the (supposed) "comic courtroom trial" in Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" song.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Sorry all I got from it was at 3:25 "glow little glow worm, glimmer, glimmer..."


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## Donald Sauter (Apr 29, 2017)

nina foresti said:


> Sorry all I got from it was at 3:25 "glow little glow worm, glimmer, glimmer..."


Ha ha. And name the opera that THAT's from!

But now you're getting me sidetracked -- back to the original question. Here's clue No. 2:

http://www.donaldsauter.com/ntt-64.mp3


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## ma7730 (Jun 8, 2015)

Donald Sauter said:


> Ha ha. And name the opera that THAT's from!
> 
> But now you're getting me sidetracked -- back to the original question. Here's clue No. 2:
> 
> http://www.donaldsauter.com/ntt-64.mp3


Now that you put that, I do hear the similarity.
I still don't know what it is though.


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## Donald Sauter (Apr 29, 2017)

To polish this off (by popular demand!), it sure sounds to me like Freddy Mercury borrowed a snippet from Hector Berlioz's "Benvenuto Cellini" for use in "Bohemian Rhapsody". The music is just too wildly off-the-wall for independent invention, no?

Besides the similarity in music, there's also a similarity in the action underlying the music. People who can make sense of rock song lyrics say the passage in the Queen song is a "comic courtroom trial", and "Scaramouche, the fandango, Galileo Galilei, Figaro and Bismillah are rival factions fighting over the narrator's soul." (wikipedia).

In the corresponding spot in "Benvenuto Cellini", Teresa and her protective father Balducci are calling the neighbors and servants to give Fieramosca a lambasting for his crime of sneaking into Teresa's bedroom. "Gaetana! Catarina! Fornarina! Petronilla! Scolastica!"

It's a bit more complicated than that, and Fieramosca, who is Teresa's betrothed, is more or less innocent of the charge, but that's what's happening on the surface.

For a quick comparison:

Bohemian Rhapsody (3:17): 



Benvenuto Cellini snippet: http://www.donaldsauter.com/ntt-64.mp3


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

Well done Donald. There's an uncanny similarity. And thanks for putting up out of our misery


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## Donald Sauter (Apr 29, 2017)

But wait -- we're not done yet! We still have Nina's brainteaser to polish off: 

nina foresti> Sorry all I got from it was at 3:25 "glow little glow worm, glimmer, glimmer..."

"The Glow-Worm" (Das Glühwürmchen), by Paul Lincke, is from his operetta "Lysistrata" (1902), based on the play by Aristophanes. Bet you never knew Glow-Worm was so highbrow, huh?  And I can't swear Freddy Mercury plagiarized it, even unconsciously, for those bits at 3:11 3:28 and 3:40. Not quite so off-the-wall as, "Gaetana! Catarina! Fornarina!" . . .


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

You mean I got it right???? Do I win something?
LOL
Incidentally, along the same line, yesterday my mate and I were listening to Gotterdammerung \with Nilsson on Sirius and I swear that we discovered a Leonard Bernstein steal at the end: "I have a love and it's all that I need etc. etc..." just as clear as a bell!
Lennie! For shame, sir!


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

nina foresti said:


> You mean I got it right???? Do I win something?
> LOL
> Incidentally, along the same line, yesterday my mate and I were listening to Gotterdammerung \with Nilsson on Sirius and I swear that we discovered a Leonard Bernstein steal at the end: "I have a love and it's all that I need etc. etc..." just as clear as a bell!
> Lennie! For shame, sir!


You're price is .......... drum roll ..............the eternal fame on this forum. :cheers:


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Pugg said:


> You're price is .......... drum roll ..............the eternal fame on this forum. :cheers:


I'll take it!!! Can't be too fussy these days.


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## Loge (Oct 30, 2014)

Always liked Queen's riff on Wagner.


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## Donald Sauter (Apr 29, 2017)

nina foresti said:


> You mean I got it right???? Do I win something?
> LOL
> Incidentally, along the same line, yesterday my mate and I were listening to Gotterdammerung \with Nilsson on Sirius and I swear that we discovered a Leonard Bernstein steal at the end: "I have a love and it's all that I need etc. etc..." just as clear as a bell!
> Lennie! For shame, sir!


Yes! You solved your own brainteaser! If I were you, and not totally satisfied with eternal fame, I'd pay myself 30 million dollars. Seriously, that little Glow-Worm catch was nice. I wonder...

About the Wagner/Bernstein discovery, could you provide some links with timings for the edification of the whole of operadom? It sounds like fun. I don't recognize the Bernstein lyrics, and (to be honest) have not yet thrown myself into the Ring.

Finally, wanted to mention that "Benvenuto Cellini" (the answer to _my_ brainteaser) is one of my (many) faves. I hope some members are moved to track it down.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Donald: Timings aren't necessary if you are familiar with the song, "I have a love..." because it is the same melody as the last 20 seconds ending notes and chords of Gotterdammerung. You just cannot miss it.
In fact, if you happen to be reading this before midnight on Thursday, May 18, (it's 11 pm right now) you can actually catch the end on Sirius.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Mercury was an opera fan, adored Caballe, did an album and opened the Barcelona Olympics with her. His music had a dramatic, operatic quality. Caballe sang a beautiful piece he wrote for her at a concert.I did a speech about her that I posted on Youtube that went into their collaboration.


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## Scott in PA (Aug 13, 2016)

Not only does Bernstein riff the Redemption motif from _Gotterdammerung_, but just a few notes later I always hear a snippet from the Adagietta from Mahler's Fifth! (To the words "I love him").






(Starts at 2:20)

No wonder we love _West Side Story_. A little help from Richard and Gustav.


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

Scott in PA said:


> Not only does Bernstein riff the Redemption motif from _Gotterdammerung_, but just a few notes later I always hear a snippet from the Adagietta from Mahler's Fifth! (To the words "I love him").
> 
> 
> 
> ...


He got Ludwig's help too! "Somewhere" sounds a lot like the opening melody from the slow movement of the Emperor Concerto.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Lennie also purloined "Somewhere" from"Swan Lake" . ("Hold my hand and I'll take you there...")


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Bettina said:


> He got Ludwig's help too! "Somewhere" sounds a lot like the opening melody from the slow movement of the Emperor Concerto.


Maybe just a little bit....


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

You know, folks, given that all composers have access to the same notes, it could simply be honest coincidences.....I could see possible "influences" but not copying another composer's work and either speeding up or slowing down a tempo to conceal it.


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## Donald Sauter (Apr 29, 2017)

Thanks for all the great comments. They lead me to a theory . . .

Nina noted the similarity of "I have a love" from West Side Story and the final notes of Die Götterdämmerung. Here's a handy link. Listen at 7:10.






And here's the West Side Story song, "A boy like that/I have a love". Listen at 2:05.






The opera commentator Ernest Newman (whom I believe to have been a major authority) identifies Wagner's theme as "a new version of the motive of Redemption by Love." (1928)

Get it -- a major LOVE motive by Wagner, and "I have a LOVE" by Bernstein?

Then Scott pointed out the similarity of "I love him" a little later (2:22) in the Bernstein song to a motive in the Adagietto in Mahler's 5th Symphony. I caught it a few times, my favorite being at 5:30 in this performance conducted by Bernstein. (Is that a smirk on his face there? Just kidding.)






I thought, hmmm, wouldn't it be really neat if . . .

I didn't hold out much hope, but I cranked up the Wikipedia entry on the Adagietto . . . and there it was! "It is said to represent Mahler's LOVE song to his wife Alma." (emphasis mine, haha)

So my theory is that Leonard Bernstein consciously chose those two "love" themes as a mighty foundation for his own small, pop, love song. I don't think for a moment he was trying to get away with anything. I think it was an open compliment and tribute to the former masters. I think that, with a brain like his, he probably couldn't imagine anyone missing the Wagner quote on the first listen. After all, didn't he try to teach us everything he knew about music? 

That's basically it, but I have a tendency to overdo things.

I was hoping to be able to report that Nina's discovery was a first, or at least hasn't been documented on the web. But my search did turn up a hit -- just a single one. It's in the book "Whaaaaaaaaat!? I Don't Get Classical Music: A Self-Help Desperation Guide", by Dennis Báthory-Kitsz. He writes:

"If you sing the words, 'I have a love, and it's all...' -- just that much -- you're not hearing Bernstein. In fact, you're hearing a phrase plucked directly, melody and harmony, from the end of Act III in Richard Wagner's opera Götterdämmerung." (p89)

Even supposing Lennie didn't have the noblest reasons for quoting Wagner, understand that Bathory-Kitsz is totally cool about such things. He basically believes that everything a composer comes up with necessarily jumps off from what has gone before.

With Ernest Newman's help, I tracked down the original appearance of the Redemption by Love motive. It appeared back in Act 3 of Die Walküre, right after Brünnhilde reveals to Sieglinde that she is holding "the world's most wonderful hero" in her womb. "The orchestra gives out fortissimo a theme -- that of Redemption by Love -- that will play an important part in the later stages of the Ring, and over it Sieglinde's voice soars in an ecstasy of joy: "Oh, highest of wonders! Noblest of maids..."

You can hear "O hehrstes Wunder" here, at 1:25. The excerpt also introduces Siegfried's theme at 0:30, and again at 1:00.






Whew...

Now, Bathory-Kitsz mentioned another thing, that the "I have a love" theme is "also heard as a brief instrumental at the end of the musical." I would never have caught that. Here it is at 0:54 in the Finale, which is a reprise of "Somewhere":






So, even though the "I have a love" theme isn't the very last thing we hear in West Side Story, I'm betting Bernstein had Wagner in mind when he brought it back there. So neat...

Finally, all this chatter about West Side Story is totally justified here since there is an "operatic" version with Te Kanawa, Carreras, Troyanos, and Horne.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

If you aren't yet sick of this tracing of melodies, did I mention the opening bars of _Das Rheingold_ which sounds just like "Taps"?


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

nina foresti said:


> If you aren't yet sick of this tracing of melodies, did I mention the opening bars of _Das Rheingold_ which sounds just like "Taps"?


And beyond that, near the beginning of the _Parsifal_ Vorspeil one can hear the "Our Father" ("hallowed be thy name")


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