Plagiarism in Andrew Lloyd Webber songs

Andrew Lloyd Webber and his 'original' songs

22/12/2014

Don't get me wrong, I'm actually a huge fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber. A lot of people seem to look down on his music, dismissing it as clichéd and 'safe'. In some ways, of course, it is. But that's because the general public like simple melodies and clichéd chord progressions.

There is nothing new nowadays. It doesn't matter whether you look at literature, art or music - pretty much everything has already been done to some extent. In Western music there are only 12 different tones; and so only a limited number of variations! I'm pretty sure every 'recent' melody you name can be already found somewhere within the wealth of written music generated over the last 500 years or so.

The video below is a tongue-in-cheek poking fun at ALW, performed live in a village pub. Originally written and performed by Kit and the Widow, with a few adaptions and additions by myself.

~ Memory from Cats sounds like Ravel's Bolero.
~ I Don't Know How To Love Him from Jesus Christ Superstar is an almost exact copy of a theme from Mendelssohn's violin concerto in E Minor.
~ The 6 note motif sung with "Jesus Christ Superstar" is the same as one from Richard Strauss's September.
~ Themes in The Music of the Night from The Phantom of the Opera sound similar to Puccini's La Fanciulla (for which ALW was sued by Puccini's estate and settled out of court) and Come to Me, Bend to Me from Brigadoon.
~ The accompaniment to Don't Cry For Me Argentina is a version of JS Bach's Prelude in C.

~ The first few notes of Love Changes Everything from Aspects of Love are identical to the ones from JS Bach's Fugue in E Major (Well Tempered Clavier Book II).
~ The super famous chromatic riff from The Phantom of the Opera is almost identical to the one in Pink Floyd's Echoes.

21 Comments

Cornell Kimball link

23/12/2015 11:39:21 pm

I'm also a big fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber -- and of Pink Floyd and Johann Sebastian Bach. And I like all of the music/composers mentioned. I've listened to Jesus Christ Superstar many times and I kind of knew about the Mendelssohn violin concerto and "I Don't Know How to Love Him". But I didn't know about the Richard Strauss piece and the six notes of the JCS's theme song. I really like your video, it's all in fun and it's in appreciation. Thank you and thanks to whoever originally composed this witty (and educational) piece (Kit and the Widow, I'm guessing).

Matt Walker

24/12/2015 09:03:55 am

Thanks Cornell! Glad you liked it. Yes it is all in good fun. Kit & the Widow didn't originally include Pink Floyd's Echoes, which surprised me! Thanks for the comment.

ChrisR

3/8/2017 10:15:29 am

Thank you! An excellent piece and entertaining too. It is important that people understand the origin of work. They will be enriched by the original artist's repertoire AND not mislead into believing that another's uncredited theft is genius. It's theft and not 'borrowing' because there's no attribution or the intention to 'return' that which was misappropriated... A shame because credited improvements or 'variations' (pun intended) of a theme can be excellent.

RGP

27/12/2023 01:49:53 pm

Or even 'misled'. The past tense of 'lead' is 'led'. The homonym 'lead' is a metal, not a verb.

Chris

21/4/2018 10:30:54 am

Is no one gonna mention Bacchanalia in the Wizard of Oz soundtrack completely rips off Mussorgsky's Night On A Bare Mountain

Stephen James

18/1/2019 10:28:15 pm

Do you still have the words and music for this? If so, would you be willing to share it for my musical theatre class? Unlike ALW, I would be happy to attribute credit.
Steve James

Matthew Walker

19/1/2019 02:42:11 pm

hi Steve, yes send me an email via the contact form

Hayden

21/4/2019 09:42:49 am

Hi, very nice website, cheers!
-----------------------------------------
Need cheap hosting for just $10/year? Or VPS, where plans starts with $6/Mo?

Check here: url16.com/fbwueyblw

M.CAmpbell.

16/5/2019 09:08:40 am

You can add Vaughan Williams opening music in the London Symphony which has the gothic organ music from Phantom. Not forgetting he stole Stratford East Theatre Royal production of Phantom of the opera production ideas written by Ken Hill. This included the same white mask and motorised boat.

Graeme

30/7/2019 11:28:35 am

Also worth remembering the song Lloyd Webber "composed" for the Rugby World Cup in 1991 The World In Union completely ripped off the most prominent and famous melody in Jupiter from the Planets Suite by Holst.

Pietro

24/4/2020 08:51:16 am

Haven't you ever heard of "I vow to thee my country"? Holst himself re-used his theme from Jupiter when he was asked to compose the music for that British hymn, which is still sung today along with the more famous God Save the Queen, Rule Britannia and Jerusalem. Using the same melody in a song which is meant to represent your country among others doesn't look like "ripping off" to me. Moreover, I haven't found anything about Webber being involved in that at all, so I don't really understand the point of your comment.

Adan Davidson

23/2/2021 06:14:53 am

You don't understand why reusing someone else's music is not the same as reusing something you yourself wrote? Especially when you are being paid for it it. Also, it's composed for a TV program, not a nation anthem.

Can you please send me anything you have composed, written, or filmed, so that I can pass it off as my own, if it's any good that is.

Christopher

19/7/2022 08:01:54 pm

I can't find any source showing that ALW composed the World In Union song. It was apparently created by Charlie Skarbek:

"The melody used is known as Thaxted – it is taken from the central section of Jupiter, a movement from Gustav Holst’s orchestral suite The Planets, but is probably best known for it’s use in the hymn I Vow To Thee My Country. In 1991 composer and lyricist Charlie Skarbek was commissioned by World Rugby (then the International Rugby Football Board (IRFB)) to produce an anthem that encapsulated the spirit and values of the game."

https://www.rugbyworld.com/tournaments/rugby-world-cup/world-in-union-102276

However the Jupiter music was very specifically used in Sarah Brightman's 'Running,' though I can't find any source that cites ALW as a writer on it.

Anastasio Rossi

9/9/2019 12:13:55 am

ALW obviously borrowed from Rodgers and Hammerstein's "I Have Dreamed". I just can't recall the name of the song. ALW's melody is eerily similar to Rodgers' opening theme, "I have dreamed that your arms are lovely".

JWB

28/12/2019 11:35:02 pm

The "I am your angel of music...." melody from Phantom is markedly similar to the rousing horn sections from Sergei Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky, Battle on the Ice. The melody is almost note for note.

Callum P Salter

4/2/2020 03:39:13 pm

Many recent songs have been copied from, or at least have been inspired by the old masters. TOO many to list; but it matters not, as long as the reproduction is ‘easy on the ears’, & most of them ARE!

Kevin R link

31/12/2020 06:25:00 am

Thankk you for being you

Peter S

23/11/2023 07:13:32 pm

The chorus of Don't Cry For Me Argentina is borrowed from the opening theme of Brahms' first piano sonata.

ALW is very good at taking snippets of famous melodies, changing them slightly and putting them together in original ways. That's not unheard-of as already G. Mahler said that "everything has already been composed away".

Dan Reed

4/3/2024 01:47:42 pm

You can’t plagiarise your own works. Composers since the year dot have repurposed pieces to fit an occasion. In particular a certain Herr Johann Sebastian Bach had to compose a new anthem for the his employer to be sung at church each Sunday and with full orchestra etc….if he didn’t the rumour is he would loose his head. What happens if you have writters block? Reuse a previous work and make some changes here and there and e voilá you have a new piece of music. It worked because he kept his head and the employer was more than happy that he was getting a new anthem each week without realising that some of the works he had already heard before. Beethoven was known to have done this as well as Mozart. I believe Mozart wrote a clarinet concerto and uses the theme from another work all I know words are Alleluya.. An English composer called Ralph Vaughan Williams used a motif in some of his works which is lifted from the hymn tune that he wrote called Let All the Saints. The motif is the Alleluyas at the end. It apppears in his film score 49th Parallel. Same composer,was the the Croydon choral society. In a fit of rage he played the first Christ from Beethovens 9th Symphony. As a result we have the 4th Symphony high 8s troubling and disjointed and new from a composer that was considered safe at the time. The reason? His then wife was dying and she suffered from chronic arthritis amongst other things. He took his anger on the score because of caring for his wife, conducting, teaching and composing etc… not to mention the affair he was having with a married woman who would later become his second wife. Sounds similar to is different from plagiarism. A U.K. court decided that last year. Basically if it sounds similar to the tune whose composer was supposedly plagiarised then you can no longer claim damages in court as the judge said that an individual here in the U.K. could write a composition and someone on the other side of the world writes a similar tune. They don’t know each other and it is pure coincidence that two people wrote a similar song or score. But if you copy a persons song and it is the intention of the composer to defraud the other composer of royalties then you can take that composer to court. The problem with composition is that it is very easy to plagiarise intentionally or unintentionally a work. The composers gift to compose is that he or she composes works that are original and can’t be compared to another work means that this person is a genius. A person who lets songs or themes from elsewhere isn’t the greatest composer since sliced bread. The difference between ALW and RVW is ALW is a composer of rock operas and popular music. RVW wasa classical composer hence his works were more serious in nature and had some tunes that are memorable. RVW collected folk songs from up and down the county. These songs are now found sung in churches up and down the country in the English Hymnal. But RVW also had a knack or writing fake folk songs iemthey were so good that you’d believed that song had originally been sung by people over the centuries. Most composers will base their new work on another composers work for the chord. In the fourth symphony RVW actually mentions in the preface to the work that he borrowed it from Beethovens 9th. The works here that ALW has supposedly plagiarised are what we call more that 70-90 years old. These are scores or tunes that the copyright hasn’t been renewed on and as a result you have a body of works called public domain. Again you can use tunes from these works to help in the composition that you are writing. You can’t copy the work out note for note and incorporate it into your own work and present it as your own. The other thing is you can’t use the scores in public domain to be printed so that they can be performed in public. The other thing to consider is that you might write a composition as an homage to a dead composer. It is called sounds like but isn’t like what that would have composed. You can use small phrases. ALWs work Variations is another type of work that composers write. Rachmaninov used in a work for piano and orchestra. The main tune is played either note for note so you hear the tune. The next tune is a variation of the original tune. The variations then can continue uptowards 24 different tunes. By the last tune the original tunes used is totally unrecognised from the original. You might get a reprise of the original theme at the end. Look at Brittens a young persons guide to music the original theme is so far from the original that he uses a horn pipe to get the tune back to where it should be and the original tune rises triumphantly from the melee. ALW is doing what composers have done for centuries. Yes he has gotten into trouble with some works and settled out of court. The tune that no one ever mentions is in Evita. Whi

4/3/2024 02:07:24 pm

You can’t plagiarise your own works. Composers since the year dot have repurposed their own pieces to fit an occasion. In particular a certain Herr Johann Sebastian Bach had to compose a new anthem for his employer to be sung at church each Sunday and with full orchestra etc….if he didn’t the rumour is he would loose his head. What happens if you have writers block? Reuse a previous work and make some changes here and there and e voilá you have a new piece of music. It worked because he kept his head and the employer was more than happy that he was getting a new anthem each week without realising that some of the works he had already heard before. Beethoven was known to have done this as well as Mozart. I believe Mozart wrote a clarinet concerto and uses the theme from another work all I know words are Alleluya.. An English composer called Ralph Vaughan Williams used a motif in some of his works which is lifted from the hymn tune that he wrote called Let All the Saints. The motif is the Alleluyas that appear in the verse. It apppears in his film score 49th Parallel. Same composer, he was the conductor of the Croydon choral society. In a fit of rage he played the first chord from Beethovens 9th Symphony. As a result we have the 4th Symphony which is troubling and disjointed and new from a composer that was considered safe at the time. The reason? His then wife was dying and she suffered from chronic arthritis amongst other things. He took his anger on the score because of caring for his wife, conducting, teaching and composing etc… not to mention the affair he was having with a married woman who would later become his second wife. Sounds similar to is different from plagiarism. A U.K. court decided that last year. Basically if it sounds similar to the tune whose composer was supposedly plagiarised then you can no longer claim damages in court as the judge said that an individual here in the U.K. could write a composition and someone on the other side of the world writes a similar or same tune. They don’t know each other and it is pure coincidence that two people wrote a similar song or score. But if you copy a persons song and it is the intention of the composer to defraud the other composer of royalties then you can take that composer to court. The problem with composition is that it is very easy to plagiarise intentionally or unintentionally a work. The composers gift to compose is that he or she composes works that are original and can’t be compared to another work. A person who lets songs or themes from elsewhere isn’t the greatest composer since sliced bread. The difference between ALW and RVW is ALW is a composer of rock operas and popular music. RVW was a classical composer hence his works were more serious in nature and had some tunes that are memorable. RVW collected folk songs from up and down the county. These songs are now found sung in churches up and down the country in the English Hymnal. But RVW also had a knack or writing fake folk songs ie they were so good that you’d believe that song had originally been sung by people over the centuries. Most composers will base their new work on another composers work for the chord. In the fourth symphony RVW actually mentions in the preface to the work that he borrowed it from Beethovens 9th. The works here that ALW has supposedly plagiarised are what we call more that 70-90 years old. These are scores or tunes that the copyright hasn’t been renewed on and as a result you have a body of works called public domain. Again you can use tunes from these works to help in the composition that you are writing. You can’t copy the work out note for note and incorporate it into your own work and present it as your own. The other thing is you can’t use the scores in public domain to be printed so that they can be performed in a public performance. The other thing to consider is that you might write a composition as an homage to a dead composer. It is called sounds like but isn’t like what that would have composed. You can use small phrases. ALWs work Variations is another type of work that composers write. Rachmaninov used the same theme in a work for piano and orchestra. The main tune is played either note for note so you hear the original tune. The next tune is a variation of the original tune. The variations then can continue uptowards 24 different tunes. By the last tune the original tunes used is totally unrecognised from the original. You might get a reprise of the original theme at the end. Look at Brittens a young persons guide to music the original theme is by an English composer called Henry Purcell. By the midway point the original tune is so far removed from the original (it sounds like the orchestra has run out of music) that he uses a horn pipe to get the tune back to where it should be and the original tune rises triumphantly fr

Dan reed

4/3/2024 02:20:15 pm

Continued:

”By the midway point the original tune is so far removed from the original (it sounds like the orchestra has run out of music) that he uses a horn pipe to get the tune back to where it should be and the original tune rises triumphantly” from the melee. ALW is doing what composers have done for centuries. Yes he has gotten into trouble with some works and settled out of court. The tune that no one ever mentions is in Evita. Whilst Eva Peron sings from her deathbed the actual tune is from the death of a swan from swan lake by Tchaikovsky. Wow how did people miss that one. Pop singers have used themes from the classical repertoire. “If I could make a dream come true” also found in the film Babe soundtrack is actually from Saints Sean’s 3rd symphony which includes a mighty pipe organ. Another one that I found out recent was “if you find ….. then put it in your pocket.” I don’t know the song by name at present but something to do with stars I think Perry Como sang it. The tune comes from Brahms’ Academic Overture. Ravel’s bolero is an interesting one because you can actually sing 3 blind mice to the accompaniment. Ravel wasn’t even thinking about this tune it’s just coincidence.

Andrew Lloyd Webber and his 'original' songs

Leave a Reply.

Archives

Categories

ABOUT

WORK

CONTACT