Posted on 01/21/2009 9:30:07 PM PST by Feline_AIDS
As I was watching the proceedings yesterday, I noticed (between sobs/s) that the song immediately preceeding Obama's oath sounded like a rip off of a praise song.
Compare: "God of Wonders" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AULdUPmC-s4
with
"Air and Simple Gifts" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02Ao9jyq5Vk
Is it just me?
The theme from E.T. is from Mahler's 9th.
It's really too bad because, the man is skilled. He didn't need to plagiarize anything.
It’s not a ripoff, Williams openly said it was an adaptation and variation on a theme.
The two did not sound at all alike.
“Simple Gifts” is a Shaker song that Williams simply arranged for the`Inauguration, as announced before the performance. Williams did not steal the song; he arranged it.
It’s just you. An excerpt from Wike:
“The composer
Elder Joseph Brackett was born in Cumberland, Maine, on May 6, 1797. He first joined the Shakers at Gorham, Maine, when his father’s farm helped to form the nucleus of a new Shaker settlement. In 1819, Joseph moved with the other Shakers to Poland Hill, Maine. He later served as first minister of Maine Shaker societies, as well as Church Elder at New Gloucester, Maine, now known as Sabbathday Lake, the last remaining Shaker community. Elder Joseph Brackett died on July 4, 1882.[1]
The lyrics
“Simple Gifts” was written by Elder Joseph while he was at the Shaker community in Alfred, Maine in 1848. These are the lyrics to his one-verse song:
‘Tis the gift to be simple, ‘tis the gift to be free,
‘Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain’d,
To bow and to bend we shan’t be asham’d,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.
Several Shaker manuscripts indicate that this is a “Dancing Song” or a “Quick Dance.” That is apparent with such lines of the song as “turn, turn will be our delight” and “turning, turning we come round right”. These are dance instructions. (It should also be noted that the tune traditionally paired with these lyrics (see below) is also used in many hymnals for the song “Lord of the Dance”.)
The melody
A manuscript of Mary Hazzard of the New Lebanon, N.Y. Shaker community records this original version of the melody:
Modern arrangements
The song was largely unknown outside of Shaker communities until it became world famous thanks to its use in Aaron Copland’s score for Martha Graham’s ballet, Appalachian Spring, first performed in 1944. Copland used “Simple Gifts” a second time in 1950 in his first set of Old American Songs for voice and piano, which was later orchestrated. Many people thought that the tune of “Simple Gifts” was a traditional Celtic one but both the music and original lyrics are actually the compositions of Brackett. Adaptations and extensions of Brackett’s original lyrics have occurred and actually are in the public domain.[citation needed]
“Simple Gifts” has been adapted or arranged many times by folksingers and composers. Probably the best known example is by English songwriter Sydney Carter, who adapted the Shaker tune for his song “Lord of the Dance”, first published in 1963. The Carter lyrics were adapted, in ignorance of the actual origins, without authorization or acknowledgments by Ronan Hardiman for Michael Flatley’s dance musical “Lord of the Dance”, which opened in 1996. The melody is used at various points throughout the show, including the piece titled “Lord of the Dance.”[2] Other adaptations of the lyrics by Carter have occurred in the wide-spread belief that they are traditional, and in the public domain.
In 2008 the rock band Weezer released a song off their sixth studio album (aka “The Red Album”) title “The Greatest Man That Ever Live (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)”. The hymn in question was “Simple Gifts” and can be clearly heard in the piano intro and the repeated chorus of the song.
John P. Zdechlik used “Simple Gifts” in “Chorale and Shaker Dance,” a 1972 composition for concert band. In 2004, Robert Steadman arranged the tune for orchestra featuring an off-stage trumpet and a thumping, dance-music influenced finale. In 1992, Anne McGinty used “Simple Gifts” in an arrangement titled Chorale Prelude. The piece begins with an expanded introduction of the chorale tune. It changes the meter and phrasing of the piece and there is an eventual key change from B-flat to E-flat. Frank Ticheli also wrote a version of Simple Gifts, presented in Simple Gifts: Four Shaker Songs.
The West Virginia University Marching band, “The Pride of West Virginia,” also performs a rendition of “Simple Gifts” as part of a pre-game tradition, prior to football games.
Most recently “Simple Gifts” was incorporated into composer John Williams’s piece “Air and Simple Gifts,” which he composed for the inauguration of Barack Obama
Forget the Mahler in ET. There is a section from the final chase that isn't influenced by but completely stolen from Hovanhess's Symphony #2--I'm talking note for note.
Whoops, typo above, Wike = Wiki.
P.S., I thought the piece played at the inaugural, interpreted by Williams was beautiful.
Very informative. So I guess that’s how Lord of the Dance came to be one title?
I only recognized the Mahler....I didn't know about the Hovanhess. Interesting.
I learned something here, which is more than I can say for those earth-shaking threads about Michelles’ wardrobe.
P.P.S.: The praise song sounds nothing like Simple Gifts. Better get your hearing aide checked.
Background: The lyrics for this version were adapted from a song called "Simple Gifts" by Sydney Carter in 1963. The music is a 19th century Shaker tune.
Williams always takes a conductor credit and sometimes doesn't deserve it. Artie Kane, for example, conducted the Jurassic Park score but doesn't get a credit. (Williams' back was screwed up.)
I knew it! Maybe I was confusing the titles. Granted, I come from a hymn tradition...
Whatever it was, it was awful. It was depressing and it gave the event a funereal tone.
“Mediocre composers borrow; great composers steal.” — Igor Stravinsky
The old NBC theme he did was also Holst (The Planets).
Up until June, I was a band director and music teacher. When discussing the difference between an arranger and a composer, I always used John Williams as an example of one who wants to be the other...
Unless you simply haven't the skill or knowledge, it's hard to imagine writing and not orchestrating...that's half the joy in it.
I remember some years ago - when I still watched TV - flipping through the channels and stopping briefly on a biography of Paul McCartney, talking about some orchestra work he "wrote" where he's just standing behind an actual musician who's sitting at a piano writing what McCartney "wants it to sound like".
I was just thinking, "Wow. If you can't do it, don't do it....and this guy's a Knight."
Not sure about the working relationships there, but Goldsmith wrote all of the parts on a conductor's score--nine parts, I think?--and made notations for everything. Arthur Morton was basically a copyist and he was there to bounce ideas off; he also was a big help with the choral parts of The Omen because Goldsmith was rusty on the choral stuff. When Morton retired, Goldsmith used Alexander Courage, but when HE retired Goldsmith never seemed to find a solid replacement, and used some different people until he settled on Mark Makenzie at the very end of Goldsmith's life.
I like that Goldsmith talked about this very freely. I've never once heard Williams talk about this, and he used at least TWO orchestrators on his scores.
Ennio Morricone and Howard Shore are the only current film composers I know who orchestrate themselves. The record, I think, was Michael Kamen on Robin Hood, who used nine.
I don't have a problem with McCartney, since he probably wrote piano scores and just doesn't have the knowhow to write for orchestra. I believe Carl Davis does McCartney's orchestral work; basically McCartney is doing melody. He should credit Davis or whoever he uses each time as a co-composer, because they're definitely writing actual parts and not just transposing them from piano to the orchestral instruments.
BTW, Goldsmith expressed the idea about orchestration that you did. Bernard Herrmann also orchestrated himself, and HATED that others didn't. I've been told by musician friends it's not as easy as it may seem to make everything work due to, of course, the different keys involved.
Sorry to drone on, but am a huge film score fan.
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