Stravinsky: "A good composer doesn't imitate, he steals" John Williams: "My man, I'm so glad we are on the same page here. And by the same page I literally mean the same page of your Rites of Spring. You are being very helpful indeed, mate, cheers." Stravinsky: "Hey..."
@@jellygang9492 That's what George Lucas asked John Williams to do at first: To take Holst's Planets Suite and fit it into the SW movie. Williams told him he'd compose him a new suite in the same style and he did. By the way Williams took a lot more from Holst in his career after the initial SW movie than just these few bits. If you listen to the planets several times, you will find hints of Harry Potter and quite a few other movies he wrote music for.
John Williams was deliberately referencing Korngold and early Hollywood in general. And referencing Holst's "The Planets" couldn't be more on point. In a sense, the original Star Wars score has a lot of satire or parody, but done so earnestly the parody isn't noticed. The point was to take the late-19th-century symphonic sound into space. Also it's worth considering the Doctrine of Affect. There really is nothing more heroic and majestic than a leaping perfect 5th in the brass section.
@@lucyf9034 No, Lucas put the Planets as incidental music for a cut to show John Williams the style he wanted, but the idea was always for him to write a new score.
11:41 this is actually correct, directors will often find outside music as a placeholder before their composer writes original music. The problem is sometimes the directors start falling in love with the original piece forcing the composer to strike a balance between something original and sticking to the placeholder 🥶
They do it in marching bands at college football games too. Like, LSU is known for their "neck" chant which has been copied by several other colleges. Alabama's million dollar band has also done Kashmir. I can think of others, but those two are chief among them that I know.
I wouldnt say its as much the director falling in love with the piece, part of it is the director choosing temp music they already like that fits the mood they are looking for, then the editor sometimes edits the scene to have more rhythm with that music and by the time the composer comes along they have no choice but to create a piece of original music that imitates the temp music that was used during the editing process.
Kubrick did this, and in the case of 2001, after listening to the score he'd commissioned he decided he liked his place-holder music better. The composer only learned of this at the premiere, where he was rudely surprised when Also Sprach Zarathustra began playing.
Yea that's true. I think right after The Rite of Spring's premiere, people actually rioted because they hated it so much. Yet some would argue that that piece ushered in a new era of modern 20th century music and (cough) *COPYING!!!*
@@Infixfun "Stravinsky intended his music to be listened to on its own" It is a ballet, not only that, the sounds of the dancers are audible to a live audience when it is performed. Why do people nowadays simply enjoy spouting misinformation about absolutely everything and anything? It is becoming 'Teletubby Land' out there for a reason, if you find yourself moaning about the confusing state of the world at any point in your life, please remember your contribution to that state of affairs before doing so. Odd, we are talking about Plato and mimesis really (copying), and here is an example of bad information being formed copied and spread. You can move on to reading Adorno and Derrida later on to see why this becomes a problem.
It's more them dragging George Lucas. He told Williams to copy classical music. George Lucas originally intended to score the film exclusively to classical music and even shot scenes specifically with classical pieces in mind (like the trench run scene to Holst's music). Lucas wanted to revitalize orchestral film scoring which had become out of favor by the 70s in favor of pop music and synthesizers and so we have Star Wars to thank for having orchestral film scores today. George Lucas was very hesitant to stray from that plan and it took his friend Steven Spielberg to convince him otherwise and to use John Williams. That's why a ton of A New Hope sounds like classical music. Empire Strikes Back was scored exclusively based on John Williams' own ideas and that film really showcases John Williams' more modern style. It really shows you how genius John Williams is that he can create such different scores from his own style that still sound incredible. 5:59 "The Dune Sea of Tatooine" queue is scored extremely similarly to the Rite of Spring and the Empire in A New Hope uses almost exclusively Holst references. Note that the Imperial March didn't exist in A New Hope at all. That was created by Williams on his own for Empire Strikes back and the other films. 2:17 is an example of Williams inserting his own motifs (this one is the "Rebel fanfare", also heard at 4:41) within George Lucas' strict guidelines. Within film scoring, it's common practice for a director to already have music put to film in the form of "temp tracks." But the directors often view them as far from temporary. So often film composers are forced to take old music and recreate it.
Using temp tracks is common practice in film scoring, which composers typically only have a couple months or less to do-I think it’s an overall plus for classical music to have film directors who are familiar with the orchestral repertoire. Stanley Kubrick famously liked his temp track for 2001: A Space Odyssey so much that he abandoned Alex North’s score for the film!
@Steffen Bakken There are no Star Wars themes that borrow from Chopin's Funeral March. I think you're trying to compare it to the Imperial March because they're both minor marches that have sections that go back and forth between two chords. But that's where the similarities end. The chords are not the same, the melody is completely different, and the Funeral March is much slower.
When you think of it the guy made a lot of fame and money off it. And these are the corporations that screw everyone over with the copyright stuff when you might not even make a cent off it.
Beethoven took the "hammerklavier" from buxtehude, search for "buxtehude - ciacona in e minor", it's the same thing. I'm a Brazilian, so I don't know if I wrote it right.
I was told by a film composer, "If you want to make a living composing original music, using your artistic voice by interpreting the visual art of directors, don't go to school to be a film composer. Become a T.V. show theme and commercial jingle writer. They want very new and original music, and with one hit, you'll probably become rich."
Another thing, since the composer is usually brought on near the end of the movie-making process, is that they'll usually use stand-in music (i.e. music from existing works) when reviewing the scene while the score is being composed. The problem is that the director then becomes so attached to the stand-in music that they basically tell the composer to just emulate it.
@@jasonschuler2256 which is how 2001 a space odyssey ended up with Strauss instead of the composer they hired, Alex North. Google it and listen to north's music, it's pretty cool... just not quite Strauss
There's pretty much nothing whatsoever original in Star Wars including the plot(s). Its basically always been a paraphrase of many different works amalgamated together. It worked out very well, and became very popular and I never had any issue with it. I did however take offense when Lucas Film started suing things like Buck Rogers for copyright infringement when the only legal leg they had to stand on was more money to bully the courts. Lucas will always be a super douche in my eyes thanks to such behavior.
A lot of movie edits are put together before the score is written using a temp soundtrack of existing works. Sometimes the director gets very attached to a certain sound and wants it recreated. So, a lot of Williams' "copying" comes from the demands of the director that the score recreate the temp track.
Beat me to it! I was also going to mention this. It's important to remember that the film composer does not have absolute creative control over the music, but rather should first and foremost respect the director's choices, so if the director asks the composer to be as close as possible to the temp score, the composer pretty much has no choice but to "copy." I think these examples don't show a lack of originality by the composers, but rather show the pervasiveness of editing with temp scores, a practice that can ultimately hinder a composer's creativity.
Why can't they just use the soundtrack of the existing work as it is? Why does the composer need to "copy" it and give it a different name but this time under his name as the composer? Honestly just curious. Thank you
John williams has long been explaining to people his classical music inspirations, which is where his title of "last of the great classical composers" amongst enthusiasts comes from. So feel a little proud to be part of both cool communities? Idk
Film composition is generally done in accordance to a "temp-track" provided by the director which says "this is basically the music I want." Rick Beato has a video on film scoring that explains this
George Lucas is actually the main reason because he was pretty strict with wanting parts to sound like the orchestral music he was listening to while writing
@@CreativeForgeEntertainment legally, maybe its fine. But I think he SHOULD'VE given credit. The only reason not to would be if he's trying to make it seem like it was an original.
@@talyalubit4067 here comes the law😎 which decides what is legit and what it s not whatever most people will think about. No one said law is always logical for everyone. That is why Creative Commons license is better because you decide how people may use your work ( even though some won't care about it.... The kind of person who thinks everything is free on internet)
@@talyalubit4067 Williams wrote hours of music for this. Many sections were inspired and excepts ant hat tips to other peices, If he had permission, there is no reason why he needed to put that there. But also, do you really think John Williams had any say over that? Im guessing that all of that is upto disney.
Fun fact: directors sometimes put classical music over a scene before the actual music is finished and they sometimes end up wanting something similar to the classical piece. I believe that’s the case with that piece that was similar to the rite of spring.
Yeah, the original starwars had 0 budget for music when they started. So, for example, they were gonna straight up use Holst in the movie. They only hired Williams when they got funding and then wanted him to compose something similar
Yes! I remember Gustavo Santaolalla saying he loved to work with Ang Lee because he composed the music before and then Lee made the actors listen to the music so they would know how it should feel in each scene. Edit: this was about Brokeback Mountain.
@LING LING GRANGER yes, for many non classical music listeners Holst is 'boring'. Movie music is made to sound good for today's casual listeners. They make it as catchy and exciting as possible to make it memorable for most watchers of the movie. There's nothing wrong with not liking classical music.
They often do this now, composers talked about the bane of temp tracks a lot. In case of Star Wars, it was directly inspired by old serials, so why wouldn't it have serial-like music theme. It's just like the text crawl - it didn't come out of nowhere, Lucas didn't come up with it and never pretended to, it's a homage to older movies.
It fascinating because Korngold's version doesn't leave the same impression with me as the John Williams. I see the similarities, but the effects of the changes are so drastically, dramatically different that it's hard to compare them in a "copying" or "stealing" sense - kinda of like not ruling a plunger a deadly weapon because a murder was committed with one. Now, Baby Shark is definitely Just Can't Get Enough by Depeche Mode.
@@brunoescoto9630 I'm not sure you understand how these things work. Williams himself acknowledges that these motifs are copied, but the point is that it wasn't his decision. And the point is that the vast majority of his music is original. Look at the 8 other SW films. They use much more entirely new music. And it doesn't stop at Star Wars. He's written several dozens of films and even writes his own classical music. I like TwoSet but I was shocked that they didn't know something that most of us knew years ago.
Narges Royaei one thing is to take some inspiration which is going to happen in every single piece and another very different to write in the same passage, notes, key, rhythm.
Also Star Trek in Mahler 1. Hearing Mahler means hearing almost every Soundtrack there is. I still love all of it - Mahler, Korngold, Holst, Williams, Shore,... beautiful music anyway.
Fun fact about the original Star Wars: George Lucas originally intended to score the film exclusively to classical music and even shot scenes specifically with classical pieces in mind (like the trench run scene to Holst's music). Lucas wanted to revitalize orchestral film scoring which had become out of favor by the 70s in favor of pop music and synthesizers and so we have Star Wars to thank for having orchestral film scores today. George Lucas was very hesitant to stray from that plan and it took his friend Steven Spielberg to convince him otherwise and to use John Williams. That's why a ton of A New Hope sounds like classical music. Empire Strikes Back was scored exclusively based on John Williams' own ideas and that film really showcases John Williams' more modern style. It really shows you how genius John Williams is that he can create such different scores from his own style that still sound incredible. 5:59 "The Dune Sea of Tatooine" queue is scored extremely similarly to the Rite of Spring and the Empire in A New Hope uses almost exclusively Holst references. Note that the Imperial March didn't exist in A New Hope at all. That was created by Williams on his own for Empire Strikes back and the other films. 2:17 is an example of Williams inserting his own motifs (this one is the "Rebel fanfare", also heard at 4:41) within George Lucas' strict guidelines. Within film scoring, it's common practice for a director to already have music put to film in the form of "temp tracks." But the directors often view them as far from temporary. So often film composers are forced to take old music and recreate it.
The irony of Stravinsky accusing someone of copying him... “A good composer does not imitate; he steals", to quote the master himself. Could become topic of a future video?
Stravinsky's quote was, "Mediocre composers borrow; great composers steal." Bernstein, in the final lecture, "The Poetry of Earth," of the series "The Unanswered Question," labeled Stravinsky as "the thieving magpie of the 20th Century."
Thanks for pointing those relations out. After listening to some pieces of "The Planets" I realized even more references. The "Braveheart" melody or the "Hobbit" melody (Howard Shore) share some similarities (like in the 4th piece of the suite which is Jupiter. I imagine this and many other pieces inspire the Film music composers. Modest Mussorgski's pieces (like Die Nacht auf dem kahlen Berge) are Programmmusik and deliver many Leitmotifs to pictures, places, stories and so on. Wow "The Kings row" even contains main motives for John William's Superman melody...
Augmented fourth is the easiest chord to here, used in everything. Has nothing to do with perfect pitch. Perfect pitch is being able to identify notes, not chords
Lucas told Williams to do it. The thing is, Williams can actually write classical/romantic/modernistic symphonic pieces no matter if he uses stuff from other composers or not... which is not the case with modern hollywood composers who may steal ideas, but can't put together compositions on the level of classical masters.
This clears up some things about Star Wars: George Lucas originally intended to score the film exclusively to classical music and even shot scenes specifically with classical pieces in mind (like the trench run scene to Holst's music). Lucas wanted to revitalize orchestral film scoring which had become out of favor by the 70s where pop music and synthesizers were common. So we have Star Wars to thank for having orchestral film scores today. George Lucas was _very hesitant_ to stray from that plan and it took his friend Steven Spielberg to convince him otherwise and to use John Williams (who he had worked with on Jaws). And even after hiring Williams, Lucas wouldn't let him stray much from the classical music he had chosen. (Don't look down on Lucas though, he had great intentions.) That's why a ton of A New Hope sounds like classical music. Empire Strikes Back was scored exclusively based on John Williams' own ideas and that film really showcases John Williams' more modern style. It really shows you how genius John Williams is that he can create such different scores from his own style that still sound incredible. 5:59 "The Dune Sea of Tatooine" queue is scored extremely similarly to the Rite of Spring and the Empire in A New Hope uses almost exclusively Holst references. Note that the Imperial March didn't exist in A New Hope at all. That was created by Williams on his own for Empire Strikes back and the other films. 2:17 is an example of Williams inserting his own motifs (this one is the "Rebel fanfare", also heard at 4:41) within George Lucas' strict guidelines. Within film scoring, it's common practice for a director to already have music put to film in the form of "temp tracks." But the directors often view them as far from temporary. So often film composers are forced to take old music and recreate it.
This!!! I like Brett and Eddy defending classical music, but John Williams has such a specific context as to why his work on the first Star Wars movies "copies" previous classical pieces, you can even link Lucas to Spielberg, and then to Jaws (the infamous "copying" of Dvorak's 9th). This video is rubbing me the wrong way, I know that they probably don't know about the context, but I wish they'd have resesrched it a bit. Because their (let's admit it) young audiencie, while supportive, are impressionable and just...fans (not all them, I know there are exceptions, and your comment shows that), and they may percieve Williams in a wrong light after this, and he really doesn't desrve it (or at least, in the case of his works for Spielberg and Lucas). His own original works outside film scoring, such as his Violin Concerto, are a perfect proof of how talented and insanely genius he is as a composer.
This much better than I could have said it - but yes it is well known among star wars trivia people that the original star wars was going to be scored using classical music (kinda still is! - but is that really a bad thing?)
Guillermina Marin I agree. It’s opening up the whole plagiarism vs inspiration debate. Twoset should do a follow-up video! With their immense popularity on YT, they have both an opportunity and the responsibility to discuss this topic in a mature and balanced way.
I completely agree. This video portrayed John Williams as a copier when in reality that’s just not the truth which bothered me. Without context it seems he just copied but it’s important to understand the context behind it because Williams is a great composer
For the defense of Star Wars, Lucas meant to use straight up classical music as soundtrack (as it was common back then in Hollywood iirc), Williams just adjusted it to the plot and filled up the gaps. Similar to Mars and Gladiator, Mars as the Roman God for War is basically perfect as a soundtrack for a battle. Should have mentioned them in the credit sections tho xd
james xia Well, it’s not no one cares, it’s just a majority didn’t know. When Star Wars was just developing, Lucas and many others didn’t think the franchise would become what it is today. They were super low on budget, most of what they had went into sfx and little to make up for the soundtrack; Williams had to work with Lucas wanted. Lets not just simply bash the people who spent most of their lives on this based on a very biased video.
George Lucas wrote Star Wars whilst listening to a bunch of classical music - notably Holst's The Planets and The Sorcerer's Apprentice - He presented Williams the different music that inspired him in hopes to help Williams catch on to the vibe that Lucas wanted.
Makes Williams something of an arranger of classical pieces for a new medium. Personally I think it's all chill, steal what's good, remix it, whatever, bring the good old sounds to new people
Yeah, it seems wrong to say he is 'blatantly copying' Holst. That piece played in the first scene of the first movie, I think it was intentionally introducing something familiar and thematically relevant to a brand new and untested work.
in all fairness to film composers, this usually happens because directors choose classical pieces to play over scenes before composers score the film. as a result, its not uncommon for directors to fall in love with the classical pieces over their scenes, and so they ask film composers to write something near-identical.
In Star Wars, i became a game for us to guess all the classical paraphrases that Williams had worked into his music. My guess is that Lucas had been cutting the film to "temporary tracks" of specifically chosen classical music and when it got to be time to bring in Mr. Williams, Lucas requested him to write something "original" that was closely based on . . . whatever. I was glad to hear the guys here at least mention Dukas ("The Sorcerer's Apprentice") - the big fanfare chords in the Star Wars theme "Ta-TAAAA-da / Ta-TAAAA-da are clearly taken from the Sorcerer's big chords as he appears near the end and restores order to the cave.
Yeah unfortunately common. It’s called temp music or temp score that the director or editor or producer will put in “temporarily” to capture a vibe. Unfortunately the composer has to work with it incorporating the same style but different enough to avoid copyright. Sucks but that’s the way it is sometimes.
The best example of someone talking about this is Alan Menken about the overture/prologue of Beauty and the Beast-he’d ended up writing something completely different for the prologue but the temp music had been from the carnival of the animals and the directors both said they wanted that.
Part of the Superman March also takes from Mars, The Bringer of War, IMO. Especially around three minutes nineteen seconds on the Superman March compared to a later section in Mars with a similar progression of notes.
So if you check out "the soundtrack show" podcast with David W Collins he explains why they're so similar. Lucas used classical music that he wanted Williams to emulate when showing Williams the reels. So Williams abided by that. If you like film soundtracks I HIGHLY recommend the soundtrack show. It's frickin awesome.
There's a video of eddy telling the full version of his assignment getting copied story, at the end the guy that copy his work promised to treat him dinner but never did
I'm actually playing King's Row in band this semester! It was a suggestion from one of the other students. Have to say, it was REAL difficult to get down because all I heard was Star Wars.
A fun fact about the Star Wars score. George Lucas edited Star Wars to Holst's planets and intended for it to be showed with the Holst score. However, while showing it to director Steven Spielberg, Spielberg suggested that John Williams (who has collaborated on almost every Spielberg movie) score the movie. I suppose you could say John Williams score is less of a copy and more of a reinterpretation of Holst's score, reimagined for the characters and story of Star Wars.
This can be referred to as "derivative work bias." It is the tendency to undervalue or dismiss creative works that are based on or inspired by existing works, instead of recognizing them as original and valid creations in their own right. It can be a result of a belief that true creativity must be completely original and untainted by outside influences, or a lack of appreciation for the nuances and complexities of the creative process.
I have the 'Original Star Wars Soundtrack' and I was wondering why the name "Korngold" was on the cover. Turns out his son George Korngold produced the recording, which was borrowed from a composition by his father, Erich Wolfgang Korngold. So it wasn't a secret for people working in the music/soundtrack industry back then.
it never was a secret, it just didnt become viral but everytime someone asked John Williams about it he just said and pointed to who and when he took inspiration from other pieces and composers
@@comandantethorn9929 Rethinking the whole thing. You know how the music business works. They had a deal to use Korngold's original music, add a handful of notes then have John Williams as the 'vehicle' or 'medium channeling Korngold.' It made much better PR saying you have this great new, very much alive composer then saying you're using old 50s Hollywood music from a dead composer. In my opinion Williams is just another music artist who is covering songs (orchestral music in his case) in a new version.
My father once attended a performance of John Adams's music and John Adams himself was there and was accepting questions. My father asked about a similarity between one of Adams's pieces and a Mahler symphony, and Adams responded, "That whole piece is a forgery"
@@juliusseizure591 oh I don't know, I am a huge fan of Doctor Atomic and his recent piano concerto is pretty good. I think he's still got a lot of great ideas.
Regarding Rachmaninov, loving Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Wagner previously, my husband introduced me to Rachmaninov, and it was not an instant love, but now, Rachmaninov is just soo wonderful 😍
I'm Indonesian, on few weeks before i realized one of my national anthem have similar melody from 1812 overture by Tchaikovsky. Maybe i'll find out more! Its interesting to know something like this
Well the first prototypes for Star Wars were actually set to Gustav Holtz' planets, this is what George Lucas first wanted. But for some reason they couldn't do it so John Williams composed themes that sound very similar. He was also heavily influenced by Stravinsky and Wagner. Oh yep, just a few minutes later you mention Stravinsky
all the characters also have their own themes since he wanted it to be a bit like an opera, so you know when characters come on screen just by listening
@@xuexueyanyan That's commonplace these days in tv shows, less often in movies. If you get the soundtrack to Tv shows with a good composer you'll see the main characters have a theme and multiple versions of that same theme based on the characters emotions. A good example is the show Lost where they play the same song (different version) every time someone dies or is born, and each character has their theme that can be fast and exciting or slow and depressing.
Right on. I have for decades thought that the three "classical" composer who were most like Williams were (guess): Stravinsky, Holtz, and Wagner. Stravinsky is pretty obvious - I often say that Williams is the second coming of Stravinsky. The biggest connection with Wagner is leitmotiv - the association of particular themes with particular characters (although I doubt anybody could call that plagiarism). The reference to The Planets is particularly amusing to me. I have been saying for a long time that Williams ought to add two movements: Earth (The Bringer of Life) and Pluto (The Bringer of Death). To call a repetition of one note containing some triplets a copy is not justifiable. (As for the "sliding strings", in Mars they are not sliding at all - that passage is all pizzicato.) Likewise, to call a repeated diatonic interval a stolen melody seems crazy to me. The distinctive part of the Tatooine theme is the bassoon riff. I don't remember that in any Stravinsky. Consider "melodies" consisting of five notes. If one counts all twelve tone possibilities, there are less than a quarter million of those (up to octave transpositions). If one limits it to any diatonic scale (or mode, for you Greeks), you are down to 16807. Furthermore, I think the defining characteristic of Williams is that once you hear a particular theme, you just CANNOT imagine a more appropriate one. If there really is a unique best (if you can beat any of JWs, write or record it and send it to me), then if it has already be used, it should be reused. This kind of "plagiarism" was well used by Beethoven, Mozart, and Bachs (both J.S. and P.D.Q.).
The theme from E.T., the Extra Terrestrial (John Williams) also sounds quite a bit like measures 26-29 in Mov 4 of Beethoven's 5th Symphony. My music professor once told our Music History class that John Williams is basically all the great romantic composers put together with 10 additional horn parts.
It’s kinda crazy how he basically scored damn near ALL of the instantly recognized music, Harry Potter, jaws, Star Wars, home alone, E.T., Jurassic park, Indiana Jones. All from one humans mind
@@Yellowbuzz-ug6of And yet they aren't credited for it :q Guess they should've used some more memorable titles for their pieces instead of "Fugue in D-moll" or "5th Symphony" :q
The thing is, NO ONE composes stuff out of the blue without any inspiration. So it's obvious that composers gets ideas from others, only the TRUE classical ones were genius, no one else is. Also history repeats itself and we all know that
That’s now how copyright strike works. It will keep the ads, but all revenue will go the copyright holder. There would be no ads if it were demonetized.
Love your Chanel ! In fact for me and a number of friends these movie composers where a good way to discover romantic and classical music. If think we should at least thank them to open a new gate for kids to that culture. Thank you for your work!
😮 thank you for this comment. Circa mea pectora is a beautiful piece of music that I hadn't known about before and after checking it out I can definitely hear the similarity.
@@musicfridge you're talking about the 2nd movement right? Very cool, thanks for sharing. Throughout the 2nd movement my brain was going "Cir-ca me-a pec-tora" lol
Alfred Schnittke’s last movement of his “In memoriam” sounds so similar to the William’s Planet krypton theme from Superman. The film has the theme played on a trumpet, and Schnittke uses an organ, but it’s so similar to me, at least the main figure. Schnittke takes it immediately to a much darker and more complex place.
John Williams has always thanked the composers extensively and has never made any secret of the fact that there are compositions with classical influences. Unfortunately, this is not mentioned in this video. I wonder why 😎
@@upplysta3497 Cause they and most people probably didn't know? Brett literally said it's the first time hearing the Star Wars theme. Also, the point still stands, the original composers don't get enough credit, regardless of whether John Williams thanked them or not.
Mr. Infinite Rings, you have just demonstrated your complete ignorance of Williams’ process in writing the music. If you had seriously asked yourself why he made so similar instead of just immediately answering the question in your head, you might have put in the work of researching the history of the work Williams put into making the soundtracks for the films. Do your research and look behind the scenes before you accuse the world’s greatest artists of plagiarism.
@@TheDraftHorse2025 Dude come on we know you just wanta say this because your mad no need to bring it on the Wonderful John Williams instead pick on Lucas
Idk...some classical music sound bland and too drag out...but when soundtracks do spin on it then they become more epic I obviously not talking about ALL classical music
What? I want to know what lame ass people you're hanging out with that fawn over movie soundtracks but also simultaneously think "classical music is lame". I feel like those people don't exist -- if you like film music, you have some level of appreciation for classical music.
Bullshit! Show me even one single person who expresses dislike for classical music and at the same time fawns over Star Wars' soundtrack. Trying to sound superior and score points by attacking people that don't even exist, that's the only lame thing here.
John Williams has always credited Erich Wolfgang Korngold as one of the greatest all time film composers, and as one of his greatest inspirations. Plus, as others have mentioned, Star Wars was temped with Gustav Holst's The Planets, so that obviously heavily inspired the score.
@@ferrous719 it kind of was, williams actually pointed to where he took all of his inspirations and said that the kings road themeas and the planets suites where actually the stand ins he used to compose star wars's music by George Lucas's suggestions
@LING LING GRANGER In my understanding, when you borrow, everybody knows and you have to credit to the owner. But when you steal, you have to be discrete and make it the least obvious possible. I think what Stravinsky meant is you should be creative with an existing motif/idea and make it your own, rather than simply copying it. And according to this way of understanding, I think Star Wars theme is actually more like "borrow" than "steal", because it's quite obvious. Correct me if I'm wrong! 😃
I think what he mean by that, is that a great composer will make the music their own by giving it their own personal style; But also, in a more aggressive way, a great composer "steals" a musical idea by making people recongize that idea from them; Every precedent sounds like half-hearted and every successor sounds like a hack in comparison. Here is something I found about while listening to Handel's organ works: th-cam.com/video/3qvQ7DM4pBM/w-d-xo.html Sound familiar? And then, of course, this theme was ripped to hell and back, from Mahler 5 to Mendy's wedding march to multiple Brahms pieces to a million other places And yet, it remains the single most instantly recognisable theme in all music.
@@schticknic its actually Lucas's fault since he wanted that music to be the actual soundtrack, Williams didnt want to but he still had to follow Georges suggestions when he did not have the time to compose it all from scratch up since hes been a requested composer for a while now
8:45 this is less blatant and it's one I actually didn't know about: that's also why I get so often the vibe of "having heard it already" so many times when I listen to a piece of cm I actually hear for the first time...
“Our ears should speak for itself” -Brett 2020
And our ear goes wading! 😂😂😂
LMAOOO
A sentence that linguists, philosophers, historians and possibly biologists will discuss from now until eternity
Make that a shirt now
I'm not a musician anything so when I hear terminology slapping my face, ears get even more confused!! @~@
Plot twist: composers copied Star Wars as Star Wars is based, “a long time ago in a galaxy far far away”
😂👏🏼
In a GALAXAY FAR FAR AWAY
FACTS
Bruuhhhh
@@randomfabulouscommenter2749 I hate these "Underrated comment" comments, because it's never true!
"You don't mess with Tchaikovsky."
That's right, because you get the cannons otherwise.
Oop-
The canons? No. The cannons.
What about Harry Potter?
@@user-lk4jd5yc8d yeah, didnt one of the main themes of Harry Potter copy dance of the swans by Tchaikovsky?
And it’s 16 cannon shots if I’m not wrong?
Stravinsky: "A good composer doesn't imitate, he steals"
John Williams: "My man, I'm so glad we are on the same page here. And by the same page I literally mean the same page of your Rites of Spring. You are being very helpful indeed, mate, cheers."
Stravinsky: "Hey..."
I know, right? 😂😂😂@@theqingqueen..chickenbonetree
Pablo Picasso said: "Good artists copy, great artists steal"☺
regular person: (hears holst) is that star wars?
brett and eddy: (hears star wars) is that holst?
Every classical musician*
Many soundtracks have their sources in "The Planets" by Holst. Like Star Wars, Ben Hur and Alien for example
Until today i honestly thought that star wars used holst for the music
@@jellygang9492 That's what George Lucas asked John Williams to do at first: To take Holst's Planets Suite and fit it into the SW movie. Williams told him he'd compose him a new suite in the same style and he did. By the way Williams took a lot more from Holst in his career after the initial SW movie than just these few bits. If you listen to the planets several times, you will find hints of Harry Potter and quite a few other movies he wrote music for.
@@alanpotter8680 ooohhh ok thanks
I played the cd of Holst for some elementary school kids and they said “That’s Star Wars!”
nice.
replying instead of liking because you're on 23 likes
@@dubbleyou248 What is on 23 ?
What has our world become!?
smh
@@zeinfeimrelduulthaarn7028 he was on 23 likes. 23 is some funny thing I dunno
Star Wars took the "CLONE Wars" way too literally.
underrated comment,
🤣🤣
Wayyyy toooo literally
I mean alot of composers took some of the other composers parts of other pieces.
Well George Lucas originally wanted classical music for star wars.
John Williams was deliberately referencing Korngold and early Hollywood in general. And referencing Holst's "The Planets" couldn't be more on point. In a sense, the original Star Wars score has a lot of satire or parody, but done so earnestly the parody isn't noticed. The point was to take the late-19th-century symphonic sound into space. Also it's worth considering the Doctrine of Affect. There really is nothing more heroic and majestic than a leaping perfect 5th in the brass section.
For Star Wars, George Lucas wanted Holst’s Planets as music for the movie.
Actually?
@@outgoingblur Yes, and John Williams convinced him that an entire new score based on the piece was better. It wasnt exactly copied.
I wanted to comment John Williams has sharingan but after this comment imma not
@@lucyf9034 No, Lucas put the Planets as incidental music for a cut to show John Williams the style he wanted, but the idea was always for him to write a new score.
The main theme was also inspired
“We’re gonna get copystriked by the copiers”
Palpatine: Ironic.
This is outrageous! It's unfair!
Kevin Take your sit
unlimited powaa!
If it happened, it's unironic.
@@Kiloeve irony has nothing to do with it happening or not.
They look like they just got filled in with the latest gossip like "No, he didn't. He DID???? OMG"
I was the same tbh haha
Xoxo Gossip Girl😂
😂
11:41 this is actually correct, directors will often find outside music as a placeholder before their composer writes original music. The problem is sometimes the directors start falling in love with the original piece forcing the composer to strike a balance between something original and sticking to the placeholder 🥶
They do it in marching bands at college football games too. Like, LSU is known for their "neck" chant which has been copied by several other colleges. Alabama's million dollar band has also done Kashmir. I can think of others, but those two are chief among them that I know.
I wouldnt say its as much the director falling in love with the piece, part of it is the director choosing temp music they already like that fits the mood they are looking for, then the editor sometimes edits the scene to have more rhythm with that music and by the time the composer comes along they have no choice but to create a piece of original music that imitates the temp music that was used during the editing process.
Kubrick did this, and in the case of 2001, after listening to the score he'd commissioned he decided he liked his place-holder music better. The composer only learned of this at the premiere, where he was rudely surprised when Also Sprach Zarathustra began playing.
Oh hell9 duolingo
@@jlangevin65Alex North … who then took his original composition for 2001 -
and reworked it for “The Shoes of the Fisherman” soundtrack.
Stravinsky’s music in 1913: controversial and scandalous
Stravinsky’s music in 1977: fit for a mainstream space film
It wasn't mainstream in 1977. Actually the first movie was fully independent
Stravinsky music in 2020: "Wow, John Williams is old!"
Yea that's true. I think right after The Rite of Spring's premiere, people actually rioted because they hated it so much. Yet some would argue that that piece ushered in a new era of modern 20th century music and (cough) *COPYING!!!*
@@Infixfun The Rite of Spring was a ballet
@@Infixfun "Stravinsky intended his music to be listened to on its own"
It is a ballet, not only that, the sounds of the dancers are audible to a live audience when it is performed.
Why do people nowadays simply enjoy spouting misinformation about absolutely everything and anything? It is becoming 'Teletubby Land' out there for a reason, if you find yourself moaning about the confusing state of the world at any point in your life, please remember your contribution to that state of affairs before doing so.
Odd, we are talking about Plato and mimesis really (copying), and here is an example of bad information being formed copied and spread. You can move on to reading Adorno and Derrida later on to see why this becomes a problem.
Alternate title: Brett and Eddy dragging John Williams for 13 minutes and 17 seconds
in the business, this is what we call a "sneak roast"
It's more them dragging George Lucas. He told Williams to copy classical music.
George Lucas originally intended to score the film exclusively to classical music and even shot scenes specifically with classical pieces in mind (like the trench run scene to Holst's music). Lucas wanted to revitalize orchestral film scoring which had become out of favor by the 70s in favor of pop music and synthesizers and so we have Star Wars to thank for having orchestral film scores today. George Lucas was very hesitant to stray from that plan and it took his friend Steven Spielberg to convince him otherwise and to use John Williams. That's why a ton of A New Hope sounds like classical music. Empire Strikes Back was scored exclusively based on John Williams' own ideas and that film really showcases John Williams' more modern style. It really shows you how genius John Williams is that he can create such different scores from his own style that still sound incredible.
5:59 "The Dune Sea of Tatooine" queue is scored extremely similarly to the Rite of Spring and the Empire in A New Hope uses almost exclusively Holst references. Note that the Imperial March didn't exist in A New Hope at all. That was created by Williams on his own for Empire Strikes back and the other films.
2:17 is an example of Williams inserting his own motifs (this one is the "Rebel fanfare", also heard at 4:41) within George Lucas' strict guidelines.
Within film scoring, it's common practice for a director to already have music put to film in the form of "temp tracks." But the directors often view them as far from temporary. So often film composers are forced to take old music and recreate it.
Using temp tracks is common practice in film scoring, which composers typically only have a couple months or less to do-I think it’s an overall plus for classical music to have film directors who are familiar with the orchestral repertoire. Stanley Kubrick famously liked his temp track for 2001: A Space Odyssey so much that he abandoned Alex North’s score for the film!
@Steffen Bakken There are no Star Wars themes that borrow from Chopin's Funeral March. I think you're trying to compare it to the Imperial March because they're both minor marches that have sections that go back and forth between two chords. But that's where the similarities end. The chords are not the same, the melody is completely different, and the Funeral March is much slower.
When you think of it the guy made a lot of fame and money off it. And these are the corporations that screw everyone over with the copyright stuff when you might not even make a cent off it.
“A good composer does not imitate; he steals.”
― Igor Stravinsky
Williams just took him for his word.
"John Williams steals too, but he's a bad composer"
- Les Inconnus (à peu près)
@@BixenteFabregas the unknown ?
@@mysteriousgirl1147 french reference
Beethoven took the "hammerklavier" from buxtehude, search for "buxtehude - ciacona in e minor", it's the same thing.
I'm a Brazilian, so I don't know if I wrote it right.
You know you're a classical musician when you say things like "That Augmented 4th is so obvious"
you know you're a pop musician when you peg it as a diminished 5th
@@theyrecousins and normies call it a tritone
@@thewooddove2 and it’s a fine day when we can all meet in the middle, between the subdominant and that other one
@@thewooddove2 No, norm IES call it “that bit where it goes naaa ‘Nan an naaaaaa’”
I think I’m lost here, I like sounds
“We’re going to be copystriked by copiers”
And so they were, what a wonderful world...
@@Carpatouille lol
They sound like detectives that just cracked a case.
"It's stravinsky!"
"Of course!!"
To be fair though, many directors tell the composers: hey man have you heard of *insert piece* by *insert composer*? I want it just like that!
I was told by a film composer, "If you want to make a living composing original music, using your artistic voice by interpreting the visual art of directors, don't go to school to be a film composer. Become a T.V. show theme and commercial jingle writer. They want very new and original music, and with one hit, you'll probably become rich."
Another thing, since the composer is usually brought on near the end of the movie-making process, is that they'll usually use stand-in music (i.e. music from existing works) when reviewing the scene while the score is being composed. The problem is that the director then becomes so attached to the stand-in music that they basically tell the composer to just emulate it.
@@jasonschuler2256 which is how 2001 a space odyssey ended up with Strauss instead of the composer they hired, Alex North. Google it and listen to north's music, it's pretty cool... just not quite Strauss
The use of temp tracks and bringing composers in late in the process is definitely to blame
Yeah, but it’s really not much of an issue. The end result is usually favorable.
One that wasn’t included is the similarity between hedwigs theme from Harry Potter and Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. The comparison is pretty uncanny.
I hear darth vader march in swan lake too. Piano version you can here.
Of course. He copies a genius like Tchaikovsky and botches the copied music.
@@Bucketbrain82 shit I never noticed that, you’re right.
Nahh
Tchaikovsky Waltz of Flower and listen Watlz to death of batman
TwoSetViolin: we’re gonna get copyrighted by the copiers.
George Lucas: How the turntables
How the table turnz
Micheal from the office
There's pretty much nothing whatsoever original in Star Wars including the plot(s). Its basically always been a paraphrase of many different works amalgamated together. It worked out very well, and became very popular and I never had any issue with it. I did however take offense when Lucas Film started suing things like Buck Rogers for copyright infringement when the only legal leg they had to stand on was more money to bully the courts. Lucas will always be a super douche in my eyes thanks to such behavior.
I'll go with *How the tables have turned.
Jeigh Neither can you see the joke flying over your head?
A lot of movie edits are put together before the score is written using a temp soundtrack of existing works. Sometimes the director gets very attached to a certain sound and wants it recreated. So, a lot of Williams' "copying" comes from the demands of the director that the score recreate the temp track.
Beat me to it! I was also going to mention this. It's important to remember that the film composer does not have absolute creative control over the music, but rather should first and foremost respect the director's choices, so if the director asks the composer to be as close as possible to the temp score, the composer pretty much has no choice but to "copy."
I think these examples don't show a lack of originality by the composers, but rather show the pervasiveness of editing with temp scores, a practice that can ultimately hinder a composer's creativity.
whoa this is new knowledge to me, thank you for sharing!
This is really cool!
Why can't they just use the soundtrack of the existing work as it is? Why does the composer need to "copy" it and give it a different name but this time under his name as the composer? Honestly just curious. Thank you
@@hazelencarnado236 maybe its not always in public domain? Idk
My first theory teacher prefaced our end of the semester composition project with, “Anything you write has already been written before”.
Especially if you actually purposefully steal it
Great so your teacher was a liar.
Exactly it’s hard not to match something at one point or another.
That only applies to basic tonal music in a sense. Concert music composers are still writing highly original works these days, like Thomas Ades
"After you've heard a chromatic scale, everything else is just a remix"-a wise TH-cam commenter.
As a star wars fan, and a musician, I don't know how to feel about this video.
John williams has long been explaining to people his classical music inspirations, which is where his title of "last of the great classical composers" amongst enthusiasts comes from. So feel a little proud to be part of both cool communities? Idk
Film composition is generally done in accordance to a "temp-track" provided by the director which says "this is basically the music I want." Rick Beato has a video on film scoring that explains this
John Williams is great and always will be
Some make a fuss out of everything. No need to stress about it.
George Lucas is actually the main reason because he was pretty strict with wanting parts to sound like the orchestral music he was listening to while writing
I don’t see anyone talking about this, but Williams actually got permission from the Korngold estate to write his opening theme so expressly similar
But those composers should have been some of the 1st names to come up in the credits.
@@talyalubit4067 not when they are a "remix". Williams still had his own stuff in the theme. so no need for credits
@@CreativeForgeEntertainment legally, maybe its fine. But I think he SHOULD'VE given credit. The only reason not to would be if he's trying to make it seem like it was an original.
@@talyalubit4067 here comes the law😎 which decides what is legit and what it s not whatever most people will think about. No one said law is always logical for everyone. That is why Creative Commons license is better because you decide how people may use your work ( even though some won't care about it.... The kind of person who thinks everything is free on internet)
@@talyalubit4067 Williams wrote hours of music for this. Many sections were inspired and excepts ant hat tips to other peices, If he had permission, there is no reason why he needed to put that there. But also, do you really think John Williams had any say over that? Im guessing that all of that is upto disney.
You already know Starwars and The Planets are gonna be on this video.
Wow, predicted it.
And Dvorák and jaws
Jaws too
String Music HD music isn’t the only thing they “take” without credit , they also use fan artist work and claim it as thrs lol
Ur fookin profile pic tho
Watching Brett and eddy sometimes feels like I’m third wheeling on a date
Especially those videos that are full of inside jokes
like sanna and hillary 😂😂
Omg so true
Come watch the video they say, it's going to be fun they say 😂
Yess!
John Williams was an orchestrator initially. He knows his way around 20th century Music.
Fun fact: directors sometimes put classical music over a scene before the actual music is finished and they sometimes end up wanting something similar to the classical piece. I believe that’s the case with that piece that was similar to the rite of spring.
Yeah, the original starwars had 0 budget for music when they started. So, for example, they were gonna straight up use Holst in the movie. They only hired Williams when they got funding and then wanted him to compose something similar
Yes! I remember Gustavo Santaolalla saying he loved to work with Ang Lee because he composed the music before and then Lee made the actors listen to the music so they would know how it should feel in each scene.
Edit: this was about Brokeback Mountain.
@LING LING GRANGER yes, for many non classical music listeners Holst is 'boring'. Movie music is made to sound good for today's casual listeners. They make it as catchy and exciting as possible to make it memorable for most watchers of the movie. There's nothing wrong with not liking classical music.
They often do this now, composers talked about the bane of temp tracks a lot.
In case of Star Wars, it was directly inspired by old serials, so why wouldn't it have serial-like music theme. It's just like the text crawl - it didn't come out of nowhere, Lucas didn't come up with it and never pretended to, it's a homage to older movies.
Are they not supposed to credit it though?
To be fair, Gladiator using the motif from Holst's Mars was deliberate. The main character was a Roman General and Mars is the Roman god of war.
True
Thats just good filmmaking
Oooh that is cool! That works
Music from Commodus returning to Rome also has a distinct reference to Siegfried’s Funeral March.
@@GarrettHarris and the Maximus theme sounds very inspired by handel's sarabande
Stravinsky said “A great composer doesn’t borrow, he steals”
Me with pirated music: B E E T H O V E N
He’s correct
Stravinsky stole that quote as well
hey Steve jobs said the same
HA
It fascinating because Korngold's version doesn't leave the same impression with me as the John Williams. I see the similarities, but the effects of the changes are so drastically, dramatically different that it's hard to compare them in a "copying" or "stealing" sense - kinda of like not ruling a plunger a deadly weapon because a murder was committed with one. Now, Baby Shark is definitely Just Can't Get Enough by Depeche Mode.
Anyone can improve something but having the idea is the hardest thing not a fan of Williams
@@neo9560what about all of Williams’ other original works?
Film Music: "Can i copy your homework?"
Classical Music: "Sure. Just don't make it too obvious."
hahaha that john williams is really something
@@brunoescoto9630 I'm not sure you understand how these things work. Williams himself acknowledges that these motifs are copied, but the point is that it wasn't his decision. And the point is that the vast majority of his music is original. Look at the 8 other SW films. They use much more entirely new music. And it doesn't stop at Star Wars. He's written several dozens of films and even writes his own classical music. I like TwoSet but I was shocked that they didn't know something that most of us knew years ago.
Like the good and old Portugese saying:
"Copia, mas não faz igual".
Which translates to: "Copy, but don't make the same"
Narges Royaei one thing is to take some inspiration which is going to happen in every single piece and another very different to write in the same passage, notes, key, rhythm.
This is the musical equivalent of "Who wore it better?"
Or who stole it?
@@dominoplay3712 more like “who got permission to make a remix of a song while still having to do hours of writing and work to get the final product
@@Yellowbuzz-ug6of didn't do much, so yeah, it's stolen
Haha
@@dominoplay3712 lol go score nine 2 hour films and make almost a full day’s worth of music
One could argue that both Holst and John Williams copied the “Mars motif” from the first movement of Mahler 2
Heard it here first Holst was a big fat phony.
Also Star Trek in Mahler 1. Hearing Mahler means hearing almost every Soundtrack there is. I still love all of it - Mahler, Korngold, Holst, Williams, Shore,... beautiful music anyway.
Fun fact about the original Star Wars:
George Lucas originally intended to score the film exclusively to classical music and even shot scenes specifically with classical pieces in mind (like the trench run scene to Holst's music). Lucas wanted to revitalize orchestral film scoring which had become out of favor by the 70s in favor of pop music and synthesizers and so we have Star Wars to thank for having orchestral film scores today. George Lucas was very hesitant to stray from that plan and it took his friend Steven Spielberg to convince him otherwise and to use John Williams. That's why a ton of A New Hope sounds like classical music. Empire Strikes Back was scored exclusively based on John Williams' own ideas and that film really showcases John Williams' more modern style. It really shows you how genius John Williams is that he can create such different scores from his own style that still sound incredible.
5:59 "The Dune Sea of Tatooine" queue is scored extremely similarly to the Rite of Spring and the Empire in A New Hope uses almost exclusively Holst references. Note that the Imperial March didn't exist in A New Hope at all. That was created by Williams on his own for Empire Strikes back and the other films.
2:17 is an example of Williams inserting his own motifs (this one is the "Rebel fanfare", also heard at 4:41) within George Lucas' strict guidelines.
Within film scoring, it's common practice for a director to already have music put to film in the form of "temp tracks." But the directors often view them as far from temporary. So often film composers are forced to take old music and recreate it.
@@jakegearhart Thanks for the clarity!
Wow good observation!
I would hope some of these classical composers would be flattered that their music has been given new life in movies and other media.
The irony of Stravinsky accusing someone of copying him... “A good composer does not imitate; he steals", to quote the master himself. Could become topic of a future video?
Stravinsky's quote was, "Mediocre composers borrow; great composers steal." Bernstein, in the final lecture, "The Poetry of Earth," of the series "The Unanswered Question," labeled Stravinsky as "the thieving magpie of the 20th Century."
@j LOL
“We’re gonna get copystriked by the copiers” - Eddy 2020
BIG PP BRAIN NRG
It's Copyin'ception!
Yep.
Katy Perry is shaking
Clone Wars:
Yoda: Remember, what do you see?
Ahsoka: I see... Rachmaninoff
"Clone" wars xddd
Hilarious! XD
In defense of Hans Zimmer, his music was for a "war" so he purposefully referenced Holtz "Mars." I loved that he used "Mars" there. Creatively done!!
Plus it being not just about war, but the Roman god of war. I think the song perfectly fits the chaos of battle.
I agree, Holst's Mars is so evocative, and Zimmer's treatment of it is excellent.
@@alpinoalpini3849are you kidding right?
InTrEsTiNg is officially reborn
It died?
@@rosie-bs2os it never
*AmAzInG* , isn't it?
*InTreStINg!*
The return of the king
"We're gonna get copystriked by the copiers!" -Eddy 2020
Life is so ironic. Please support these two insanely talented musicians.
INTRESTING :P
Buy the new merch guys😂
Palpatine: ironic
INTERESTINGGG
@@grant1753 😂
Composers copying music:
**F it, he's dead.**
lmao 😭😂
Oooof
Thanks for pointing those relations out. After listening to some pieces of "The Planets" I realized even more references. The "Braveheart" melody or the "Hobbit" melody (Howard Shore) share some similarities (like in the 4th piece of the suite which is Jupiter. I imagine this and many other pieces inspire the Film music composers. Modest Mussorgski's pieces (like Die Nacht auf dem kahlen Berge) are Programmmusik and deliver many Leitmotifs to pictures, places, stories and so on. Wow
"The Kings row" even contains main motives for John William's Superman melody...
Suggestion: Classical composers who copied from each other.
Yes!!! Mendelssohn Violin Concerto 3rd movement and the Russian Dance from The Nutcracker.
@@ianw1976 Great example!
hahahh this is actually interesting
@Rachel Tolmach isn't it interesting that so many great male composers had talented sisters? Schumann, Mendelssohn, Mozart...
@Rachel Tolmach sorry you're right that's what I meant.
Me: The chord
Eddy with perfect pitch: The augmented fourth
Me: Yeah that's what I said
You don’t need perfect pitch to identify chords
Isn't that Relative pitch?
You need PRACTICE
Augmented fourth is the easiest chord to here, used in everything. Has nothing to do with perfect pitch. Perfect pitch is being able to identify notes, not chords
Mike Cliburn but When YOu CaN ideNtiFy nOtes Then YoU can IdenTify ChorDs
John Williams: hey can i copy your homework
Korngold: yeah, just don't make it look obvious
John Williams: Star Wars main theme
LMAOOOO
On the gladiator example I think the Holst foundation actually sued them. Because it's the same. Piece.
XD
Lol
Lucas told Williams to do it. The thing is, Williams can actually write classical/romantic/modernistic symphonic pieces no matter if he uses stuff from other composers or not... which is not the case with modern hollywood composers who may steal ideas, but can't put together compositions on the level of classical masters.
Sorry to reply so long after you commented, but his Bassoon concerto is just SO good. I desperately need people to listen to his non-film music.
@@MaryKateMcNallysame with the cello concerto I’m going to watch yo yo ma play it so excited!
no one is talking abt eddy's friend copying his assignment n eddy needs to redo it???? ok im sorry
He talked about it another video. I think its the gross uni experiences
@@abhiramvishwanath8048 Yeah its “What It’s Really Like Studying Music at University” or smith like that
ikr i would not let them get away that easily
I felt that ngl
ya
This clears up some things about Star Wars:
George Lucas originally intended to score the film exclusively to classical music and even shot scenes specifically with classical pieces in mind (like the trench run scene to Holst's music). Lucas wanted to revitalize orchestral film scoring which had become out of favor by the 70s where pop music and synthesizers were common. So we have Star Wars to thank for having orchestral film scores today. George Lucas was _very hesitant_ to stray from that plan and it took his friend Steven Spielberg to convince him otherwise and to use John Williams (who he had worked with on Jaws). And even after hiring Williams, Lucas wouldn't let him stray much from the classical music he had chosen. (Don't look down on Lucas though, he had great intentions.) That's why a ton of A New Hope sounds like classical music. Empire Strikes Back was scored exclusively based on John Williams' own ideas and that film really showcases John Williams' more modern style. It really shows you how genius John Williams is that he can create such different scores from his own style that still sound incredible.
5:59 "The Dune Sea of Tatooine" queue is scored extremely similarly to the Rite of Spring and the Empire in A New Hope uses almost exclusively Holst references. Note that the Imperial March didn't exist in A New Hope at all. That was created by Williams on his own for Empire Strikes back and the other films.
2:17 is an example of Williams inserting his own motifs (this one is the "Rebel fanfare", also heard at 4:41) within George Lucas' strict guidelines.
Within film scoring, it's common practice for a director to already have music put to film in the form of "temp tracks." But the directors often view them as far from temporary. So often film composers are forced to take old music and recreate it.
And it also sounds like alot of old Western films, but Star wars is a space Western movie
This!!! I like Brett and Eddy defending classical music, but John Williams has such a specific context as to why his work on the first Star Wars movies "copies" previous classical pieces, you can even link Lucas to Spielberg, and then to Jaws (the infamous "copying" of Dvorak's 9th).
This video is rubbing me the wrong way, I know that they probably don't know about the context, but I wish they'd have resesrched it a bit. Because their (let's admit it) young audiencie, while supportive, are impressionable and just...fans (not all them, I know there are exceptions, and your comment shows that), and they may percieve Williams in a wrong light after this, and he really doesn't desrve it (or at least, in the case of his works for Spielberg and Lucas). His own original works outside film scoring, such as his Violin Concerto, are a perfect proof of how talented and insanely genius he is as a composer.
This much better than I could have said it - but yes it is well known among star wars trivia people that the original star wars was going to be scored using classical music (kinda still is! - but is that really a bad thing?)
Guillermina Marin I agree. It’s opening up the whole plagiarism vs inspiration debate. Twoset should do a follow-up video! With their immense popularity on YT, they have both an opportunity and the responsibility to discuss this topic in a mature and balanced way.
I completely agree. This video portrayed John Williams as a copier when in reality that’s just not the truth which bothered me. Without context it seems he just copied but it’s important to understand the context behind it because Williams is a great composer
For the defense of Star Wars, Lucas meant to use straight up classical music as soundtrack (as it was common back then in Hollywood iirc), Williams just adjusted it to the plot and filled up the gaps.
Similar to Mars and Gladiator, Mars as the Roman God for War is basically perfect as a soundtrack for a battle.
Should have mentioned them in the credit sections tho xd
Yeah they should at least put something like inspired by in the credit
The thing is nobody cares that's why star wars gets away with epic music like it's their own
What are you doing here core of sacrilege. We know you're disguised, get out
@@yuhyi0122 then you'd have to put "inspired by" in almost all music. Terrific overview here: th-cam.com/video/nJPERZDfyWc/w-d-xo.html
james xia Well, it’s not no one cares, it’s just a majority didn’t know. When Star Wars was just developing, Lucas and many others didn’t think the franchise would become what it is today. They were super low on budget, most of what they had went into sfx and little to make up for the soundtrack; Williams had to work with Lucas wanted. Lets not just simply bash the people who spent most of their lives on this based on a very biased video.
The Dune Sea of Tatooine could also be inspired by Saturn, Bringer of Old Age.
jupiter was jollity, not old age.
@@hashdankhog8578 Just now noticing thanks.
George Lucas wrote Star Wars whilst listening to a bunch of classical music - notably Holst's The Planets and The Sorcerer's Apprentice - He presented Williams the different music that inspired him in hopes to help Williams catch on to the vibe that Lucas wanted.
Makes Williams something of an arranger of classical pieces for a new medium. Personally I think it's all chill, steal what's good, remix it, whatever, bring the good old sounds to new people
Yeah, it seems wrong to say he is 'blatantly copying' Holst. That piece played in the first scene of the first movie, I think it was intentionally introducing something familiar and thematically relevant to a brand new and untested work.
@@DarthCody700 Not to mention most classical music like Holst's is public domain in some way I believe, so Williams was totally allowed to do that.
@@supernunb3128 not in 1979 it wasn't!
@@supernunb3128 i mean... Oh no... Someone else figured out a same *chord* before
in all fairness to film composers, this usually happens because directors choose classical pieces to play over scenes before composers score the film. as a result, its not uncommon for directors to fall in love with the classical pieces over their scenes, and so they ask film composers to write something near-identical.
In Star Wars, i became a game for us to guess all the classical paraphrases that Williams had worked into his music. My guess is that Lucas had been cutting the film to "temporary tracks" of specifically chosen classical music and when it got to be time to bring in Mr. Williams, Lucas requested him to write something "original" that was closely based on . . . whatever. I was glad to hear the guys here at least mention Dukas ("The Sorcerer's Apprentice") - the big fanfare chords in the Star Wars theme "Ta-TAAAA-da / Ta-TAAAA-da are clearly taken from the Sorcerer's big chords as he appears near the end and restores order to the cave.
Yeah
Yeah unfortunately common. It’s called temp music or temp score that the director or editor or producer will put in “temporarily” to capture a vibe. Unfortunately the composer has to work with it incorporating the same style but different enough to avoid copyright. Sucks but that’s the way it is sometimes.
The best example of someone talking about this is Alan Menken about the overture/prologue of Beauty and the Beast-he’d ended up writing something completely different for the prologue but the temp music had been from the carnival of the animals and the directors both said they wanted that.
I'm not sure this was the case back in 1976, though. They may still have been watching daily rushes in silence back then.
Stravinsky once said: "bad artists borrow, good artists steal!"
Even Steve Jobs said that. Now we are copying quotes too...?
@@parthajeetsarmah4529 it's called citation, my dear. Once you're at University, you will learn about them :-)
@@tigerthemystic2382 or just school in general
Then copyright was invented and now you can be sued for being human
I thought it was attributed to Picasso. But, judged on what I've read about him I doubt it. Didn't strike me as someone who would be bothered
Has anyone mentioned the “similarity” between the love music (flight scene)in Superman and one of the Enigma Variations.
Part of the Superman March also takes from Mars, The Bringer of War, IMO. Especially around three minutes nineteen seconds on the Superman March compared to a later section in Mars with a similar progression of notes.
Dune Soundtrack. Shostakovich.
So if you check out "the soundtrack show" podcast with David W Collins he explains why they're so similar. Lucas used classical music that he wanted Williams to emulate when showing Williams the reels. So Williams abided by that.
If you like film soundtracks I HIGHLY recommend the soundtrack show. It's frickin awesome.
I came here looking for someone to talk about this! Yup yup, great show that addresses a lot of these points!
Thanks!! I’ll check it out!
is anyone just going to ignore how sad that eddy had to redo his assignment at 3:20
He's shared that story before. They did a video on music university experience last year I think?
Link?
Beyza Özbek th-cam.com/video/UqfUVtdbf-Q/w-d-xo.html at around 11:47
@@acetrainer4556 Thanks :)
That's a bit of a dramatic comment
Eddy's friend still owes him that dinner...
Yupppp hahaha
What are you talking about?
There's a video of eddy telling the full version of his assignment getting copied story, at the end the guy that copy his work promised to treat him dinner but never did
Yeah lmao
@Parker Kim yes they do 😂
I'm actually playing King's Row in band this semester! It was a suggestion from one of the other students. Have to say, it was REAL difficult to get down because all I heard was Star Wars.
Brett's skin looks extra glowy today and I'm living for it.
Ppl in the comments reading my mind! Brett is ✨
Maybe he's ovulating. Wait, what?
when he gonna drop that skincare routine video 🥺🥺
Brett's too cute!! He's getting younger and younger everytime
People: classical music is old and boring
Me: diD yOu kNoW
Nah I went to go see an All State Symphony and it was intense, dynamics in classical are crazy
@@BourdeoixEterno right!??
@SaKuGa SeNsEi yess like i cant study to classical music its too fun
I can relate LOL.
@@chiri9391 Ikr! I'm doing homework and get distracted by the piece and then I just sit there listening instead of doing homework
A fun fact about the Star Wars score. George Lucas edited Star Wars to Holst's planets and intended for it to be showed with the Holst score. However, while showing it to director Steven Spielberg, Spielberg suggested that John Williams (who has collaborated on almost every Spielberg movie) score the movie. I suppose you could say John Williams score is less of a copy and more of a reinterpretation of Holst's score, reimagined for the characters and story of Star Wars.
Ugly Cactus Ok Edge Lord.
@@tempest2985 im sorry
Except that John Williams got an Oscar for Original Score for this...
@@Zamber78 Fans are really crazy for defending John Williams with their excuses 😂 Straight up copied.
@@patrickimperial579 that was basically the intention with some added stuff...
not to really change it
This can be referred to as "derivative work bias." It is the tendency to undervalue or dismiss creative works that are based on or inspired by existing works, instead of recognizing them as original and valid creations in their own right. It can be a result of a belief that true creativity must be completely original and untainted by outside influences, or a lack of appreciation for the nuances and complexities of the creative process.
Well said.
Too wordy.
I have the 'Original Star Wars Soundtrack' and I was wondering why the name "Korngold" was on the cover.
Turns out his son George Korngold produced the recording, which was borrowed from a composition by his father, Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
So it wasn't a secret for people working in the music/soundtrack industry back then.
it never was a secret, it just didnt become viral but everytime someone asked John Williams about it he just said and pointed to who and when he took inspiration from other pieces and composers
Now THIS is an underrated comment!
W o t ? !
I didn't know this :v
@@comandantethorn9929 Rethinking the whole thing. You know how the music business works.
They had a deal to use Korngold's original music, add a handful of notes then have John Williams as the 'vehicle' or 'medium channeling Korngold.'
It made much better PR saying you have this great new, very much alive composer then saying you're using old 50s Hollywood music from a dead composer.
In my opinion Williams is just another music artist who is covering songs (orchestral music in his case) in a new version.
Well now, 'Everyday is a school day'.
My father once attended a performance of John Adams's music and John Adams himself was there and was accepting questions. My father asked about a similarity between one of Adams's pieces and a Mahler symphony, and Adams responded, "That whole piece is a forgery"
Adams’ early music was really good, but he’s past his prime tbh....
InTeReStInG
@@juliusseizure591 oh I don't know, I am a huge fan of Doctor Atomic and his recent piano concerto is pretty good. I think he's still got a lot of great ideas.
Film music conductors: *copies classical music
TwoSet: tHoUgHt wE wOuLdN't nOtIcE bUt wE dId
Oof
Wooppsiiieee
“I understood that reference”
Regarding Rachmaninov, loving Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Wagner previously, my husband introduced me to Rachmaninov, and it was not an instant love, but now, Rachmaninov is just soo wonderful 😍
Twoset why are you uploading so much? Eddy’s Sibelius is coming..
If close means early next year to you
When I played Mars for a friend about 20 years ago, he asked what movie it was from.
Sacrilegious friend lol
R/woooossh
Starwars apparently hehe
It's from "The Right Stuff"
There’s also many national anthems that are copied from classical music
I'm Indonesian, on few weeks before i realized one of my national anthem have similar melody from 1812 overture by Tchaikovsky. Maybe i'll find out more! Its interesting to know something like this
Yesss
Isn't the melody of the German national anthem taken from a Haydn string quartet?
@@chelseadalotta97 Which one?
@@chelseadalotta97 which one is it?
12:42 - " R2, we need to go up, not down!'
Well the first prototypes for Star Wars were actually set to Gustav Holtz' planets, this is what George Lucas first wanted. But for some reason they couldn't do it so John Williams composed themes that sound very similar. He was also heavily influenced by Stravinsky and Wagner.
Oh yep, just a few minutes later you mention Stravinsky
all the characters also have their own themes since he wanted it to be a bit like an opera, so you know when characters come on screen just by listening
@@xuexueyanyan That's commonplace these days in tv shows, less often in movies. If you get the soundtrack to Tv shows with a good composer you'll see the main characters have a theme and multiple versions of that same theme based on the characters emotions.
A good example is the show Lost where they play the same song (different version) every time someone dies or is born, and each character has their theme that can be fast and exciting or slow and depressing.
Right on. I have for decades thought that the three "classical" composer who were most like Williams were (guess): Stravinsky, Holtz, and Wagner. Stravinsky is pretty obvious - I often say that Williams is the second coming of Stravinsky. The biggest connection with Wagner is leitmotiv - the association of particular themes with particular characters (although I doubt anybody could call that plagiarism). The reference to The Planets is particularly amusing to me. I have been saying for a long time that Williams ought to add two movements: Earth (The Bringer of Life) and Pluto (The Bringer of Death). To call a repetition of one note containing some triplets a copy is not justifiable. (As for the "sliding strings", in Mars they are not sliding at all - that passage is all pizzicato.) Likewise, to call a repeated diatonic interval a stolen melody seems crazy to me. The distinctive part of the Tatooine theme is the bassoon riff. I don't remember that in any Stravinsky. Consider "melodies" consisting of five notes. If one counts all twelve tone possibilities, there are less than a quarter million of those (up to octave transpositions). If one limits it to any diatonic scale (or mode, for you Greeks), you are down to 16807. Furthermore, I think the defining characteristic of Williams is that once you hear a particular theme, you just CANNOT imagine a more appropriate one. If there really is a unique best (if you can beat any of JWs, write or record it and send it to me), then if it has already be used, it should be reused. This kind of "plagiarism" was well used by Beethoven, Mozart, and Bachs (both J.S. and P.D.Q.).
The theme from E.T., the Extra Terrestrial (John Williams) also sounds quite a bit like measures 26-29 in Mov 4 of Beethoven's 5th Symphony. My music professor once told our Music History class that John Williams is basically all the great romantic composers put together with 10 additional horn parts.
It’s kinda crazy how he basically scored damn near ALL of the instantly recognized music, Harry Potter, jaws, Star Wars, home alone, E.T., Jurassic park, Indiana Jones. All from one humans mind
@@Yellowbuzz-ug6of And yet they aren't credited for it :q Guess they should've used some more memorable titles for their pieces instead of "Fugue in D-moll" or "5th Symphony" :q
🤣🤣🤣🤣
I LOVE SENSEI JOHN WILLIAMS' MUSIC
BUT
Your wise PROFESSOR is absolutely RIGHT 👏👏
It also sounds very similar to the cello solo near end of the last movement of Dvorak’s Dumky Piano Trio
The thing is, NO ONE composes stuff out of the blue without any inspiration. So it's obvious that composers gets ideas from others, only the TRUE classical ones were genius, no one else is. Also history repeats itself and we all know that
Twoset: this is gonna get copystriked
My phone: puts ads in the middle of songs through the whole video.
Me: answering your comment
Me: replying.
That’s now how copyright strike works. It will keep the ads, but all revenue will go the copyright holder. There would be no ads if it were demonetized.
*piece
Love your Chanel !
In fact for me and a number of friends these movie composers where a good way to discover romantic and classical music. If think we should at least thank them to open a new gate for kids to that culture.
Thank you for your work!
Check this one: Pirates of the Caribbean - Davy Jones vs Carmina Burana - Circa mea pectora
😮 thank you for this comment. Circa mea pectora is a beautiful piece of music that I hadn't known about before and after checking it out I can definitely hear the similarity.
also beethovens Piano Sonata 25 (op 79), second movement Andante is another one that just sounds like both!
@@musicfridge you're talking about the 2nd movement right? Very cool, thanks for sharing. Throughout the 2nd movement my brain was going "Cir-ca me-a pec-tora" lol
Pirates of The Caribbean almost sounds like Holst’s St. Paul’s Suite Jig Vivace
@@thatsalittlebassist the string section is my favorite. Also, cool name.
just wait, in 20 years we're gonna see Brett's lofi in Star Wars too
0:52 "Isn't Star Wars about a lot of planets as well?"
Well yes, but minus one.
Looking at you, Alderaan.
damn.
Or not since it’s not really there anymore
Haha death star go boom
That's no moon...
Too soon, pal...
Alfred Schnittke’s last movement of his “In memoriam” sounds so similar to the William’s Planet krypton theme from Superman. The film has the theme played on a trumpet, and Schnittke uses an organ, but it’s so similar to me, at least the main figure. Schnittke takes it immediately to a much darker and more complex place.
On Apple Music there’s a playlist called “John Williams: Influences” and it has a bunch of classical music that inspired a lot of his film scores.
*Brett and Eddy:* i hear it, That’s so obvious!
*Me, with no classical music knowledge:* Hehe yeah. So obvious ⚆ _ ⚆
Actually helps us uninitiated when they show the original too. If they didn't we be like "hEhE yOu rIgHt. sO oBvIoUs" 😂
Brett: “Our ears should speak for itself”
Eye toetally agree
You
I bet you’re already on a different video, making yet another iconic comment... I’ll catch you in the act one day god dammit
Heeeeeeey here u are
ur literally everywhere hi
Hello
I feel bad for the composers that never get the credit they deserve...
Like Bruckner, Schubert and Mendelssohn.
I can assure you they don't feel bad.
@@stephenstarr6388 Because they are dead.
John Williams has always thanked the composers extensively and has never made any secret of the fact that there are compositions with classical influences. Unfortunately, this is not mentioned in this video. I wonder why 😎
@@upplysta3497 Cause they and most people probably didn't know? Brett literally said it's the first time hearing the Star Wars theme. Also, the point still stands, the original composers don't get enough credit, regardless of whether John Williams thanked them or not.
"Lesser composers borrow, great composers steal.”
- Stravinsky
@@TheDraftHorse2025 Bruh did you just call John Williams lesser
Mr. Infinite Rings, you have just demonstrated your complete ignorance of Williams’ process in writing the music. If you had seriously asked yourself why he made so similar instead of just immediately answering the question in your head, you might have put in the work of researching the history of the work Williams put into making the soundtracks for the films. Do your research and look behind the scenes before you accuse the world’s greatest artists of plagiarism.
@@TheDraftHorse2025 how does one seriously call John Williams a lesser composer
@@TheDraftHorse2025 Dude come on we know you just wanta say this because your mad no need to bring it on the Wonderful John Williams instead pick on Lucas
@Superb of course you didn't know anything about music.
The current haircut of Brett makes him look like an Asian dad.
He IS an asian dad
LING LING GRANGER plot twist: editor-san’s dads ARE brett and eddy
@@_heed thirsty girls: *I know, right?*
@@trivia3108 its me, I'm thirsty girls
I wonder if there is gonna be a film music in the future inspired by Brett‘s epic Lofi
That film would be called 2020
stop
WHAHAHAHAHAH 100% SURE
Arturo Romero ahahah omg yes true
@@arturoromero951 yes
new sub! love the analyze... 😎👍👍
I like how people say classical music is lame while they fawn over movie soundtracks... that were copied
Iris Petal good point! It just goes to show that context is everything
Its like someone likes to go to asian countries but theyre being too stereotypical to asians on eating dogs
It didnt make sense to them 😝
Idk...some classical music sound bland and too drag out...but when soundtracks do spin on it then they become more epic
I obviously not talking about ALL classical music
What? I want to know what lame ass people you're hanging out with that fawn over movie soundtracks but also simultaneously think "classical music is lame". I feel like those people don't exist -- if you like film music, you have some level of appreciation for classical music.
Bullshit! Show me even one single person who expresses dislike for classical music and at the same time fawns over Star Wars' soundtrack. Trying to sound superior and score points by attacking people that don't even exist, that's the only lame thing here.
John Williams has always credited Erich Wolfgang Korngold as one of the greatest all time film composers, and as one of his greatest inspirations.
Plus, as others have mentioned, Star Wars was temped with Gustav Holst's The Planets, so that obviously heavily inspired the score.
Ah, that explains everything, including copyrights on stolen music!
The slogan for this video: “iNtErEsTiNg”!!!
The entire channel is InTeReStInG!
John Williams' original scores look like ransom notes with sections of other people's sheet music taped together.
Without watching the video. It’s gonna be Mars and New World Symphony.
was expecting New world, too.
And the rite of spring
Brett be looking like a soft boy protagonist during this quarantine.
It’s just he just finnally used conditioner
frfr
Ikr
I played "The Planets" last year and just realized how much Star Wars sounds like it-
Yep, because Lucas wanted to have something like it in Star Wars, and Williams wrote similar music
Jupiter bringer of jollity sounded like that dreamworks theme song NO JOKE
I was under the impression that was deliberate
@@ferrous719 it kind of was, williams actually pointed to where he took all of his inspirations and said that the kings road themeas and the planets suites where actually the stand ins he used to compose star wars's music by George Lucas's suggestions
Star Wars musicians: Oh shit, I almost played classic music. Better change it real quick
Brett: You know, if you played that to me, I would think it's Stravinsky, straight up.
Also Brett, literally 30 seconds earlier: Debussy!
Stravinsky once said “Good composers borrow, Great composers steal!”
Beat me to it!
@LING LING GRANGER In my understanding, when you borrow, everybody knows and you have to credit to the owner. But when you steal, you have to be discrete and make it the least obvious possible. I think what Stravinsky meant is you should be creative with an existing motif/idea and make it your own, rather than simply copying it. And according to this way of understanding, I think Star Wars theme is actually more like "borrow" than "steal", because it's quite obvious. Correct me if I'm wrong! 😃
I think what he mean by that, is that a great composer will make the music their own by giving it their own personal style;
But also, in a more aggressive way, a great composer "steals" a musical idea by making people recongize that idea from them; Every precedent sounds like half-hearted and every successor sounds like a hack in comparison.
Here is something I found about while listening to Handel's organ works: th-cam.com/video/3qvQ7DM4pBM/w-d-xo.html
Sound familiar?
And then, of course, this theme was ripped to hell and back, from Mahler 5 to Mendy's wedding march to multiple Brahms pieces to a million other places
And yet, it remains the single most instantly recognisable theme in all music.
in fact, John Williams once admitted that he composed the starwars music taking Gustav Holst as inspiration
Might as well. It's not like he was subtle about it.
"Inspiration". Yup.
there’s a fine line between ‘inspiration’ and ‘copying’
@@schticknic its actually Lucas's fault since he wanted that music to be the actual soundtrack, Williams didnt want to but he still had to follow Georges suggestions when he did not have the time to compose it all from scratch up since hes been a requested composer for a while now
Did he mentioned Korngold too?
8:45 this is less blatant and it's one I actually didn't know about: that's also why I get so often the vibe of "having heard it already" so many times when I listen to a piece of cm I actually hear for the first time...