Composer tributes (classical music)

Musical tributes or homages from one composer to another can take many forms. Following are examples of the major types of tributes occurring in classical music. A particular work may fit into more than one of these types.

Variations

Variations on a theme by another composer. These are usually written as discrete sets of variations. There are hundreds of examples, including:

• Ludwig van Beethoven's Diabelli Variations
• Johannes Brahms's Variations on a Theme by Haydn (which theme was probably not written by Haydn at all)

Works with other titles

Many works are based on a theme or themes by another composer (sometimes anonymous or traditional). They range from short pieces to extended major compositions. Sometimes these works are no more than sets of variations under another name, but sometimes they go beyond that. They appear under many titles, including:

• Works ending in -ana, such as:
  • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's tribute to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart by subtitling his Orchestral Suite No. 4 Mozartiana
  • Ottorino Respighi's tribute to Gioachino Rossini, titled Rossiniana
  • Robert Gerhard's hommage to Felip Pedrell, titled Pedrelliana
  • Joaquín Rodrigo's Soleriana (1953), on eight pieces by Antoni Soler
  • Carles Surinyach's Soleriana (1972), also on Antoni Soler
• Fantasia or Fantasy
  • Ralph Vaughan Williams's Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
  • Franz Liszt's Fantasy on Themes from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni
  • Joaquín Rodrigo's Fantasía para un gentilhombre on themes from Gaspar Sanz's Instrucción de música sobre la Guitarra Española.
• Hommage
  • the second piece from Claude Debussy's piano suite Images is Hommage à Rameau
  • Lorenzo Ferrero's Thema 44 (ad honorem J. Haydn) for small orchestra
  • Robert Gerhard's Symphony Hommage to Pedrell
  • Edvard Grieg's Study (Hommage à Chopin), from Moods, Op. 73
  • Alexandre Tansman's Hommage à Chopin (for guitar)
• Paraphrase
  • Liszt's Paraphrase on the "Dies Irae", which he called Totentanz
• Rhapsody
  • Sergei Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (probably the most famous of the many works based on Niccolò Paganini's Caprice No. 24 in A minor for solo violin)
• Reminiscences
  • Liszt's Réminiscences de Don Juan (based on themes from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni)
• Tombeau
  • Maurice Ravel's Le tombeau de Couperin
  • Manuel de Falla's Le Tombeau de Debussy
  • Arthur Benjamin's Le Tombeau de Ravel

Use of composer's name or an associated name

Examples of the use of a composer's name as the title of a work include:

• Nicolas Isouard's opera Cimarosa (1808), after the eponymous composer
• Albert Lortzing's singspiel Szenen aus Mozarts Leben (1832), on Mozart's life
• Robert Schumann named two sections of his piano work Carnaval after Paganini and Chopin
• Alessandro Stradella's life was the base for some operas with the title Stradella by Louis Niedermeyer (1837), César Franck (1841) and Friedrich von Flotow's Alessandro Stradella (1844)
• Emilio Arrieta's opera Pergolesi (1851), after this composer
• Johann Joseph Abert's opera Astorga (1866), a fictional work based on Emanuele d'Astorga's life
• Joachim Raff's opera Benedetto Marcello (1878, after the eponymous composer)
• Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's opera Mozart and Salieri (1897) was based on fictional events supposedly involving Mozart and Antonio Salieri
• Stanislao Falchi's opera Tartini. o Il trillo del Diavolo (1899), about Giuseppe Tartini
• Giacomo Orefice's opera Chopin (1901), a fictional treatment of the life of Frédéric Chopin, in which the arias were based on themes from that composer's piano works
• Hans Pfitzner's opera Palestrina (1917), depicting episodes in the life of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
• Franz Lehár's operetta Paganini (1925), a fictional treatment of Paganini's life
• Bernhard Paumgartner's opera Rossini in Neapel (1936) on Gioacchino Rossini
• Sir Peter Maxwell Davies's opera Taverner (1972), on John Taverner's life
• Alfred Schnittke's opera Gesualdo (1995), based on Carlo Gesualdo's life.

Sometimes the name of something strongly associated with the composer is used as the title of a work:

• Sergei Lyapunov named a symphonic poem written in tribute to Chopin after that composer's birthplace Żelazowa Wola
• Emil Ábrányi's opera A Tamás-templom karnagya (The cantor of Saint Thomas) (1947), on Johann Sebastian Bach, referring to him by the church where he worked.

Transcription or adaptation

Transcriptions or adaptations of existing works for other forces, such as:

• Maurice Ravel's orchestration of Modest Mussorgsky's piano work Pictures at an Exhibition
• Franz Liszt's transcription for solo piano or two pianos of the nine symphonies of Beethoven
• Robert Wright and George Forrest's arrangements of the works of classical composers as songs for musicals (the best known are Kismet, based on Alexander Borodin; and Song of Norway, based on Grieg)

Quotation

Quotation of a theme or themes by another composer. Many examples, including:

• Richard Strauss quoted the funeral march from Beethoven's Eroica Symphony (No. 3) in his Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings
• Igor Stravinsky quoted a theme from Franz Schubert's Marche Militaire No. 1 in D in his Circus Polka

Transformation

Transformation of completed works, such as:

• Charles Gounod took the melody line from Bach's Prelude No. 1 in C major from Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier, and added his own harmonies, setting it to the words of the prayer Hail Mary (in Latin, Ave Maria). His setting was called Ave Maria
• Grieg added an additional part for a second piano to existing solo piano sonatas by Mozart

Synthesis

Synthesis of fragmentary notes into a conjectural whole, such as:

• Luciano Berio's Rendering (1989) embeds fragments of an unfinished symphony by Franz Schubert
• Anthony Payne's elaboration of Edward Elgar's notes for his Third Symphony (which he does not pretend is necessarily what Elgar would have written had he had the opportunity)
• Charles Wuorinen's A Reliquary for Igor Stravinsky (1975) incorporates sketch fragments by Igor Stravinsky

Completion

Completion of substantially written but unfinished works, such as:

• Franz Xaver Süssmayr completing Mozart's Requiem in accordance with the outline sketched by the composer
• Franco Alfano completing Giacomo Puccini's opera Turandot
• Deryck Cooke's completion of Gustav Mahler's Tenth Symphony

Imitation

Imitation, where a composer deliberately copies the compositional style of an earlier composer, such as:

• Siegfried Ochs wrote a set of 14 Humorous Variations on the German folk song Kommt ein Vogel geflogen, in which each variation was in the style of a different composer (they included Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner)
• Sergei Prokofiev imitated Joseph Haydn in his Symphony No. 1 in D Classical
• Maurice Ravel composed two piano pieces in 1913, titled A la manière de … Borodine, and A la manière de … Chabrier
• Heitor Villa-Lobos wrote a series of works called Bachianas Brasileiras, imitating the style of Bach
• Tchaikovsky wrote imitative piano pieces called Un poco di Schumann and Un poco di Chopin in his 18 Morceaux, Op. 72; also his Album des enfants, Op. 39, was subtitled 24 Children's Pieces à la Schumann

Dedication

Dedication of a work to another composer or performer:

• Pierre Boulez's Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna
• Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 3 is dedicated to Richard Wagner
• York Höller's Schwarze Halbinseln (1982) is dedicated to Karlheinz Stockhausen
• The Messa per Rossini, a collaborative work by 13 composers spearheaded by Giuseppe Verdi, in a tribute to Rossini
• Aram Khachaturian's Violin Concerto is dedicated to David Oistrakh
• Wolfgang Rihm's Sub-Kontur (1974–75) is dedicated to Karlheinz Stockhausen
• The four Regions of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Hymnen are dedicated to Pierre Boulez, Henri Pousseur, John Cage, and Luciano Berio
• Ralph Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 5 is dedicated to Jean Sibelius.

Cryptogram

Musical cryptograms, where the composer’s name is encoded in musical letters. The most famous example of this is the BACH motif, which has been used by over 400 composers^[1] in tribute to Johann Sebastian Bach (Bach himself used it more than once in his own works). Other examples include:

• Ravel's Menuet sur le nom d'Haydn
• Arnold Bax's Variations on the name Gabriel Fauré for harp and strings
• the DSCH motif, depicting Dmitri Shostakovich; it has been used by various other composers in tribute to him.

References