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Attention, all you memoir fabulists!
In light of recent scandals, we will now require arrest records and stool samples from all autobiographers. And can someone fact-check the Gospels?
By Louis Bayard [2008-03-07]

  • Plagiarism as high art

    @pacrat

    According to Igor Stravinsky: "Lesser artists borrow, greater artists steal." Considering that some of his major mature works were based on the themes of others (Tchaikovsky and a faux-Pergolesi most notably) it is pretty clear in which category he wished to be placed. But when asked if he thought that Leonard Bernstein stole ideas, he is supposed to have called Lennie a kleptomaniac.

    Then again, there is evidence that many of his (Stravinsky's) witty not to say catty remarks (not to mention many articles in the NYRB and other places) were really authored by Robert Craft. Go figure.

    Baroque composers, even the greatest, regularly stole from themselves...half the Bach B-minor Mass is recycled (albeit made sharper) from earlier cantatas.. and one reason that Handel was able to have composed "Messiah" in few weeks, was that he filched stuff from some of his earlier Italian operas. ..some of them very secular indeed... and just reset the words.

    Consider it a tribute.

    -- jprfrog
    [Read jprfrog's other letters]
    Thursday, March 6, 2008 08:04 PM
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