Did John Williams steal half his career from a few measures by Poulenc?

Hmm, no I don't think so. There are some rich & wallowy harmonies in there but I couldn't hear much else that reminded me of his scores.

Some people seem to go bananas over the fact that, eg, the 2nd subject of his Superman opening titles music sounds almost identical to the 'verklarung' theme of Strauss' tone poem - & it does - but W's gifts are in the actual scoring...the split-second cues & rapid changes of feel, tempo, colour via leitmotif etc that Spielberg has always demanded of him. No-one does that better than he. Jaws, Star Wars, Close Encounters, Raiders, ET; all masterpieces of film-scoring, & none of those films would have been as successful as it was without it.

Nice catch! Thank you. If I had watched it recently, I would probably have recalled it after listening to Poulenc’s concerto, but I doubt I would be able to identify the concerto from the soundtrack merely from memory. I might have been able to notice that it sounded somewhat like Poulenc, but I’m not sufficiently familiar with his works to recognize specific passages in other media. Incidentally, which would you consider his best pieces? I would like to explore his work in greater depth in the future.

Regarding John Williams, you may be right. Since he also steals profusely from other composers, however, most of all from late Romanticism, especially from Tchaikovsky and Wagner, I’m not sure exactly from whom he steals the most. My guess would be that he tries to sound like Poulenc when he wants to incite amenable feelings in the audience, while, when he wants to be more dramatic or bombastic, he most usually tries to evoke Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Strauss or Mahler, among others. About your response on Stravinsky, don’t worry! You can reply whenever you have the time and feel disposed to.

By the way, now I realize that my earlier comments on my inability to respond may have generated some pressure. I apologize, that was not my intention. It’s just that I’m terribly busy with cram school during this term, and, since I’m new here, I was afraid that my lack of regularity might bother other members. As for the size of my posts, part of it is due to the fact that, being able to post only one or two times a week for the moment, I sometimes feel the need to present more of my thoughts in a single moment. Mostly, however, it’s due to the fact that I’m very interested in the themes in question, in the discussion and in what you have to say. You don’t need to feel any obligation to reply in depth, however, nor any obligation to reply in any particular time. I would be completely happy in reading your thoughts as they come and when you have the time and feel disposed to write them, and you can feel completely free as well either to add or not to add to them at any time. I realize as well that writing so much in the other thread when you said you lacked time may have aggravated this. The only forum in which I participated for a longer time was a Literature forum with very long posts, so I’m a little rusty when it comes to the problems brought by this kind of writing. When the context seems unpropitious for longer replies, I will try to condense my responses, break them into different posts or save other interesting points for later occasions.

Moreover, part of the reason why I have been taking every chance to express my views is the fact that I have already been itching to participate for many months now, but did not have the time until recently. I previously wrote two posts here in the “greatest composers” thread under the nickname Kater Murr, which I later discarded due to the existence of another user named Tomcat Murr in the site, of whom I was previously unaware. Ever since reading part of that thread earlier this year, I have been eager to participate on the board, but only now, after finishing my driver’s education, I have found some time. Your comments on Byron, especially, to borrow from Kant’s famous phrase, woke me up from many of the remaining vestiges left in my appreciation of his works by the dogmatic slumber of New Criticism, and I’m truly grateful for that. Probably even more than you can imagine, since, as a young poet in the making, huge insights in comparative literature are profoundly transformative in my life and future career. Since then, I have reread most of Byron’s major poems, and spent a lot of time thinking about them, comparing them with other works and, in consequence, I reached several interesting contemplations and conclusions. You probably thought about some of them as well, but, if you are interested, I could write about them in greater depth here.

In fact, for some reasons relative both to the state of current world literature and to the particular background of my own language and country’s tradition, I even ended up reaching the conclusion that Byron would probably be an extremely appropriate influence on my own early poetic career. Beyond the more obvious variable that I’m currently studying Russian, that’s part of the reason why I have been thinking so much about Pushkin, since he is one of the poets I know of which best assimilated and surpassed Byron’s influence in the forms I’m most interested in using. In this way, I have now been struggling with the latter’s influence, and, in trying to go beyond it, with Pushkin’s, as I seek to use aspects of their work to surpass the influence of my closer predecessors, as well as to efficiently respond to them, to my contemporaries and, most of all, to what I perceive to be the current state of affairs both in art and in life at large, and to what I perceive to be the nature of the current audience. Thereby, for all of these reasons, that thread and your comments in it ended up having a great impact on me, and I have been waiting to take part in the board’s discussion ever since. Your posts on Walter Scott, Coleridge and Wordsworth, and all the discussions on the early romantic composers, on Wagner, Mozart and so many others were also a great joy to read. I also followed your book recommendations at that time and went on to read Rosen’s The Romantic Generation and The Classical Style, which may now be my favorite books on music. Thank you very much as well for those recommendations! That thread had so many interesting discussions; it’s a great shame it was deleted.

By the way, now I realize that my earlier comments on my inability to respond may have generated some pressure.
Please be assured, you haven't! The only pressure comes from me, because I really really want to reply (you have a knack for touching on subjects on which I've been having thoughts that I want to get off my chest) - otherwise I'd simply thank you for your wonderful posts and make my apologies for not having any reply - again, I really want to reply, but then I keep running overtime on things I'm supposed to be doing, and putting off replying here, and I feel bad for keeping you waiting. (You're very generous in telling me to take my time - thank you!)

I previously wrote two posts here in the “greatest composers” thread under the nickname Kater Murr
I remember you! On which note, it remains amazing to me that I never seem to meet anybody in real life - or, come to think of it, anywhere else on the Internet - who's heard of that book, yet we've have at least three people (you, Tom, me) visiting this forum who have.

Probably even more than you can imagine, since, as a young poet in the making, huge insights in comparative literature are profoundly transformative in my life and future career. Since then, I have reread most of Byron’s major poems, and spent a lot of time thinking about them, comparing them with other works and, in consequence, I reached several interesting contemplations and conclusions. You probably thought about some of them as well, but, if you are interested, I could write about them in greater depth here.
Oh dear God, please write about them!!! The greater the depth, the better.

Also, since you're a young poet, I'd be very interested in any thoughts you might be inclined to share on poetry currently being written (or for that matter on your own).

Will reply to everything else... I don't know, let's say HOPEFULLY this weekend or first half of next week.


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I remember you! On which note, it remains amazing to me that I never seem to meet anybody in real life - or, come to think of it, anywhere else on the Internet - who's heard of that book, yet we've have at least three people (you, Tom, me) visiting this forum who have.

Yes! Unfortunately, it does not seem to be so well known as some of his shorter tales, like the “Nußknacker und Mausekönig”, “Der Sandmann”, “Die Puppe”, or “Der goldne Topf”. Despite the loveliness of these works, I consider the “Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr” Hoffmann’s masterpiece, and it’s certainly my favorite early romantic novel, Werther notwithstanding. It’s so funny and imaginative! Outside of here, I have myself only met two other people who have read it. One was Portuguese, and the other German; surprisingly for me, the latter said that Hofmann, unlike Goethe, Schiller and Heine, was not mentioned in her literature classes during Middle and High School. I would not have expected that, since his influence in world literature and classical music is, if not so clear and extensive, perhaps, as that of Goethe and Schiller, at least as obvious as that of Heine, who would probably be the fourth mandatory reference in the German Literature of the 19th century. Hoffmann’s influence was conclusively substantial in the works of Pushkin, Poe, Gogol, Hans Christian Andersen, Dickens, Machado de Assis, Dostoyevsky, Baudelaire, Kafka, Borges, Sōseki (on whose “I Am a Cat” Murr had a strong and direct influence), Lǔ Xùn, Juan Rulfo and, through Borges, Kafka and Rulfo, at least indirectly on the whole magical realist style; not to mention the use of his works in the music of Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Saint-Léon and Offenbach. Writers with an influence as extensive as this are relatively rare, so I would naturally expect his nation to always come back to and talk about his works; although, stopping to think about it, few writers were ever as influent as Byron, and, at least since New Criticism, interest in his work seems to have become less general in the Anglosphere. Perhaps hers was an uncommon case, however.

Murr is definitely very dear to me. I love animals, and it would be hard for me to think of a more colorful and witty anthropomorphic characterization of a pet. Haughty about his feline attributes, proud of his sharp claws and intellect, cunning, but, quite often, sympathetically silly; hasty and imprudent, confident, but caring for his human master, even when he is unable to restrain his animal impulses. He closely resembles my previous dog, who was, himself, quite haughty and bold, silly in his bravado, as he provoked dogs much larger than him from a safe spot, but quite diligent and lively in hunting mice, as well as in accompanying me and my family in all human activities, from cooking to running, when he showed rare politeness and affection. Both for this reason, and for Hoffmann’s interesting juxtaposition of the cat’s autobiography and the story of Kreisler, it remains one of my favorite books. Although its tone is more somber, another favorite of mine when it comes to anthropomorphic treatments of animals is Tolstoy’s Kholstomer, one of my favorite short stories. Have you read it? It’s about an old, fallen noble horse who, in media res, tells the story of his life to the younger horses that bully him. Later, he meets again his old owner, who does not recognize him, gets sick and is finally killed by his new proprietors, his carcass serving as nourishment for wolf cubs. In its treatment of death, it closely resembles The Death of Ivan Ilyich and his earlier short story, Three Deaths.

Incidentally, have you ever heard of Machado de Assis’ “The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas”? Most Brazilian readers and critics consider it, and with good reason, our best national novel. It’s a very inventive 19th century comedy, depicting, in first person perspective, the life of a man from his own standpoint after death. Its narrative tone is close to that used by Pushkin in Eugene Oneguin – cheerful, digressive, removed, expressive –, but, unlike in the poem, with a strong presence of what the narrator calls some “fretful touches of pessimism”. Like Murr, it shows a strong Sternean influence, as well as the use of fantastic elements within earthlier scenarios, in order to handle and satirize important themes from the traditions in which the authors were participating – in Hoffmann’s case, early German Romanticism; in Machado’s, Realism. Even though it’s a comedy, however, and even though its tone is mostly upbeat, it’s actually a quite nihilist book, probably the most properly Schopenhauerian novel which, in the moment, comes to my mind. Like Gogol’s The Nose and The Overcoat, its use of fantastic elements for social satire can be seen as an early pioneering effort towards the establishment of magical realism, while its parody of Zola and social Darwinism, as well as its combination of Sternean digressions and Schopenhauerian existentialism, in this particular case, place Machado very close to Dostoyevsky, Ibsen and Kierkegaard. While usually classified as a realist novel, I believe existentialist might be a more accurate label, in the absence of a better one. Even this classification may not be completely precise, however, since Machado’s explorations of the potentials of first person narrative, especially as it pertains to unreliability, irony and bias almost make him look, at times, like a proto-modernist. His use of these devices is probably where his work was the most special. If you become interested in readinng it, the best translation is the Library of Latin America’s.


Oh dear God, please write about them!!! The greater the depth, the better.

Also, since you're a young poet, I'd be very interested in any thoughts you might be inclined to share on poetry currently being written (or for that matter on your own).

Thank you for showing interest! I will be sure to drop by during the week to write about my thoughts on Byron. After that, as soon as I have the time, I will also share some of my thoughts on contemporary poetry and fiction, what I like about it, what I dislike about it, how I think it compares to the literature of previous generations, what I think should change, and, finally some of the directions I believe it could take, and which I would like to explore. Despite the fact that I like very little of current production, it’s certainly one of my favorite subjects.

Phew! I’m sorry, I intended to post much earlier, but, unfortunately, I became overdue with my coursework during the past two weeks. Considering cram school will be off during the holiday season, however, I will be much freer during December, which means I’m unlikely to suffer similar problems during the next month. Since it’s prone to be a longer post, I will come back tomorrow to write at greater on Byron and current poetry. As for my own poetry, I would love to talk about it as well, but I’m always somewhat apprehensive that, in doing so, but in not being able to show you any of my own verses, or even those of my closest and most important Portuguese-language precursors, I may end up sounding like Murr, speaking proudly to the reader about his sharp claws and feline witticisms. Taking that into account, I have been trying to translate into iambic English meter some short poems and excerpts by important Portuguese-language poets, like Camões, Fernando Pessoa and Sophia Andresen, as well as some of my own verses. Being improvised poetic renditions I’m writing during my breaks, they are prone to contain some mistakes or awkward decisions. Rough as they might be, however, they are probably more adequate than literal transcriptions, and, after my literary career is already well established, I may still reuse some of them, with some changes, in future translation projects, considering I have long intended to work on more adequate renditions of some of our most important poems in other languages, especially English. If you feel you would not be bothered by reading some of these improvised translations, I could send them to you in private, in order to clarify my commentary on them. Please let me know whether or not you would like me to do so!

If you feel you would not be bothered by reading some of these improvised translations, I could send them to you in private, in order to clarify my commentary on them. Please let me know whether or not you would like me to do so!
Yes please!


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