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Uncle Fiesta wrote:There are many musicologists who will tell you that ALW never wrote an original note of music in his life, but that most of the composers he steals from are dead so can't sue him.

Just to be fair here, the first test is that the composer must know that they are using someone else's work. If not, it's an accident and probably doesn't matter. If they do know, it may still not matter. Copyright in the UK lasts for a period of 70 years from the end of the year of the composer's death. If the music originates from outside the European Economic Area, the copyright lasts for as long as the music is protected by copyright in its country of origin, provided that this does not exceed 70 years. So if you take a work by a composer who has been dead for over 70 years and deliberately lift some ideas from it, you are not stealing anything.

Feel I must point out that ALW freely acknowledged that the bit in Variations which sounds like FBI was influenced by/a tribute to Hank Marvin...he said this in the first ever South Bank Show episode which was about the Variations LP (which was used as the theme to SBS). Hank later returned the compliment by playing it on his Hank Marvin plays Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice album.

Uncle Fiesta wrote:There are many musicologists who will tell you that ALW never wrote an original note of music in his life, but that most of the composers he steals from are dead so can't sue him.

Listen to Pink Floyd's Echoes from their album 1971 'Meddle' for probably the most contentious example of Lloyd Webber's suspected plagiarism. Then listen to the main leitmotif from 'Phantom of the Opera'.

Roger Waters obviously didn't appreciate it. This was a verse from his solo track It's a Miracle from 1992:

It's a miracle
We cower in our shelters
With our hands over our ears
Lloyd Webber's awful stuff
Runs for years and years and years
An earthquake hits the theatre
But the operetta lingers
Then the piano lid comes down
And breaks his f****** fingers
It's a miracle

Something tells me he isn't the biggest fan.

J

MeBHank wrote:Listen to Pink Floyd's Echoes from their album 1971 'Meddle' for probably the most contentious example of Lloyd Webber's suspected plagiarism. Then listen to the main leitmotif from 'Phantom of the Opera'.

Despite my previous criticisms of Lloyd-Webber, I've never believed he pinched this particular one.

Only on this brillianr forum can you go from old radio memories, through Andrew Lloyd Webber is thought to be a plagiarist
and finishing at that brilliant Roger Waters Lyric. To me 'Music while you work' just brought back happy memories
of the show and another one from that era
'Worker's Playtime' on which Bert Weedon made a few appearances.
Happy days.