I'm well aware of the "Hello, Dolly!"/"Sunflower" situation, and it has been mentioned here recently -- I think elsewhere in this thread. I don't know that song from "The Happy Time," so I can't comment.
I think that TURANDOT music you mention sounds only vaguely like that section of "Somewhere," not nearly close enough to even bother to mention any similarity or suggest that Bernstein borrowed (or "borrowed") the melody.
I'm glad you brought up "No One Is Alone"/"The Candy Man," because that speaks to my point. The similarity there is indeed striking, but as far as I know, it's an EXTREMELY rare example of Sondheim having come up with a melody that was previously written by someone else. I've often wondered if it's possible he had never heard "The Candy Man" at all, because as hard as that is to believe, it's also hard to believe he would have heard it and then recreated that melody subconsciously years later,. And if he DID know the song, and it was still in his consciousness when he stared writing INTO THE WOODS, I should think he would have noticed the similarity and reworked the "No One Is Alone" melody.
At any rate, again: Speaking only for myself, the reason I personally tend to focus on ALW's "borrowings," as opposed to other composers', is the sheer number of ALW borrowings that I'm aware of, from so many different sources. |
