What does it mean to
compose a piece of music? Does it mean that that composer in question personally
wrote—and orchestrated—every bar? Or what about a melody he/she composed that
is then arranged by others? If a composer leaves a work in fragmentary form,
and a second party comes in and completes it, even composing new music, is that
piece still by Composer A—or Composer B? Is that really a collaboration, or a
completion? In short, what truly constitutes authorship in music? This is a
difficult question, particularly in the world of classical music, when works
are often completed by students and colleagues, or in the world of film music, where
orchestrations are farmed out to studio hands, so the composer can dash off
multiple scores at once. While we like the idea of a single composer, often
this is hardly the case, and a single piece of music might go through multiple
hands over decades and centuries. Consider a piece that survives 300 years and
is then “edited” by a musicologist: is that an act of co-composition,
particularly if the piece is tailored to appeal to modern audiences? In the
same way, what about Mozart;s re-orchestration of Handel’s Messiah for an 18th
century audience? Is that a new opus by Mozart? Or when Mahler did the same for
Schumann’s symphonies? Similarly, if you quote parts of a piece in your own
work—say, Strauss’ Metamorphosen, which quotes Beethoven’s Eroica—does Beethoven get
credit (even if he wouldn’t want it)?
