Well, I’ll be damned. I stand corrected. First I’ve heard of Joel and he’s already gone. Damn!
And Haydn wrote the same symphony 104 times.
Some more:
Prokofiev (yes, again) based his symphony n°3 on music originally found in his opera The Fiery Angel.
Elizabethan lutenist John Dowland used the same melody in his song Flow my Tears and in the instrumental work Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares.
While not exactly the same, Fauré’s Elégie for cello and piano and the slow movement of his cello sonata n°2 are very close, both in terms of melody and harmonic progression.
In all of these cases (and the ones I mentioned yesterday), I really don’t mind. All of these examples are so wonderful that I understand they felt like using them again in a different context.
Near the end of production of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, Gore Verbinski fired composer Alan Silvestri from the project, and had to scramble to find a replacement. He chose Hans Zimmer (and Klaus Badelt), who didn’t have enough time to create an entire score using all new music, so cribbed from his earlier work, most notably Gladiator.
Also, this may be a bit tenuous, but here’s the them to the UK sitcom Yes Minister. And here’s the theme to To The Manor Born.
Funny you should mention Alan Silvestri. Because judging from the music, I can’t tell if Marty McFly is trying to sneak up on Biff, Arnold is stalking the Predator, or Roger Rabbit is having wacky hi-jinks.
I’ve mentioned this in other threads, but Jim Steinman plagiarizes himself often!
Not long after Bonnie Tyler had a hit with Steinman’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” I saw an old movie called ***A Small Circle of Friends ***starring Jameson Parker and Karen Allen. Steinman wrote the soundtrack to that movie, and the love theme was… the melody to “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”
Steiman originally wrote that music for a rock opera he’d written based on Roman Polanski’s horror movie The Fearless Vampire Killers. He could never get that rock opera financed, so he recycled the music for the movie, then later changed to words and turned the music into a hit single for Bonnie Tyler.
Decades later, the rock opera was produced on Broadway with Michael Crawford in the lead role. The show was a flop, and closed after a few weeks.
Joe Raposo essentially reused the melody from Peanut Butter in Happiness Hotel.