Plagiarism and the Napoleonic Potpourri
By the mid to late nineteenth century, the genre of potpourri was essentially a medley of tunes from a single popular opera strung together, described recently as “hackwork for the amateur or impoverished musician.” But when the potpourri first appeared in France around the turn of the nineteenth century, it was understood in thoroughly different terms. In its original form, the potpourri was a vehicle for witty musical commentary through the borrowing and juxtaposition of passages from diverse musical genres. This type of potpourri was made illegal by Napoleonic copyright law: using excerpts from multiple works at a time was banned. The potpourri was more than a string of copied phrases, however. The relationships between the chosen passages and their adjacent and nearby neighbors were layered and nuanced, drawing on a web of instrumental and staged works for a complex musical game. While each potpourri and its badinage were individual, most of them made some remark on one central topic — musical resemblance — thereby creating a body of commentary on originality in music.
Musical similarity was so central to the potpourri that one critic, reminiscing about the genre after it had been banned, explained that the potpourri had been “especially useful for denouncing plagiarists” because one could group together pieces that were harmonically or melodically analogous. But the strength of the charge was more variable than the critic remembered. Potpourris highlighted musical resemblance to differing ends and showed a wide range of feelings about authorial rights and originality in music: from shameful in one extreme to playful in the other. By examining the piano potpourris of Louis Jadin (1768–1853), Hyacinthe Jadin (1776–1800), Daniel Steibelt (1765–1823), and Sébastien Demar (1763–1832), this paper examines concepts of musical authenticity, borrowing, and plagiarism in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century France.
By the mid to late nineteenth century, the genre of potpourri was essentially a medley of tunes from a single popular opera strung together, described recently as “hackwork for the amateur or impoverished musician.” But when the potpourri first appeared in France around the turn of the nineteenth century, it was understood in thoroughly different terms. In its original form, the potpourri was a vehicle for witty musical commentary through the borrowing and juxtaposition of passages from diverse musical genres. This type of potpourri was made illegal by Napoleonic copyright law: using excerpts from multiple works at a time was banned. The potpourri was more than a string of copied phrases, however. The relationships between the chosen passages and their adjacent and nearby neighbors were layered and nuanced, drawing on a web of instrumental and staged works for a complex musical game. While each potpourri and its badinage were individual, most of them made some remark on one central topic — musical resemblance — thereby creating a body of commentary on originality in music.
Musical similarity was so central to the potpourri that one critic, reminiscing about the genre after it had been banned, explained that the potpourri had been “especially useful for denouncing plagiarists” because one could group together pieces that were harmonically or melodically analogous. But the strength of the charge was more variable than the critic remembered. Potpourris highlighted musical resemblance to differing ends and showed a wide range of feelings about authorial rights and originality in music: from shameful in one extreme to playful in the other. By examining the piano potpourris of Louis Jadin (1768–1853), Hyacinthe Jadin (1776–1800), Daniel Steibelt (1765–1823), and Sébastien Demar (1763–1832), this paper examines concepts of musical authenticity, borrowing, and plagiarism in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century France.