L'amour est un calliope rebelle

Sometimes, the student is the teacher. For example, amidst yesterday's pre-exam buzz, a student mentioned that when she tries to think of one particular work from the listening list, she always hears another tune by mistake. I'm not sure this quite qualifies for my Tune Theft Archive; it's just the first three notes (a chromatic descent from the tonic) that the tunes share, but it's a striking connection nonetheless. Rather than post my normal side-by-side comparison, I did a quick little mashup to present the two at once. Here it is.



Of course, the work she was supposed to know is this. I had to look up the name of the other tune. (Thank you, Wikipedia.) I don't know if this melodic connection has been made many times before, but I was amused to see that both tunes show up on this album. So, conveniently, you can go there to hear both in their original versions - sort of. I wonder if the Flying Dutchman ever gets the two confused in the middle of one of his shows.