The Lion King: all references to Mozart's sacred music in the soundtrack

[W.A. Mozart]

Hans Zimmer is a great admirer of Mozart: he said that his music is absolute perfection.

Not surprisingly, his best soundtrack (that of the animated film 'The Lion King') is inspired by Mozart's sacred music and contains obvious quotes of themes.
It also contains references to other pieces of sacred music.

The following video breaks them down one by one.

[Luke]

I love those moments in soundtracks and musicals when the composer sneaks in a little quotation that acknowledges a debt, often quite late on in a score. Here's one I snapped last summer whilst at work on the score of Beauty and the Beast (the infamous Wagner it is based on is on the right). It appears nowhere else in the score except here, at the final climax in the last bars. The very end of Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings score (i.e. in the final seconds at the end of the credits of the third film) also pays homage to Wagner, to whom the soundtrack owes so much - a sort of mix of the beginning of Rheingold and the end of Walkure:

[(poco) Sforzando]

The Kyrie from the Mass in C minor, K. 427, is also used repeatedly to sublime effect in "A Man Escaped" ("Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut"), Robert Bresson's great 1956 B+W film about an imprisoned French resistance fighter during WW II.

[Cato]

I hear references to the slow movement from Schumann's Second Symphony, especially in the Mustafa Death scene!





Go to 18:42:

[W.A. Mozart]

Here's one I snapped last summer whilst at work on the score of Beauty and the Beast (the infamous Wagner it is based on is on the right). It appears nowhere else in the score except here, at the final climax in the last bars.

Thanks.

What is the part of the score of Beauty and the Beast which quotes Wagner? And which piece of Wagner?

[W.A. Mozart]

I hear references to the slow movement from Schumann's Second Symphony, especially in the Mustafa Death scene!





Go to 18:42:

Thanks. Perhaps there is some similarity, but the theme of Mufasa Death has been clearily copied from Ave Verum Corpus of Mozart. You can see it in the video above.

[Luke]

Thanks.

What is the part of the score of Beauty and the Beast which quotes Wagner? And which piece of Wagner?

The end of the show, the climax of the last chorus of 'Tale as old as time.' The Wagner is nothing less than the Liebestod from Tristan.

Two other well-known classical quotations occuring in a musical are to be found in The Wizard of Oz. The first is Schumann's Frohlicher Landmann, from the Album for the Young, which is heard often in the musical, including as the first thing we hear when the action begins. The second - it's a bit notorious - is an entirely unaltered quotation from the second of Mendelssohn's op 16 Caprices. It fits the context, but it reeks of someone looking for a bit of pre-existing material to fill up a space. Both below, next to the relevant original.

[Karl Henning]

I love those moments in soundtracks and musicals when the composer sneaks in a little quotation that acknowledges a debt, often quite late on in a score. Here's one I snapped last summer whilst at work on the score of Beauty and the Beast (the infamous Wagner it is based on is on the right). It appears nowhere else in the score except here, at the final climax in the last bars. The very end of Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings score (i.e. in the final seconds at the end of the credits of the third film) also pays homage to Wagner, to whom the soundtrack owes so much - a sort of mix of the beginning of Rheingold and the end of Walkure:

Illuming, sas ever, my friend!

[(poco) Sforzando]

We're getting away from Mozart's sacred works (to the Liebestod and Schumann 2). Which is fine by me. Another interesting twist on a classic model is in Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits, where (IIRC, I'm not going to play the film right now) the music is often based on the 1st movement of Mahler 6, though turned upside-down and distorted.

[Luke]

We're getting away from Mozart's sacred works (to the Liebestod and Schumann 2). Which is fine by me. Another interesting twist on a classic model is in Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits, where (IIRC, I'm not going to play the film right now) the music is often based on the 1st movement of Mahler 6, though turned upside-down and distorted.

Yes! I remember noticing that, too. 

[(poco) Sforzando]

If we want other musical references in films (they're endless of course), I recommend Joseph Mankiewicz's silly but often hilarious 1951 comedy "People Will Talk," which features campy performances by Walter Slezak, Hume Cronyn, and Margaret Hamilton (the Wicked Witch of the West), and ends with Cary Grant conducting the Academic Festival Overture (don't ask). I am completely convinced (but cannot prove it) that one character played by Finlay Currie is deliberately made up to look like Anton Bruckner.

See 2:30 for the Witch.
See 27:01 and 1:25 for Bruckner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxRpAvJ1-Os&t=2s

[Karl Henning]

If we want other musical references in films (they're endless of course), I recommend Joseph Mankiewicz's silly but often hilarious 1951 comedy "People Will Talk," which features campy performances by Walter Slezak, Hume Cronyn, and Margaret Hamilton (the Wicked Witch of the West), and ends with Cary Grant conducting the Academic Festival Overture (don't ask). I am completely convinced (but cannot prove it) that one character played by Finlay Currie is deliberately made up to look like Anton Bruckner.

See 2:30 for the Witch.
See 27:01 and 1:25 for Bruckner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxRpAvJ1-Os&t=2s

That movie never fails to make me smile.

[W.A. Mozart]

The end of the show, the climax of the last chorus of 'Tale as old as time.' The Wagner is nothing less than the Liebestod from Tristan.

Two other well-known classical quotations occuring in a musical are to be found in The Wizard of Oz. The first is Schumann's Frohlicher Landmann, from the Album for the Young, which is heard often in the musical, including as the first thing we hear when the action begins. The second - it's a bit notorious - is an entirely unaltered quotation from the second of Mendelssohn's op 16 Caprices. It fits the context, but it reeks of someone looking for a bit of pre-existing material to fill up a space. Both below, next to the relevant original.

Are you speaking about this?

Could you please tell me the minute where Wagner is quoted?

[Luke]

I don't think it's on any of the various film versions; it's in the stage score

about 11/12 seconds in, in the bar before 'I love you' - orchestra only, violins.