Musical tributes or homages from one composer to another can take many forms. Following are examples of the major types of tributes occurring in classical music. A particular work may fit into more than one of these types.
Many works are based on a theme or themes by another composer (sometimes anonymous or traditional). They range from short pieces to extended major compositions. Sometimes these works are no more than sets of variations under another name, but sometimes they go beyond that. They appear under many titles, including:
Giacomo Orefice's opera Chopin (1901), a fictional treatment of the life of Frédéric Chopin, in which the arias were based on themes from that composer's piano works
Emil Ábrányi's opera A Tamás-templom karnagya (The cantor of Saint Thomas) (1947), on Johann Sebastian Bach, referring to him by the church where he worked.
Charles Gounod took the melody line from Bach's Prelude No. 1 in C major from Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier, and added his own harmonies, setting it to the words of the prayer Hail Mary (in Latin, Ave Maria). His setting was called Ave Maria
Grieg added an additional part for a second piano to existing solo piano sonatas by Mozart
Synthesis
Synthesis of fragmentary notes into a conjectural whole, such as:
Anthony Payne's elaboration of Edward Elgar's notes for his Third Symphony (which he does not pretend is necessarily what Elgar would have written had he had the opportunity)
Imitation, where a composer deliberately copies the compositional style of an earlier composer, such as:
Siegfried Ochs wrote a set of 14 Humorous Variations on the German Volkslied "Kommt ein Vogel geflogen", in which each variation was in the style of a different composer (they included Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner)
Tchaikovsky wrote imitative piano pieces called Un poco di Schumann and Un poco di Chopin in his 18 Morceaux, Op. 72; also his Album des enfants, Op. 39, was subtitled 24 Children's Pieces à la Schumann
Dedication
Dedication of a work to another composer or performer:
Musical cryptograms, where the composer’s name is encoded in musical letters. The most famous example of this is the BACH motif, which has been used by over 400 composers[1] in tribute to Johann Sebastian Bach (Bach himself used it more than once in his own works). Other examples include:
^Prinz, Ulrich; Dorfmüller, Joachim; and Küster, Konrad. 1985. "Die Tonfolge B–A–C–H in Kompositionen des 17. bis 20. Jahrhunderts: ein Verzeichnis", in: 300 Jahre Sebastian Bach, pp. 389–419 (exhibition catalogue)[full citation needed].
