VeggieTales: Veggie Tunes

Two days ago, I listened to an album of the VeggieTales titled VeggieTales: Veggie Tunes.  I noticed a couple things.

"King Darius Suite"

This starts with a quotation of Mozart's Serenade No. 13 in G major, K. 525 (albeit in Eb major), commonly referred to as Eine kleine Nachtmusik (literally, a little night music).  Since "King Darius Suite" is about King Darius' dream (there are two in the Bible: in Daniel 2 and Daniel 4) and dreams usually occur at night, that quotation helps to set that nighttime context.

"We are the Grapes of Wrath"

I think I was dimly aware that this is a reference to John Steinbeck's book The Grapes of Wrath, and apparently Steinbeck's title alludes to Revelation 14:17-20 (so, it's an allusion upon an allusion).  Listening to it this time, however, I noticed this stanza:

I'm ma; I'm pa; this is our brood
We're grumpy, and we know it
That's Tom and Rosie; they're both rude
And not afraid to show it

The names here are the same names from Steinbeck's book!  I've read The Grapes of Wrath only once (and that was almost three years ago now), but - if I remember correctly - the parents are referred to only as "Ma" and "Pa."  The main character is Tom Joad, and his sister is named Rose of Sharon (although it's rendered as "Rosasharn" when it appears in dialogue).

Mozart's Requiem

I'm still making my way through The Argo Years, the 28-disc box set of Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.  To-night, it was Mozart's Requiem.  I hadn't heard this particular recording before, but I do have it performed by Orchestra e Coro della RAI.

The first few notes of the Benedictus sounded familiar, and it didn't take me too long to discover that I'd heard them in the second movement of Mendelssohn's Organ Sonata in A major, Op. 65, No. 3.  (I just listened to Peter Hurford's recording a couple days ago.)

I wasn't sure how similar they were, so I looked up the music for both of them:

(notation found here and here)

The note values and time signatures are different, and the melodies don't really resemble each other after the fifth note, but the notes do occur in the same intervals (even if they're in different keys).

However, I'm not sure if this was intentional on Mendelssohn's part.