Amid all the seriously-minded music written over the centuries, it is always refreshing to encounter instances of composers letting their hair down and having a bit of genuine fun. In musical terms, quoting from other works – whether the composer’s own or someone else’s – can function as the clearest indicator of this.

Not that all quotations are intentional: with only a finite number of notes at their disposal, it’s inevitable that some composers should hit upon the same order of notes. It may be the merest of coincidences that Mozart, in the opening motif of the Kyrie in his Requiem, echoes the chorus 'And with his stripes' from Handel's Messiah, but considering that he made his own reorchestration of this great Baroque oratorio a couple of years earlier, there's no denying that he knew the music. We just don't know if the quotation was an intentional one.

It's uncannier when a phrase appears in a little-known work that predates a much more familiar one. Anyone familiar with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 (Eroica), for example, can be a bit surprised when hearing the overture to Mozart’s opera Bastien und Bastienne, as both works open with the same motif, right down to the rhythm of the first five notes. That said, it seems very unlikely that Beethoven had even heard of this early Mozart pastoral comedy: following its premiere in 1768 (two years before Beethoven was born), there is no record of a revival until 1890 (over six decades after his death). Bastien und Bastienne remains obscure to this day – not unreasonably for a short opera written by a 12-year-old, even one as precocious as Mozart – so chances are it’s no more than a coincidence, however extraordinary.

Where Beethoven is more likely to have paid a conscious tribute to Mozart is in the third movement of his Symphony No. 5: the opening phrase in the low strings is actually taken straight from the finale of the latter’s Symphony No. 40. Both begin with the same eight notes, a rising arpeggio which resolves in a sinuous line. The reference is obscured by Beethoven having tweaked the rhythm and, given the power of his symphony as a whole, it’s only to be expected that this not-quite-quotation tends to go unnoticed.

A lyrical theme heard in the first movement of Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2 (Hymn of Praise) occupies a greyer area. It sounds strikingly similar to a passage (in the same position) from Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 11 in B-flat. As the first choral symphony since Beethoven’s own No. 9, it’s entirely to expected that Mendelssohn’s Hymn of Praise should owe the latter a considerable debt, but for this to extend into a similarity of specific themes is a little unexpected. As with Beethoven’s recasting of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40, other considerations – specifically the work’s qualities as a choral symphony, completely disregarding Mendelssohn’s preferred term ‘symphony-cantata’ – have tended to dominate views on the music, so this additional connection to Beethoven has got rather lost in the mix.

For the most part, however, composers tend to have a clear intention when quoting other works. In 'Sumer is icumen in', an English song dating at least as far back as the 13th century, we have music that can suggest either a historical setting - hence Korngold quoting it in his score to the 1938 film The Adventures of Robin Hood (the Errol Flynn version), which is actually set in the 1190s - or more disturbingly, the pagan rituals of The Wicker Man. Within the purely classical sphere, it is sung at the climax of Britten's Spring Symphony, where it forms a logical conclusion to a work which opens at the tail end of winter.

Also in a rural context, the farmer who whistles at the plough in Haydn's oratorio The Seasons is represented by the piccolo playing the main theme of the same composer's Surprise Symphony (in open defiance of his librettist’s expectations), adding a undeniable touch of humour to the scene. Prokofiev also indulged in some self-quotation in at least two instances: when oranges are served at the ball in his ballet Cinderella, the orchestra strikes up the march from his ballet The Love for Three Oranges, and in Romeo and Juliet, the guests depart the Act I ball to the strains of the Gavotte from his Symphony No.1 (Classical).

For Poulenc, laughter is definitely the aim in his highly entertaining Concerto for Two Pianos. After juxtaposing all sorts of unexpected musical influences –Mendelssohn and Indonesian gamelan among them – in the first movement, the second appears to be a straightforward tribute to his beloved Mozart. At one point, Poulenc even quotes the slow movement of the latter’s Piano Concerto No. 21, almost verbatim, only to puncture any notion of solemnity with a sharp jab of a chord from the brass. It’s easy to imagine Mozart himself (whose own sense of humour could be decidedly immature) letting out a delighted giggle in response.

Wagner, had he lived long enough, is unlikely to have reacted in the same way to Debussy's piano suite Children's Corner. It's difficult to know what he'd have made of a dance as carefree as the Cakewalk with which the work concludes, but chances are he'd have regarded the repeated inclusion of a quotation from Tristan and Isolde in this movement as downright impertinent. (For good measure, these passages are marked to be played avec une grande émotion, i.e. with great feeling, of a kind that is just asking to be ramped up to the nines.)

The very concept of Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the animals is light-hearted, to the extent that the composer wished to suppress nearly all of it - he made an honourable exception of the Swan, a solo beloved of cellists everywhere - until after his death. The music's humour is multi-facetted, with several instances of musical quotations. His own Danse macabre, a depiction of Death leading a graveyardful of skeletons in an energetic dance on the violin, puts in an appearance in the movement entitled Fossils; the inclusion of the French folk song Au clair de la lune (its first two phrases, at least) confirms this all takes place by the light of the moon. Earlier in the work, tortoises are heard in a dance of their own, in which a steady pulse of piano chords almost masks the unlikely tune played by the strings, a very slow rendition of the can-can from Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld.

In Rachmaninov, we have a rare example of a quotation being employed without the least intention to amuse. The Gregorian plainchant Dies irae (from the Mass for the Dead) features so prominently in his works that much has been written about his obsession with death. It’s perfectly understandable that he should have turned to this music in the likes of his symphonic poem Isle of the Dead (inspired by a painting of the same name by Arnold Böcklin), but it’s also there in his Symphonic Dances (his last major work) and even makes it into the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. As a form of musical shorthand for alluding to death, it had done classical composers proud: among those to make good use of it are Berlioz (in the Witches’ Sabbath from Symphonie fantastique), Mahler (in his Symphony No. 2) and Saint-Saëns (in the afore-mentioned Danse macabre). Beyond this, the Dies irae has spilled over into anything from Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven to film soundtracks including The Shining and the Lord of the Rings trilogy (where it represents the wraith-like Nazgûl).

Bartók's use of quotations from Lehár’s The Merry Widow and Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony in the fourth movement of his Concerto for Orchestra occupies an unusual middle ground, the first being used to nostalgic effect, while the second is pure satire. At one point, following a series of raspberries in the trombones, the Shostakovich takes on the character of manic fairground music; crucially, the audience is left unsure whether to laugh or be terrified.

If any serious composer has truly ever gone to town with random quotations, this would be Stravinsky in Jeu de cartes, a ballet in which playing cards act out a poker game. Each of the three deals culminates with the Joker creating merry havoc, but there is a prevailing sense of misrule throughout: little allusions to Beethoven’s symphonies culminate in the opening motif of the Fifth being recast in melancholic vein (of all things) in the final hand. It’s done with unexpected subtlety and can in fact pass unnoticed, as the audience is still trying to place the music hinted at by a waltz (it’s from Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus, appropriately enough), all before the orchestra has an uproarious time with a theme from the Overture to Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. Given the mischievous tone of the music, there’s not much point in looking for deeper meaning in any of this: it’s best to just to enjoy the ride.

At the less comical end of the spectrum, we have Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture, the opening work of our Benedetti plays Mendelssohn concerts (26-28 February). This, the composer’s contribution to a graduation ceremony at the University of Breslau (at which he was awarded an honorary doctorate), basks in the joy of music-making but, with a degree of irony his fellow graduates are sure to have appreciated, does this via the medium of student drinking songs. In this regard, it follows in the footsteps of the Quodlibet towards the end of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, in which a plethora of songs are quoted or alluded to: like the best of in-jokes, you don’t have to get the references to enjoy the music.