Andrew Lloyd Webber

Sorry Amy O, I hereby declare a hijack of this thread, I have a animated eyebrows and I'm not afraid to use them!

Simon Holt wrote:
>
> I think the word you're looking for is commercialism.

he he... A friend just lent me the CD of Ruthless, and to quote one of the songs:
"And whether the show is a hit or a flop
They sell T-shirts and caps with their logo on top
So even though you hate the show
At least you can shop
At a Musical"


> Well actually, most of the time I knew the music before I saw
> the show - thanks to the isolation of Perth.

Amen! I think the last thing I saw that I hadn't heard ANY of the music for was The Peony Pavilion, the 18hr 16th Century Chinese opera that played at the Festival a few years back.
Which, by the way, is TOP of my list of Musical-slash-Opera experiences.
My personal top five:
1, The Peony Pavilion
2, Tristan und Isolde, Australian Opera
3, Les Troyens au Carthage, Australian Opera
4, The King & I, the professional one with Nyree Dawn Porter (who replaced Hayley Mills before it got to Perth)
5, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, with Tom Burlinson and Georgie Parker.

> :-p And I must
> say that he is very hummable. Most of Lloyd Webbers tunes go
> where you expect them to go, hence memorability.

Memorability? or predictability? How many times have you heard an ALW song for the first time and been able to sing along after a couple of bars because you know EXACTLY where he's going with it...

> Most of
> Sondheim doesn't do that. Yes, granted there are some tunes
> that do, but most don't. You can't tell me "Sunday in the
> Park with George" (the song) and "Into the Woods" (the song)
> and most of the Pacific Overtures score is hummable.

"A trickle of sweat
Right under the tit
The bustles slipping
Move your arm a bit.
Sunday in the Park with George!"

[sorry]


> I disagree. Aspects of Love and Sunset Boulevard are great
> scores as a whole despite the number of "hit songs" in them.

Oh I don't deny Aspects is a great score, all half an hour of it, which is then repeated ad infinitum...

> Ok, there are some crap songs in there too, eg. Every Movie's
> A Circus and his other two shows, Whistle Down the Wind and
> The Beautiful Game have more crap songs than good songs,
> however, most composers are guilty of that, classical and
> musical theatre. Just look at boring Brahms or some of
> Mozart, or Richard Rodgers, Claude-Michel Schoenberg and even
> the beloved Sondheim. They all have crap songs.

No... no... not Sondheim... tell me it isn't so! OK, so even my beloved Assassins has that REALLY bad Something Just Broke!

> *sigh* Thats not what I meant. I meant that the public
> majority were suddenly interested in musical theatre again.
> Not just the people interested in musicals and theatre.
> Everyone knows who he is. Can that be said of Sondheim
> (believe me, its true), Alan Menken, Stephen Schwartz, Jason
> Robert Brown, Charles Strouse, Jerry Bock and even Kander and
> Ebb? The public majority do not know who these people are,
> but they sure as hell have heard of Lloyd Webber. (I'm not
> dissing the above composers because I love them all - I'm
> just attempting to make a point. :-) Most people know their
> shows, not who they are.

Point admitted and accepted. As an opera buff, I know my composers. So, as a Musicals buff, I make sure that I keep tab on who wrote what, and then do the whole "Oh, I liked that, what else have they written..."
But then, I'm not a musicals geek, I am more of a musicals uber-geek.
But it does surprise me how many musical geeks I know who don't know their composers. Oh, yes, people know their ALWs and their R&Hs and their Sondheims, but when I mention Kander&Ebb or Menken or Herman or even Lerner&Loewe I am often met with glazed looks.
I know so many people who love Little Shop and B&B who didn't realise that they were written by the same team!
And then people who are not musical geeks who think that Les Miz, Miss Saigon and Bombay dreams are ALWs.

The funny thing is I know more people who recognise names like Bob Fosse and Twyla Tharp than they do composers names...
Go figure!

> I think that is across the arts really. How often to people
> see straight plays now? Or local theatre in general? Or shows
> without big star names? I think the price of tickets has come
> into the "stoppage" of seeing theatre. But I'll let that
> point slide at the moment. See my other posts. :-)

Once again, Amen!

> See the above comment about "death". I'm not denying
> anything. Have you noticed that all bar a Lloyd Webber show
> (Evita) are American? Perhaps I should have mentioned earlier
> that my viewpoint of Lloyd Webbers impact on musical theatre
> is on _British_ musical theatre scene, not Broadway.

Oh... the British Musical Scene!
You should have said...
Someone (was it Brahms?) called England the land without music.
It really seems that they are incapable of sustaining more than one theatre composer of any lasting note at any one time.
Purcell, Sullivan, Britten, ALW.
Some of the great pieces of English theatre music actually aren't.
Messiah - German!
Les Miz - French!
Even the Master of the Queen's Music is currently an Australian!

> Yes. And how often do these get performed? Art, yes, but
> intellectually or musically accessible to the common man? No.

Accessible to the common man? No!
Accessible to the common THINKING man? Very much so.
Some people like to just be entertained, other people need a bit more.
McDonalds is fine, but occassionally you need to have something a bit more... tasty?

> Well, I don't particularly like it. I think its too complex
> for its own good. Its not particularly "entertaing" either -
> no big dance numbers. He he... And I don't see Sunday being
> revived too often.

I think the reason that Sunday isn't performed here is bcause people are 1, afraid of the complexity of the score and 2, afraid of the complexity of the staging. But this is people afraid to put it on, not people afraid to see it!
This is also I think why Sondheim is not done that often, it is a major challenge to perform.
"Every year at programming time, what do we say? Next year Sondheim" [apologies to Fiddler]

> Ditto about the "art" factor.

Assassins at the moment is one of the most frequently performed Sondheims in Perth, once at the Quarry, once at Playlovers and once at WAAPA, and thats within the last ten years. It has actually developed quite a following in the rest of the world. In many ways its the Michael Moore of musicals :-)

> Yes, however it is COMMERCIAL music, written for film, and
> being such wonderful films, of course they are going to make
> wonderful stage shows, especially with Disney and their
> squillions of dollars. Now, you were mentioning something
> about "bigger and brighter effects", "stunning costumes" and
> "brilliant production" and "who cares about the music
> anyway"....? ;-)

But the thing with Menken is that people DONT go to see the effects, they DO go to hear the music. Besides commercial doesn't mean not quality. What is the most popular musical written in the last couple of years? In most recent surveys there is only one new musical that pops up in the top twenty most loved musicals of all time... Once More with Feeling, the Buffy Musical. I kid you not. And it is a truly great piece of musical writing.

> Well, Little Shop is closing soon and Aida would have to be
> one of the WORST scores I've ever heard. God knows why that
> is still running. And I have to say that The Lion King will
> die a death too once thats closed. The only thing keeping it
> running is its incredible staging, breathtaking sets,
> costumes... I'm having de ja vous. The music in the Lion King
> is quite interesting. It mixes gorgeous African chant with
> the tacky Elton John tunes. I must confess that I cringed
> when "I just can't wait to be King" started. BRING BACK THE
> AFRICAN MUSIC! Anyhoo....

Okay, okay, so I glossed over that bit of info. BTW Aida is closing sooner than Little Shop. And lets be honest here, who is the star creator of Lion King? Its actually Julie Taymor not Elton John...

> Yes, Chess, Starmania (or Tycoon) and Blondel were running
> successes all over the world. :-)

Oh come on, Chess is a bit of a sleeper hit...
As to the other two: A lyricist can make a good musical great, but theres nothing a lyricist can do to make a dog of a score anything but a dog of a score.

> Yes I agree, and he's brilliant at it too, despite the fact
> that a good deal of his music is quite unsingable to the
> average singer. Thank GOD that the general public don't
> destroy his music by singing it badly! Which is more than I
> can say for other people, including Lloyd Webber unfortunately.

Sondheim unsingable to the average singer? Hooray!
I once read that you should NEVER audition with a Sondheim song, because he may display your good points but he doesn't hide your bad points either.

> All I have to say is..... STILL RUNNING! ;-)

But they're just pussy-cat people singing in a garbage dump ;-P

> Hmmm........ anyway, thank you for replying. Its nice to
> finally have a serious discussion about this subject. Anyone
> else?

And yet again, AMEN!
So Simon, who is YOUR favourite composer.