Transcript The Broadway Musical - MUS 231: Music in Western Civ

Chapter 35:
Broadway, and FilmMusic
Tin Pan Alley: Precursor of Broadway
• Center of music business in New York City
• Song pluggers peddled sheet music
• Irving Berlin
– “God Bless America”
– “White Christmas”
– “There’s No Business
Like Show Business”
The Broadway Musical
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Also known as the musical comedy
Emerged shortly after 1900
Book: Libretto containing the lyrics
American-born composers:
– George M. Cohen: Little Johnny Jones (1906)
• “Give my regards to Broadway”
– Jerome Kern: Showboat (1927)
• “Ol’ Man River”: Elements of blues, jazz, and the Negro
spiritual
– Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein: Golden Era for
American musical theatre
• Oklahoma (1943), Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949),
The King and I (1951), The Sound of Music (1959)
Recent Musicals
• British megahits of Andrew Lloyd Webber
– Evita, Cats, Phantom of the Opera
• Diversity of modern Broadway
– Revivals of earlier musicals
• Anything Goes, Porgy and Bess
– Long running traditional musicals
• Chicago , Wicked
– Adaptations of popular movies
• Sister Act, The Lion King, Mary Poppins
– Based on earlier popular music
• Jersey Boys, Memphis, Mamma Mia!
– Religious Themes
• The Book of Mormon, Leap of Faith
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
• Great 20th century composer – conductor - interpreter
• Symphonies, ballets, a film score, four musicals
• Conductor of the New York Philharmonic for nearly
half a century
• Dynamic musical leader
• Virtuoso pianist
• Educator and advocate for the arts
• West Side Story(1957)
– Musical sensation on Broadway and as a movie
– Mix of old and new: Standard Broadway numbers
infused with Modernist music
– Retelling of Romeo and Juliet
Stephen Sondheim (b.1930)
• Private student of both Broadway lyricist Oscar
Hammerstein II and twelve-tone composer Milton
Babbitt
• Lyricist for West Side Story
• Combined serious, complex musical techniques with
witty, poetic lyrics
• Raised the quality of America musical theatre
• Variety of style: Gershwin-inspired jazz harmonies,
Stravinsky-like dissonance, Viennese waltzes, standard
Broadway fare
Sweeney Todd,
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979)
• Musical masterpiece
• Three-hour long tragedy with very little spoken dialogue
• Monumental, dissonant, operatic score
• Technically demanding vocal music
• Dissonant, Modern music
• Grisly story
• Film adaptation in 2007 by
Tim Burton, starring Johnny Depp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srR56T9-j5M
Film Music
• Music’s power can greatly affects our emotions more
than images do
• Music is as key to a film as cinematography, acting, or
editing
• Archetypal movie themes (such as John Williams’s Jaws
and Bernard Herrmann’s Psycho) become musical
symbols in popular culture
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VP5jEAP3K4
• Music can be the creative inspiration behind a film
Contemporary Diverse Styles
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Pendulum swings between “classical” and popular styles
Popular example: Saturday Night Fever
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0FphcAh3T8
Balance between traditional orchestral writing and pop
style in the scores by Danny Elfman, Thomas Newman,
and Howard Shore
• John Williams: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
– Full orchestral sound; Certain instruments underscore
dialogue
– Themes represent dramatic forces, similar to Wagner’s
leitmotifs
– “Luke,” “Force,” and “Yoda” themes