Comments on: Okay for me in America

By: Robert Jordahl

Robert Jordahl — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 15:06:53 +0000

I agree wholeheartedly with the thoughts of Mary Jane Leach.
” Guys and Dolls ” is a treasure!

By: Mary Jane Leach

Mary Jane Leach — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 00:02:28 +0000

Personally, I find “Guys and Dolls,” written seven years before WSS, more complete and exciting musically, almost a perfect musical. WSS didn’t come out of a void, so the underlying concept is misconceived. Also, I’ve never had a chance to see it, but doesn’t “Rent” come out of that tradition? (disclaimer – since having a bad, really weird experince working with YIP Harburg, I’ve only seen musicals that I’ve worked on Off Broadway, so my current knowledge is nil.)

By: Deb

Deb — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 16:51:59 +0000

You’re welcome! And I agree with you – just wanted to point out that there’s more out there to listen to (and see) that might appeal to more knowledgeable musician types such as yourselves! Speaking as a musical theatre snob, of course! ;-)

By: Galen H. Brown

Galen H. Brown — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 15:50:00 +0000

Deb — I’m confident that you’re right about the current state of musical theatre. I’m using Andrew Lloyd Weber and Claude Michel Schoenberg as my examples largely in order to show that even if you ignore the musical theatre that the theatre snobs (I use the term with affection) think is great and focus on the biggest, most broadly popular, most commercial, most mass produced broadway shows my argument still holds. I figure something like Phantom is the most vulnerable to Mark’s argument, and so if I can demonstrate that he’s mistaken there it’s all the more clear that he’s mistaken about the “good” musical theatre.

I’m not particularly knowledgeable, it’s true, about the areas of musical theatre that you’re talking about — my own loss, I’m sure. But I certainly respect it as a genre and strongly disapprove of the sort of classical music chauvinism that leads many people in the classical world to write it off. Same with film score, incidentally. Anyway, thanks for the tips on where to find some of the material that might be more appealing to me than the stuff I hear about in the mainstream media :)

By: Deb

Deb — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 12:45:09 +0000

I find it interesting that Lloyd Webber is being used as today’s Broadway standard and that this totally overlooks some really good stuff coming from Jason Robert Brown, Michael John LaChiusa, and Adam Guettel (especially the last two). Guettel’s “Light in the Piazza” is a beautiful, well written (and very well received) piece of musical theatre with much more depth than anything (except admittedly, Sunset Boulevard) that Mr. Lloyd Webber is writing. Those of us who LIVE theatre know that ALW is not the be-all and end-all – nor is he the thermometer of today’s musical theatre. He just happens to be – short of Disney – the most commercial. I’m not – to quote (*gasp*) Galen Brown -being “bitchy” – I’m inviting you to open the horizons a little broader than the obvious. Musical Theatre of quality is alive and well – it just doesn’t have a TV show attached to it! What I see as thrilling is that there is a huge fan base for Musical Theatre in young people. That’s what will keep it alive. And many of those same young people are the musicians – and composers – of the future – of all types of music, not just theatre.

Thank you for listening!

By: Galen H. Brown

Galen H. Brown — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 05:48:32 +0000

It depends on how we mean it. Personally, I like and respect the music from West Side Story more than the music from Phantom, or even the music from Sunset Boulevard, which I think is Lloyd Webber’s masterpiece. But I don’t think the Lloyd Weber, or the Claude Michel Schoenberg (Les Mis, Miss Saigon) is bad — I think it’s quite good, even when I don’t much care for it. Take “All I Ask of You”: I hate that song, and yet I can’t deny that it is very well crafted. And if we want to compare “musical sophistication” it’s worth noting that one of Webber’s talents is making more complex time signatures flow naturally and accessably. It’s also interesting to note that in the original French concept album for Les Mis, the slow pretty songs are arranged in a much less sacharine fashion and are much more to my taste. Which brings me to my thesis–taste is not the same as assesment of objective quality, as much as it might feel like it. If the modern Broadway style isn’t to your taste–and it’s not particularly to mine, overall–it’s easy to write it all off as “bad” but it’s not really fair to do so.

I’m also pretty skeptical of the very idea of objective goodness or badness of music, but I don’t think we even need to go there to have this discussion.

Incidentally, I’m not sure why both of my recent posts were so bitchy — I’ve actually been in a pretty good mood lately. Love you all :)

By: Tom DePlonty

Tom DePlonty — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 01:27:24 +0000

I should probably read Mark Grant’s essay before commenting, but maybe his problem with Lloyd Webber and recent music theatre is just that the music is so awful.

Sure, “West Side” and “Phantom” were both produced with the intention to make money. But would you seriously argue that, musically speaking, they’re on the same plane?