All tagged On the Twentieth Century
I have written with great awe about how amazed I am by the eclecticism of Cy Coleman as a Broadway composer. He always finds an original sound for each musical he writes, capturing the perfect tone for the material. Since I am an enormous fan of Coleman and his body of Broadway work, I decided to rank the ten best of his musicals, from my least favorite to my favorite, commenting on some of my favorite songs along the way. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Broadway composers tend to settle into a style that is distinctly their own. We know a Stephen Sondheim score when we hear it. Andrew Lloyd Webber, the same. In fact, many people cling to the familiarity of a Broadway composer’s style, knowing that attending their latest show will hopefully yield something new and familiar at the same time. We can almost count on this result, and why not? Each composer is unique and cultivates their own sound with each new show that they write. There was, however, one musical theatre composer who reinvented his voice several times over throughout his career, so it is much harder to pinpoint what his style exactly is. Working with a variety of musical styles, and a wide-range of writing partners, each score he touched sounded like he reimagined his talents to best capture the musical world at hand. This is the eclectic brilliance of composer Cy Coleman.
A few years ago, I wrote a piece on Broadway poster art, an assessment of the ten most effective posters that advertised their products well. It turns out that this has been one of the most popular articles to run in my blog. It appears that my readership is as excited about this topic as I am.
Since the piece's popularity continues to astound me, I decided to write a part 2. For this round, I am assessing poster art that may or may not be effective, but is so stunningly gorgeous that its effectiveness is irrelevant. The poster is a stunning piece of art.
There is nothing better than settling into your seat for a piece of musical theatre and drifting away into the expertly arranged collage of melodies that will indoctrinate you into the score. I miss the Broadway overture and often wonder why this technique of familiarizing the audience with the music (BEFORE the story starts) is so underutilized nowadays. So much is said about contemporary scores being unmemorable and that you just don't walk away from the theatre humming the tunes anymore.
This is nonsense.
In the "old" days, the overture made the music familiar to you. When you heard a melody later in the show, it was already recognizable. Reprises and scene change music reinforced these melodies so that, by the time you walked out into Times Square, you were humming the melodies. A simple trick that is highly effective. When executed well, the overture becomes a startling piece of music unto itself. Through the efforts of a clever orchestrator, the overture becomes an event, an electrified quasi-symphony that ignites the musical that it precedes.
In today's installment of "The Music That Makes Me Dance", I will discuss my ten favorite overtures and explore why I find them so mesmerizing and infectious
