All tagged The Pirates of Penzance

What’s the Matter? Merely Patter! Great Broadway Patter Songs

Patter songs are delightfully energetic ditties that are often plugged into musicals for humor or inject energy, often an eleven o’clock number or as a pick-me-up after more serious moments. They are a lot of fun and usually a scene-stealing moment for a great comedic performer who can pull-off their rapid-fire delivery. The definition of a “patter song” is a musical sequence that is performed at a relatively fast tempo, rhythmic patterns that are staccato in nature, with each syllable of the lyric corresponding to a note. There is often internal rhymes, tongue-twister-style formatting, and the device is often paired with the “list song”, another musical theatre device where lists are shared as a humorous assault of information. 

Back to Before: Part II The Very Model Framework for a Modern Broadway Musical

Picking up where we left off in Part I of this series, we started looking at the transition from opera to contemporary musical theatre via the vehicle of operetta. Operetta really began to take off with heightened popularity in Great Britain in the late 1800s, largely thanks to the commercial success of the composing and producing team of Gilbert and Sullivan.  It would be these two gentlemen who would advance the art form of musical theatre style storytelling one step closer toward its contemporary conventions.