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Post by Deleted on May 21, 2017 15:36:27 GMT
Maybe so, but ALW's shows are still more popular than Sondheim's. This means your average Joe must like his shows more. What’s your point? Never mind the quality, feel the width? My pint is that people keep suggesting ALW is inferior, while his shows are more popular meaning he must be doing something right. |
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Post by tmesis on May 21, 2017 16:00:06 GMT
I won't claim that Sondheim's music isn't very intricate. But you yourself just said it: "people can not feel it". If you can't feel "Our Time" at the end of Merrily, I do feel a little bit sorry for you. That song, at that point in the show sends me soaring. It pinpoints the emotions perfectly. "Gives you the shivers" indeed. I so agree. That, for me, is one of the most amazing moments in all music theatre and always reduces me to tears (and I never cry at anything.) He totally hits the spot musically for the 'youthful innocence/idealism' vibe, which is so poignant, given the whole 'backward storytelling' thing. |
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Post by hal9000 on May 21, 2017 22:14:24 GMT
You might as well say that pop music is better than classical music because more people like it. Or The Mousetrap is better than Hamlet, it’s been running for 62 years. Pop music can be and frequently is better than classical music. There are utter duds in each genre. Similarly, I have sat through productions of HAMLET that would have me running screaming to Agatha Christie for a thorough cleansing. Art is art. High art, low art, pop art, classical art, Hollywood blockbusters, Arthouse dramas - art is art. There is simply good art and bad art. |
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Post by Deleted on May 21, 2017 23:49:35 GMT
Even a cursory study shows very clearly how Sondheim uses scales and harmony to create the very different worlds of his shows. Books have been written on this ... I mean, people can not feel it, but Sondheim is leagues ahead in this field. I won't claim that Sondheim's music isn't very intricate. But you yourself just said it: "people can not feel it". For me it's not important how complicated a score is. I think the most important part is how the score makes me feel. I guess that's just personal preference, but most people are not as well educated in music as you may be, and just make judgements based on what they feel when they hear a song. And those people are a huge part of the target audience. I should have also pointed out that I said 'can not' rather than 'cannot'. My meaning being that not feeling is a consequence of that audience members level of literacy, emotional or otherwise. 'Cannot' may have suggested that I agree with them, which is most definitely not the case. |
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2017 8:26:30 GMT
I won't claim that Sondheim's music isn't very intricate. But you yourself just said it: "people can not feel it". For me it's not important how complicated a score is. I think the most important part is how the score makes me feel. I guess that's just personal preference, but most people are not as well educated in music as you may be, and just make judgements based on what they feel when they hear a song. And those people are a huge part of the target audience. I should have also pointed out that I said 'can not' rather than 'cannot'. My meaning being that not feeling is a consequence of that audience members level of literacy, emotional or otherwise. 'Cannot' may have suggested that I agree with them, which is most definitely not the case. I don't think it's fair to say that someone not liking a particular piece of music or theatre is because their level of literacy isn't high enough. Taste is subjective. |
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2017 10:44:41 GMT
I should have also pointed out that I said 'can not' rather than 'cannot'. My meaning being that not feeling is a consequence of that audience members level of literacy, emotional or otherwise. 'Cannot' may have suggested that I agree with them, which is most definitely not the case. I don't think it's fair to say that someone not liking a particular piece of music or theatre is because their level of literacy isn't high enough. Taste is subjective. I said feeling, not liking. To take one example, the Reich-a-like elements of Sunday in the Park With George will not be recognised by anyone without a knowledge of the American minimalists, therefore their brain won't make the connection between them and the pointillism of Seurat. For me, it elevates the score, for many it might confuse. Sondheim never really writes for a mixed ability audience, unlike Webber who can write a score whereby there is enough for the person with little of that hinterland as well as for those looking for more, his central language being pop/rock music is a great help these days in helping him do that. Similarly, with Stephen Schwartz has always had that sensibility.
I have absolutely no understanding of horses (to take one random example), yet I know people who can rhapsodise about different horses for hours. I just don't have the knowledge to be able to appreciate what they are on about. Any theatre audience is going to be the same but, crucially, neither Sondheim or Webber pretend to be what they are not. They generally get the audience they aim for.
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2017 11:02:26 GMT
I should have also pointed out that I said 'can not' rather than 'cannot'. My meaning being that not feeling is a consequence of that audience members level of literacy, emotional or otherwise. 'Cannot' may have suggested that I agree with them, which is most definitely not the case. I don't think it's fair to say that someone not liking a particular piece of music or theatre is because their level of literacy isn't high enough. Taste is subjective. It is. Musical literacy is also important - not just placing a piece in context, but a degree of ear-training can add a hell of a lot of understanding of how complex music is structured, harmonized, developed etc. It's hard to enjoy something if you don't understand what's going on. |
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2017 12:13:54 GMT
I don't think it's fair to say that someone not liking a particular piece of music or theatre is because their level of literacy isn't high enough. Taste is subjective. It is. Musical literacy is also important - not just placing a piece in context, but a degree of ear-training can add a hell of a lot of understanding of how complex music is structured, harmonized, developed etc. It's hard to enjoy something if you don't understand what's going on. I think people can appreciate music, no matter how complex, without having any understanding of music theory. |
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2017 12:43:09 GMT
Aaron Copeland can explain all this better than I can (my emphasis) -
HOW WE LISTEN TO MUSIC
From What to Listen for in Music (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988). Copyright © 1988 by Aaron Copland.
We all listen to music according to our separate capacities. But, for the sake of analysis, the whole listening process may become clearer if we break it up into its component parts, so to speak. In a certain sense we all listen to music on three separate planes. For lack of a better terminology, one might name these: (1) the sensuous plane, (2) the expressive plane, (3) the sheerly musical plane. The only advantage to be gained from mechanically splitting up the listening process into these hypothetical planes is the clearer view to be had of the way in which we listen.
The simplest way of listening to music is to listen for the sheer pleasure of the musical sound itself. That is the sensuous plane. It is the plane on which we hear music without thinking, without considering it in any way. One turns on the radio while doing something else and absent-mindedly bathes in the sound. A kind of brainless but attractive state of mind is engendered by the mere sound appeal of the music. You may be sitting in a room reading this book. Imagine one note struck on the piano. Immediately that one note is enough to change the atmosphere of the room—providing that the sound element in music is a powerful and mysterious agent, which it would be foolish to deride or belittle.
The surprising thing is that many people who consider themselves qualified music lovers abuse that plane in listening. They go to concerts in order to lose themselves. They use music as a consolation or an escape. They enter an ideal world where one doesn’t have to think of the realities of everyday life. Of course they aren’t thinking about the music either. Music allows them to leave it, and they go off to a place to dream, dreaming because of and apropos of the music yet never quite listening to it.
Yes, the sound appeal of music is a potent and primitive force, but you must not allow it to usurp a disproportionate share of your interest. The sensuous plane is an important one in music, a very important one, but it does not constitute the whole story.
There is no need to digress further on the sensuous plane. Its appeal to every normal human being is self-evident. There is, however, such a thing as becoming more sensitive to the different kinds of sound stuff as used by various composers. For all composers do not use that sound stuff in the same way. Don’t get the idea that the value of music is commensurate with its sensuous appeal or that the loveliest sounding music is made by the greatest composer. If that were so, Ravel would be a greater creator than Beethoven. The point is that the sound element varies with each composer, that his usage of sound forms an integral part of his style and must be taken into account when listening. The reader can see, therefore, that a more conscious approach is valuable even on this primary plane of music listening.
The second plane on which music exists is what I have called the expressive one. Here, immediately, we tread on controversial ground. Composers have a way of shying away from any discussion of music’s expressive side. Did not Stravinsky himself proclaim that his music was an “object,” a “thing,” with a life of its own, and with no other meaning than its own purely musical existence? This intransigent attitude of Stravinsky’s may be due to the fact that so many people have tried to read different meanings into so many pieces. Heaven knows it is difficult enough to say precisely what it is that a piece of music means, to say it definitely, to say it finally so that everyone is satisfied with your explanation. But that should not lead one to the other extreme of denying to music the right to be “expressive.”
My own belief is that all music has an expressive power, some more and some less, but that all music has a certain meaning behind the notes and that the meaning behind the notes constitutes, after all, what the piece is saying, what the piece is about. The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, “Is there a meaning to music?” My answer to that would be, “Yes.” And “Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?” My answer to that would be, “No.” Therein lies the difficulty.
Simple-minded souls will never be satisfied with the answer to the second of these questions. They always want music to have a meaning, and the more concrete it is the better they like it. The more the music reminds them of a train, a storm, a funeral, or any other familiar conception the more expressive it appears to be to them. This popular idea of music’s meaning—stimulated and abetted by the usual run of musical commentator—should be discouraged wherever and whenever it is met. One timid lady once confessed to me that she suspected something seriously lacking in her appreciation of music because of her inability to connect it with anything definite. That is getting the whole thing backward, of course.
Still, the question remains, How close should the intelligent music lover wish to come to pinning a definite meaning to any particular work? No closer than a general concept, I should say. Music expresses, at different moments, serenity or exuberance, regrets or triumph, fury or delight. It expresses each of these moods, and many others, in a numberless variety of subtle shadings and differences. It may even express a state of meaning for which there exists no adequate word in any language. In that case, musicians often like to say that it has only a purely musical meaning. They sometimes go further and say that all music has only a purely musical meaning. What they really mean is that no appropriate word can be found to express the music’s meaning and that, even if it could, they do not feel the need of finding it.
But whatever the professional musician may hold, most musical novices still search for specific words with which to pin down their musical reactions. That is why they always find Tschaikovsky easier to “understand” than Beethoven. In the first place, it is easier to pin a meaning-word on a Tschaikovsky piece than on a Beethoven one. Much easier. Moreover, with the Russian composer, every time you come back to a piece of his it almost always says the same thing to you, whereas with Beethoven it is often quite difficult to put your finger right on what he is saying. And any musician will tell you that that is why Beethoven is the greater composer. Because music which always says the same thing to you will necessarily soon become dull music, but music whose meaning is slightly different with each hearing has a greater chance of remaining alive.
Listen, if you can, to the forty-eight fugue themes of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavichord. Listen to each theme, one after another. You will soon realize that each theme mirrors a different world of feeling. You will also soon realize that the more beautiful a theme seems to you the harder it is to find any word that will describe it to your complete satisfaction. Yes, you will certainly know whether it is a gay theme or a sad one. You will be able, in other words, in your own mind, to draw a frame of emotional feeling around your theme. Now study the sad one a little closer. Try to pin down the exact quality of its sadness. Is it pessimistically sad or resignedly sad; is it fatefully sad or smilingly sad?
Let us suppose that you are fortunate and can describe to your own satisfaction in so many words the exact meaning of your chosen theme. There is still no guarantee that anyone else will be satisfied. Nor need they be. The important thing is that each one feel for himself the specific expressive quality of a theme or, similarly, an entire piece of music. And if it is a great work of art, don’t expect it to mean exactly the same thing to you each time you return to it.
Themes or pieces need not express only one emotion, of course. Take such a theme as the first main one of the Ninth Symphony, for example. It is clearly made up of different elements. It does not say only one thing. Yet anyone hearing it immediately gets a feeling of strength, a feeling of power. It isn’t a power that comes simply because the theme is played loudly. It is a power inherent in the theme itself. The extraordinary strength and vigor of the theme results in the listener’s receiving an impression that a forceful statement has been made. But one should never try to boil it down to “the fateful hammer of life,” etc. That is where the trouble begins. The musician, in his exasperation, says it means nothing but the notes themselves, whereas the nonprofessional is only too anxious to hang on to any explanation that gives him the illusion of getting closer to the music’s meaning. Now, perhaps, the reader will know better what I mean when I say that music does have an expressive meaning but that we cannot say in so many words what that meaning is.
The third plane on which music exists is the sheerly musical plane. Besides the pleasurable sound of music and the expressive feeling that it gives off, music does exist in terms of the notes themselves and of their manipulation. Most listeners are not sufficiently conscious of this third plane....
Professional musicians, on the other hand, are, if anything, too conscious of the mere notes themselves. They often fall into the error of becoming so engrossed with their arpeggios and staccatos that they forget the deeper aspects of the music they are performing. But from the layman’s standpoint, it is not so much a matter of getting over bad habits on the sheerly musical plane as of increasing one’s awareness of what is going on, in so far as the notes are concerned.
When the man in the street listens to the “notes themselves” with any degree of concentration, he is most likely to make some mention of the melody. Either he hears a pretty melody or he does not, and he generally lets it go at that. Rhythm is likely to gain his attention next, particularly if it seems exciting. But harmony and tone color are generally taken for granted, if they are thought of consciously at all. As for music’s having a definite form of some kind, that idea seems never to have occurred to him.
It is very important for all of us to become more alive to music on its sheerly musical plane. After all, an actual musical material is being used. The intelligent listener must be prepared to increase his awareness of the musical material and what happens to it. He must hear the melodies, the rhythms, the harmonies, the tone colors in a more conscious fashion. But above all he must, in order to follow the line of the composer’s thought, know something of the principles of musical form. Listening to all of these elements is listening on the sheerly musical plane.
Let me repeat that I have split up mechanically the three separate planes on which we listen merely for the sake of greater clarity. Actually, we never listen on one or the other of these planes. What we do is to correlate them—listening in all three ways at the same time. It takes no mental effort, for we do it instinctively. Perhaps an analogy with what happens to us when we visit the theater will make this instinctive correlation clearer. In the theater, you are aware of the actors and actresses, costumes and sets, sounds and movements. All these give one the sense that the theater is a pleasant place to be in. They constitute the sensuous plane in our theatrical reactions.
The expressive plane in the theater would be derived from the feeling that you get from what is happening on the stage. You are moved to pity, excitement, or gayety. It is this general feeling, generated aside from the particular words being spoken, a certain emotional something which exists on the stage, that is analogous to the expressive quality in music.
The plot and plot development is equivalent to our sheerly musical plane. The playwright creates and develops a character in just the same way that a composer creates and develops a theme. According to the degree of your awareness of the way in which the artist in either field handles his material you will become a more intelligent listener. It is easy enough to see that the theatergoer never is conscious of any of these elements separately. He is aware of them all at the same time. The same is true of music listening. We simultaneously and without thinking listen on all three planes.
In a sense, the ideal listener is both inside and outside the music at the same moment, judging it and enjoying it, wishing it would go one way and watching it go another—almost like the composer at the moment he composes it; because in order to write his music, the composer must also be inside and outside his music, carried away by it and yet coldly critical of it. A subjective and objective attitude is implied in both creating and listening to music.
What the reader should strive for, then, is a more active kind of listening. Whether you listen to Mozart or Duke Ellington, you can deepen your understanding of music only by being a more conscious and aware listener—not someone who is just listening, but someone who is listening for something.
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Post by tmesis on May 22, 2017 20:38:10 GMT
Sondheim himself crystallised why I much prefer him to Lloyd Webber and Boublil-Schonberg (with a few exceptions.) In 'Finishing the Hat' he states that one of his guiding principles is 'less is more' - something that he follows pretty comprehensively. He often holds back at moments of great poignancy and then makes it twice more effective and moving than ALW. By being understated he can encompass a far greater range of emotions than ALW and B&S and take in effortlessly wit and humour - the other guys' attempts at this are toe-curling.
ALW and B&S seem, in there most famous musicals, to be basically frustrated opera composers but, because they lack the technical skill and genius of a Verdi or Puccini they miss by a mile, producing high camp instead 'art,' And it's not even entertaining or for funny camp, because they will take themselves so goddamn seriously.
On the one occasion when Sondheim himself comes close to opera (Sweeny Todd) he is completely successful and writes a near masterpiece because he has the superior technical skills (and inspiration) to do so.
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Post by tmesis on May 29, 2017 20:51:09 GMT
I'd like to make a case specifically for Frederick Loewe of Lerner and Loewe fame being underrated. Lerner is justly celebrated (apart from by Sondheim) but little is written about Loewe. His masterpiece is obviously My Fair Lady where he ranges musically very widely from ballads to music hall pastiche. But he was a superb melodist, with a great range of styles and funds of inspiration. There is some superb music in Paint your Wagon, Gigi, Camelot and Brigadoon; the latter has one of the great melodies of all time in Heather on the Hill.
He may not have written the sheer number of great melodies of a Richard Rogers but the quality is definitely as high.
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2017 9:28:18 GMT
the latter has one of the great melodies of all time in Heather on the Hill. Yes. Beautiful song. Marvin Hamlisch is a name that perhaps doesn't get spoken as often as it should. |
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Post by mallardo on May 30, 2017 9:37:45 GMT
I agree on Hamlisch. Everyone (I hope) acknowledges A Chorus Line for the masterpiece it is but The Goodbye Girl and (especially) The Sweet Smell of Success are brilliant scores in very different genres.
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Post by tmesis on May 30, 2017 10:00:50 GMT
Yes I agree Hamlisch is a class act. I too love Sweet Smell of Success (good production at the Arcola a few years back) but also They're Playing our Song is a great musical.
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Post by whygodwhytoday on Jun 12, 2017 14:41:25 GMT
Underrated
David Shire - 'Closer Than Ever' and 'Starting Here, Starting Now' are song cycles I listen to constantly.
Maury Yeston - Go and listen to 'Titanic', 'Nine' and 'Phantom' if you haven't already!
Frederick Loewe - If Ever I Would Leave You....
Overrated
Stephen Schwartz - I love Pippin but none of his other scores particularly excite me...
Pasek/Paul - Since they've just won Best Score I feel I can say they're overrated now... (too many sus chords ahhh)
Jason Robert Brown - *hits snooze*
Alan Menken - He was the first composer I ever loved... But how did he get away with rehashing the same old melodies under new titles?!
I love and hate Sondheim/Webber equally....
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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2017 15:31:28 GMT
Yeah at this point Pasek & Paul are swiftly moving into being overrated. Seem like lovely guys, perfectly capable of writing a pleasant tune. But their Oscar was undeserved, as was their Tony. And their likely Grammy next year will be too. Waving Through a Window is a great song and probably their best, but it's no better than Kitt & Yorkey's Always Starting Over for example.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2017 15:41:21 GMT
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Post by tmesis on Jun 13, 2017 7:32:34 GMT
No one can build a song, with repetition, artful key changes and a massive rallentando at the end like Herman. It's totally calculated and guarantees an ovation but fabulously effective non the less.
He also has the all too rare ability to come up with a very simple, open-hearted tune that is instantly memorable.
He's never pretentious like ALW and B&S and is distinctly underrated.
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