music writing 4
JaredRain
kerman7e_ch24MusicalTheater.pptChapter 24
Music in America:
Musical Theater
Operetta
- Spoken dialogue
- Light musical numbers
- Many dance numbers
- Amusing, far-fetched plots
- Popular on Broadway in 1800s, early 1900s
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Popular Operettas
- Gilbert & Sullivan- The Mikado, HMS Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance
- Victor Herbert- The Serenade, Babes in Toyland, Sweethearts
Musical Comedies
- Popular theater picked up jazz accents
- Demand for up-to-date, American stories and lyrics
- Closely tied to popular songs of the 1920s and 1930s
- Those written in Tin Pan Alley: N.Y. based collection of publishing/song writing offices.
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Gershwin’s “Who Cares?” from Of Thee I Sing can be found on the Listen Companion DVD.
George Gershwin (1898 to 1937)
- Born in New York
- Quit school at 16 to become a song writer
- Began writing his own hit songs with brother Ira
- Wrote concert works fusing jazz and Classical
- Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris, Catfish Row (from Porgy and Bess)
- Musicals- Strike Up the Band, Girl Crazy, Funny Face, Nice Work If You Can Get It
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The Musical after 1940
- Plots worked out with more care
- Musical numbers tied in logically
- Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein
- Oklahoma! (1943); The King and I (1951)
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Leonard Bernstein
(1918–1990)
- One of America’s most brilliant and versatile musicians
- Wrote classical symphonies, musicals, and film music
- Acclaimed conductor, pianist, and author
- Won Grammys, Emmys, and a Tony
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Bernstein, West Side Story
- Update of Romeo and Juliet
- The classical reaching out to the popular styles
- Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Robbins
- Combines classical forms and techniques with 1950s jazz styles
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Bernstein’s Thematic Transformation
- Three-note motive first appears as a cha-cha
- Then as a slow, questioning motive in the Meeting Scene
- Next as the motive for “Maria”
- Finally turns into the intro to “Cool”
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Bernstein’s Thematic Transformation
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West Side Story, “Cool”
- Big production number of Act I
- Highly charged, syncopated intro
- Riff sings first two stanzas
- 1950s street dialect
- Dance sequence begins with fugue
- Music gets more angry as Jets lose their cool
- Stanza 2 of Riff’s song returns
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Later Musicals
- Influence of rock revolution
- Hair, Grease, Rent
- Connection to film
- Showboat, Rent, West Side Story, Disney’s musicals for film
- Continual reinvention
- Influence of hip-hop: Hamilton
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Key Terms
- Operetta
- Musical comedy
- Musicals
