blackface minstrel shows and authentic Deep-South blues emerged the Broadway show tune. ‘Show’ and ‘tune’, of course, are the essential indicators of musical style. The music created for Broadway musicals – and, subsequently, for the musical form whatever its geographical origin – is conditioned by its theatrical and dramatic role within a show, as well as the ...
, non-symphonic music and were associated with forms of popular entertainment such as dancing, operettas, music-hall entertainment, and, in the twentieth century, film music, musicals and, before the arrival of rock’n’roll, the music of popular singers and crooners. In the nineteenth century, they were roughly the same size as chamber orchestras, ...
The Beatles had blurred the distinction between adult and kid’s pop with songs like ‘Yellow Submarine’. But the most important distributors of children’s music in the twentieth century were film musicals, via such stars as Julie Andrews and Elton John, and, most of all, television. The importance of the box is evident from the lasting impact of ...
were geared towards the dramatic functions of the show. Carousel, one of Hammerstein’s many collaborations with Richard Rodgers, moved towards the synergy of score and speech that characterized musicals in the second half of the twentieth century. Stephen Sondheim introduced melodic themes that were fragmented over an entire show, and the baton then passed over the Atlantic to ...
His most successful musical was Cats, based on the poems by T. S. Eliot, which was one of the longest-running shows in London and on Broadway. Lloyd Webber’s musicals are essentially episodic, although he has shown an inclination to through-composition, for example in the motivic writing of Sunset Boulevard (1993). He has also shown a desire to ...
(Vocals, b. 1950) First heard in the 1970s with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, then in the Broadway musicals The Wiz and Sophisticated Ladies and later in pop/jazz contexts, Bridgewater relocated to Paris in 1983. Leading a trio, she regained career momentum in the 1990s with tribute projects commemorating Billie Holiday, Horace Silver and Ella Fitzgerald ...
Giovanni and Figaro being among his most memorable portrayals and earning him the title of ‘opera’s sex symbol’. After leaving the Met aged 56, Pinza began a career in musicals, operettas and film. His most famous Broadway performance was in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific. Introduction | Modern Era | Opera Personalities | William Plomer | Modern Era | ...
, who became a key collaborator on popular tunes such as ‘Honeysuckle Rose’, ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’’ and ‘(What Did I Do To Be So) Black And Blue’ as well as successful musicals Keep Shufflin’ and Hot Chocolates. By 1924 Fats was well known for his piano rolls, radio broadcasts and extroverted, off-the-cuff, jivey performance style. He also flaunted dazzling ...
songwriter himself. After a visit to Europe, when he heard the latest musical shows and operettas that London, Berlin and elsewhere had to offer, he began writing musicals (Oh, Kay!, Funny Face and others), but also sought a formal musical education, studying briefly with numerous teachers. Alongside his musicals and popular songs, he began ...
, ragtime and the blues, heralding a new era in American music. While George and his lyricist brother Ira turned out a string of hit songs and successful stage musicals, George also wrote several highly acclaimed orchestral works. However, his initial operatic outing Blue Monday (1922), a 20-minute jazz opera, did not sit well with audiences and ...
songwriter on Tin Pan Alley. He and his lyricist brother Ira scored their first big hit in 1919 with ‘Swanee’ for Al Jolson. From 1919–33 they produced a succession of musicals, including the first Pulitzer Prize-winning musical comedy, Of Thee I Sing (1931). In 1924, George wrote Rhapsody In Blue as a concerto for piano and the Paul ...
(Jan Kär’-lo Me-nôt’-te) 1911–2007 Italian-American composer The best of Menotti’s stage works combine something of the melodic appeal of Puccini and his successors with a dramatic punch that is Menotti’s own, but owes something to the American musical. His macabre The Medium (1946) and the chilling The Consul (1950), about refugees attempting to escape an unnamed country, have both ...
(‘Sadie Salome, Go Home’) before his 20th birthday. ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’ in 1911 was an international hit. In all, he wrote over 1,000 songs and numerous successful musicals, including Annie Get Your Gun (1946) and Call Me Madam (1950). Recommended Recording: Annie Get Your Gun, soloists, London Sinfonietta (cond) John McGlinn (EMI/Warner) Introduction | Modern ...
Gershwin, Kern began his career as a song-plugger (playing new songs to potential customers in a publisher’s showroom) and then gained invaluable experience writing additional or replacement numbers for musicals imported to the US from Europe. In 1915, he formed a partnership with the writer Guy Bolton (soon joined by P. G. Wodehouse as lyricist). Their earliest shows included ...
– at first extensive – was reduced by the success of his career as a conductor (he was appointed Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in 1958), but other musicals followed, notably the quasi-operatic, frequently revised Candide (1956) and the hugely successful West Side Story (1957). Jeremiah was followed by two other symphonies, Age of Anxiety (1949), ...
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David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
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