[solo_saxophone]

Hey everyone,

So I've had a copy of the "Miss Saigon" vocal score for a number of
years that I got from a friend who had been in the show - it's about 340 pages and has all of the music from the show for piano reduction and all of the various parts for the different characters on seperate staves. It's set like a traditional operatic score, I suppose.

Some weirdness, though. For those of us here who are
familliar with the score, we will be well aware of the fact that the
"Finale" has undergone a considerable amount of revision since the show
opened on Broadway and in London. The Finale first was called "The
Sacred Bird" and was partly new music and partly a reprise of "I'd Give
My Life For You", before the familiar falling "I have had my fill of
pain" whole-tone motif and "American Dream" reprise and gunshot stuff.
It went:

From this picture I keep

You, my parents, look out
And your smiles show no scorn
I am happy today
For my heart is not torn
Spirits know when to fly when it's time;
There's no reason to mourn
For the great sacred bird is reborn

etc etc etc.

Then we got a "new" version in time for the Complete Symphonic
Recording in 1995 or so, that incorporated more music and then a
reprise of "This is the Hour" before a similar ending to the OLC. This
one is my personal favorite:

Now, Tam, my brave boy
Our long wait has ended
Smile, Tam, for you have
A father at last
He will come to take you home
All I dreamed for you he'll do
You're still mine, but I can't go along
Don't be sad; though I seem far away, I'll be watching you!

So anyway, having just gotten the German cast recording of MS, I was
looking in the vocal score and saw something interesting. Directly
after "The American Dream", the vocal score has two seperate endings -
"The Sacred Bird", which is a PV reduction to the end, basically, and
an entirely seperate "draft" of an ending, I guess - something entirely
new, called "Little God of My Heart". "Little God of My Heart" contains
musical portions of the second Finale version seen on the CSR (the
"You're still mine, but I can't go along/Don't be sad; though I seem
far away, I'll be watching you!" part), but is otherwise entirely new
material for the most part until the gunshot. It's pretty, too, from
what I see, but very different and mostly in 12/8, with a triplet feel.

So what's with this "Little God of My Heart" stuff? Was it ever used in
the show? Is there anywhere it's been recorded? Given its apparent
relative obscurity, how did it make it into the vocal score?

Also, a "bonus" query: why, in some vocal scores in various parts (such
as MS, during most of "The Heat is On in Saigon" and "If You Want to
Die in Bed"), does the piano accompaniment dissapear and get replaced
with "x-ed out" note symbols and just chord names as opposed to actual
accompaniment? It's strange.

Any insight? I would LOVE to know more. My e-mail address is joe.bardsley@gmail.com

Thanks, guys!

Take care,

Joseph

[cellodude06]

well... i played in the pit for miss saigon and the notes with x's and chord symbols are because those parts are "ad lib" or improvised... they'll just give you the chords and the beat pattern

[o.0]

From what I've heard, Little God of My Heart was used for a few months on Broadway, because The Sacred Bird gave away the ending too easily. But after a few months LGoMH was also changed into what is now the Finale.

I don't believe it was ever recorded (legally, anyway...)

[medicman]

I was in Miss Saigon at a Summer Stock theater in New Hampshire this year.

We used the Symphonic version. After listening to both, I'm glad we did, it is much better.

[The Very Angry Woman]

[Eponine93]