RainyCrystal
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Strengths and weaknessesLike almost all composers, ALW has his strengths and weaknesses. What do you think are his biggest strengths and weaknesses?
~Sissi
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Dvarg
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Among his strenghts is a very inventive ability to write catchy tunes that are fun to sing - particularly when he chooses to write something that is not a BIG EMOTIONAL diva pop aria.
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B3TA07
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His strengths are that he can write melodies that you'll love. He can also write less melodic music if he wants too ( he just doesn't want to most of the time ).
His weaknesses are how quickly he chooses to return to an old favorite than bring something new to the table. His idea if what lyrics should do ( and therefore whom he chooses to lyricize his shows ).
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MrsJamieWellerstein
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Strengths: He's famous. He knows how to do a special effect. He did Sunset Boulevard, Evita, and CATS (I consider them strengths).
Weaknesses: Characters tend to look the same and songs tend to sound the same.
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Dvarg
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| MrsJamieWellerstein wrote: | Strengths: He's famous.
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Huh?
What does that mean? That he is a good composer because he's famous?
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RainbowJude
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ALW: strengths and weaknessesWhat do you think are Andrew Lloyd Webber's biggest strengths and weaknesses?
I think Lloyd Webber very good at producing material, much of which is melodic. I think he is versatile in that he is able to offer a cross-section of musical styles.
I feel that Lloyd Webber is less successful at shaping this material into a whole and I wish that he would collaborate with stronger lyricists and book writers, who challenge him with lyrics and dialogue that are equal to his music - particularly as far as dialogue is concerned so that he wouldn't feel the need to smother the scenes with endless recitative.
I believe that learning when silence and dialogue work better than underscoring and singing would be the most valuable thing he could learn as a theatremaker.
Later days
David
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Anno_Domini
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I agree with the guy above me. My dream is to have Andrew Lloyd Webber and Stephen Sondheim become a team.
With Lloyd Webber's music and Sondheim's lyrics, they would be a more talented team than Gilbert and Sullivan, or Rogers and H
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Salome
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it would never work because sondheim is a far stronger composer than webber..plus sondheim write a song which means that lyrics andm usic compliment each other and relie too strongly on each other..no one else can write ,music to sondheim's matrial but sondheim .
now what i would have loved to have seen is alan jay lerner and alw collaborate.. lerner would have elevated webber's material strongly. it was suggested tha lerner and webber would writr phantom of the opera..but lerner was too ill to proceed. a shame.
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Pounce
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Sondheim will never be the composer ALW was. ALW produced better and more memorable melodies. Sondheim can write music and is competent, but none of Sondheim's musical scores can hold a candle to what Leonard Bernstein produced in WSS. Sondheim is a great lyricist but not so great with show tunes. Sondheim might be more of an artist with music fitting a scene as well as the lyrics but ALW's music makes his shows soar. The last show of his I listened to was Evita and the music and in particular the Evita fanfare is just...awesome. Nothing of Sondheim's music affects me the same way.
I agree with AD that it would have been interesting to have an ALW score and a Sondheim lyric for a show. But that would have had to have happened a long time ago because I think both are long past their prime.
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Dvarg
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| Pounce wrote: | | Sondheim will never be the composer ALW was. |
What do you base that on? 
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Pounce
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| Dvarg wrote: | | Pounce wrote: | | Sondheim will never be the composer ALW was. |
What do you base that on? |
Musically (not counting lyrics) I think ALW's songs have much better melodies than Sondheim's. While we have discussed ad nauseam the value of popularity, ALW's songs have had far greater commercial success than Sondheim's. In groping for some measure other than personal, I'll have to appeal to the public's greater appreciation of ALW's music. What can the Sondheim supporters appeal to when gauging his ability to compose?
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Dvarg
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| Pounce wrote: | | What can the Sondheim supporters appeal to when gauging his ability to compose? |
Well, not being a musicologist I personally feel SJS melodies in general are more intricate and subtle than ALW melodies. They are usually not as instantly hummable as ALW tunes, but becomes incredibly much more hummable after having heard them repeatedly. As opposed to several ALW tunes, SJS tunes also keep surprising and fascinating me long after I've grown to know them very well.
Some ALW tunes sound like they go on forever and forever (which is also the fault of the lyrics not always contributing enough to make the specific song stay interresting for all it's run), while a lot of SJS tunes feel like they tease you with snippets of melody that lasts only a little while too short to satisfy the appetite for them. Therefore they stay "fresh" after having heard them a lot, Sondheim opften leaves you wanting more, while Lloyd Webber tends to give you more than enough in the first instant.
In my perception Sondheim music also communicates much more and much more layered information of the character singing it and the dramaturgic situation in which it is sung than many Lloyd Webber melodies which, as I experience it, too often for my taste communicates basically One Big Emotion.
Please do not take this as an attac on ALW in general. I like a lot of his music, but not all of it.
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Pounce
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| Dvarg wrote: | | In my perception Sondheim music also communicates much more and much more layered information of the character singing it and the dramaturgic situation in which it is sung than many Lloyd Webber melodies which, as I experience it, too often for my taste communicates basically One Big Emotion. |
Maybe so, but all the justification I've read about Sondheim's works as being superior strikes me as saying that Sondheim provides more food for academics. For those who want to dissect and study a musical, I guess Sondheim has more for the scholars to write about. But it all seems like Sondheim tying up some intricate knot so that others can spend hours trying to untie it. All these clever nuances are lost on most of the audiences. Sondheim must think that the audience is looking for a pedantic experience when all they want is escape through some emotional experience.
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Dvarg
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| Pounce wrote: | All these clever nuances are lost on most of the audiences. Sondheim must think that the audience is looking for a pedantic experience when all they want is escape through some emotional experience.
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I I don't think underestimating the audience is a good thing. Besides Sondheim shows do provide an emotional experience for a lot of their audience. It is just not for the purpose of escapism - I don't think that is the case with ALW shows either, by the way, not all of them at least.
As for escapism, I don't think it is a bad thing. But I think it is not the only thing musicals can do. There is also good escapism and bad escapism, and bad escapism remains bad escapism.
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Pounce
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| Dvarg wrote: | | Pounce wrote: | All these clever nuances are lost on most of the audiences. Sondheim must think that the audience is looking for a pedantic experience when all they want is escape through some emotional experience.
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I I don't think underestimating the audience is a good thing. |
But I really do think that a lot of the hidden meaning that playwrights, directors, screenplay writers,etc put in their work is lost on most of the public. It wasn't until I listened to the director's comments did I notice the frequent inclusion of bridges in each scene of the film "The Wonder Boys". And right now in the RENT formum, we are engaged in an interesting disection of the show. It's not the sort of thing one can (or at least I can't) do while watching the show. By examining the script and discussing, we seem to be extracting possible meanings and even double meanings in the text. Things we wouldn't have noticed otherwise. It offers additional benefits to those who like the show but only the few will bother to take the time. I have yet to examine Sondheim's works in like fashion, but complexity is difficult take in unless one slows down and dwells on the ideas which is a luxury a theater goer doesn't have. The show won't wait for the audience.
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Dvarg
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| Pounce wrote: |
And right now in the RENT formum, we are engaged in an interesting disection of the show. It's not the sort of thing one can (or at least I can't) do while watching the show. By examining the script and discussing, we seem to be extracting possible meanings and even double meanings in the text. Things we wouldn't have noticed otherwise.
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Well, that's exactly what I mean. Well written shows have such things to offer to the audience, in addition to being instantly enjoyable also. The audience must naturally invest time and effort to get those things, but it does eventually pay off. The same counts for every sort of cultural experience, of course.
Good shows grow just better by demanding something from the audience. It makes people think.
| Pounce wrote: |
It offers additional benefits to those who like the show but only the few will bother to take the time.
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That's too bad for them, then. They miss things that should enrich their life.
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Pounce
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| Dvarg wrote: | | Pounce wrote: |
And right now in the RENT formum, we are engaged in an interesting disection of the show. It's not the sort of thing one can (or at least I can't) do while watching the show. By examining the script and discussing, we seem to be extracting possible meanings and even double meanings in the text. Things we wouldn't have noticed otherwise.
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Well, that's exactly what I mean. Well written shows have such things to offer to the audience, in addition to being instantly enjoyable also. The audience must naturally invest time and effort to get those things, but it does eventually pay off. The same counts for every sort of cultural experience, of course.
Good shows grow just better by demanding something from the audience. It makes people think. |
Yes, but don't you see that now we are no longer functioning as an audience. We're more like academics removed from the music and acting and are instead studying the lyrics as poetry. And we are not even enjoying the lyrics as poetry but more as some enigmatic code.
| Quote: | | Pounce wrote: |
It offers additional benefits to those who like the show but only the few will bother to take the time.
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That's too bad for them, then. They miss things that should enrich their life. |
That's debatable because it is rather time consuming and I'm not sure what if anything I'll get out of the exercise. There might be more useful things I could do with my time. I post to the boards if I have a spare moment here and there but the lyrics of RENT take some thought and a little research to uncover meaning in rather short verses. And I'm not even sure of some of my and others' conclusions.
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Dvarg
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| Pounce wrote: |
Yes, but don't you see that now we are no longer functioning as an audience.
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Not really, no. Being reflective and having a critical approach is at least as much a part of being an audience as anything else, in my opinion.
| Pounce wrote: |
We're more like academics removed from the music and acting and are instead studying the lyrics as poetry.
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I'm sorry, do you mean this is something that contradicts the aspect of entertainment?
| Pounce wrote: |
There might be more useful things I could do with my time.
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Obviously, we have to make choices. I for example, has not chosen to go deeper into disco or experimantal jazz, amongst other things. I feel confident it would enrich my life further if I had the capasity to.
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Pounce
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| Dvarg wrote: | | Pounce wrote: |
Yes, but don't you see that now we are no longer functioning as an audience.
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Not really, no. Being reflective and having a critical approach is at least as much a part of being an audience as anything else, in my opinion. |
But the intent (legally) is that I should be taking this in at the performance.
| Quote: | | Pounce wrote: |
We're more like academics removed from the music and acting and are instead studying the lyrics as poetry.
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I'm sorry, do you mean this is something that contradicts the aspect of entertainment? |
A puzzle can serve as entertainment. But is the show intended to be a puzzle? The intent is that a person attends the performance. What we are doing in the RENT forum is poring over the script but I think the entertainment was intended for the performance.
| Quote: | | Pounce wrote: |
There might be more useful things I could do with my time.
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Obviously, we have to make choices. I for example, has not chosen to go deeper into disco or experimantal jazz, amongst other things. I feel confident it would enrich my life further if I had the capasity to. |
But I have to also ask myself if it reaps enough enrichment to justify the time spent.
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Dvarg
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| Pounce wrote: |
But the intent (legally) is that I should be taking this in at the performance.
A puzzle can serve as entertainment. But is the show intended to be a puzzle? The intent is that a person attends the performance.
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I cannot claim you opinion is invalid. I just don't agree. To me a show is poor if everything there is to it is reveiled immediately. Spending my time on such a show is what is waste of time in my opinion.
Just one more thing:
| Pounce wrote: |
But I have to also ask myself if it reaps enough enrichment to justify the time spent. |
I can assure you it does. I'm taking my master degree in sociology, and (using Sondheim shows as example) some of those musicals (like Assassins and SITPWG) teach me things about sociology I can't read in theory books. They see sociological issues from a different perspective, issues that are important in everybody's life, not just to academics.
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jcstar
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Strengths:
He has the ablility to switch time and key signatures in places that make conductors and musicians go "What the hell?..."
He makes music difficult to sing, but easy to learn.
He picks amazing lyricests: Tim Rice, Richard Stilgoe, Don Black, Jim Stienman, T.S Elliot to name a few...
Andy.
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Pounce
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| Dvarg wrote: | | Pounce wrote: |
But I have to also ask myself if it reaps enough enrichment to justify the time spent. |
I can assure you it does. I'm taking my master degree in sociology, and (using Sondheim shows as example) some of those musicals (like Assassins and SITPWG) teach me things about sociology I can't read in theory books. They see sociological issues from a different perspective, issues that are important in everybody's life, not just to academics. |
I'd be careful about that. What you are learning are Sondheim's and the show's book writer's viewpoints about sociological issues. I think it is unwise to infer truths about sociology based upon observations in work of fiction. When reading books on sociology, the information is sifted and processed by the researcher. But to read Sondheim's work as a study in sociology of the 18th century would not be a good scientific approach.
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Dvarg
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| Pounce wrote: |
I'd be careful about that. What you are learning are Sondheim's and the show's book writer's viewpoints about sociological issues. I think it is unwise to infer truths about sociology based upon observations in work of fiction. When reading books on sociology, the information is sifted and processed by the researcher. But to read Sondheim's work as a study in sociology of the 18th century would not be a good scientific approach. |
Don't you think I know the difference between a scientific theory book and a work of fiction? I wouldn't use Sondheim's work as source litterature in my theoretical papers. But reading/listening to Sondheim shows offers a different approach that bring theories to life, as well as demonstrating nuances. What Sondheim's works has to do with sociology of the 18th century, I don't know, unless you mean the Marxist themes of Sweeney Todd. Which I find comparatively forced. The more contemporary themes of ST are more interresting in that aspect.
Besides, discurse analysis concerns all forms of texts, including clothing, motions, films etc. Why shouldn't it concern musicals?
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santtu
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| jcstar wrote: |
He picks amazing lyricests: Tim Rice, Richard Stilgoe, Don Black, Jim Stienman, T.S Elliot to name a few...
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Well, I wouldn't call T.S. Eliott a lyricist, as ALW composed the music to Eliot's already published and existing poems, and not the other way around.
Anyway, I don't go into ALW's strengths as I agree with most of what has already been said here.
But one of his weaknesses - in my opinion - is his tendency to recycle his material. Some examples:
* Ballad of Billy McCaw (CATS) --> Next time you fall in love (STARLIGHT EXP.)
* Half a moment's bridge ("countless vivid memories...") (JEEVES; BY JEEVES) --> As if we never said goodbye 's bridge ("I don't want to be alone...") (SUNSET BOULEVARD)
Also using the same melody in the show for several different numbers:
* Don't cry for me Argentina --> Oh what a circus (EVITA)
* Surrender --> Lady's paying --> Eternal youth... (SUNSET BOULEVARD)
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jcstar
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Your EVITA examples are ALW working a theme through the show. One is used as Eva's theme and the other to be a total mockery by the Antagonist of the opera. It's the same idea with SUNSET. Composers re-establish themes all the time.
Have you studied the Classical Composers? Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Stravinsky, Schubert... etc. They stole from themselves all the time. I can hear pieces of "1812 Overture" in other Tchaikovsky works.
They even stole from each other... and any listener can notice it.
Hell, WEST SIDE STORY has some Beethoven in it. "Tonight" is an example.
Look, kids, there only 12 tones to choose from. Of course tunes are going to be recycled. It's happened for years. ALW is doing the same thing that composers did before him.
Andy.
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santtu
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| jcstar wrote: | | It's the same idea with SUNSET. Composers re-establish themes all the time. |
Yes, but like in SUNSET, using "Surrender" again twice is, in my opinion, a bit of lack of imagination or just a proof that he just didn't have time or energy to compose a different song.
I understand that "Lady's Paying" and "Eternal Youth" are the same melody, makes sense, because both of those groups (salesmen & beauticians) are taking an advantage of her when it comes to making some extra dollars, but it could have been a different melody than a song which we have already heard. Using same melody - no matter how beautiful and haunting it is - 3 times... poor decision.
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Flamy
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ALW's strenght and weakness are the same: he is a pop composer.
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