The Broadway Musical: A Critical and Musical Survey

By Joseph P. Swain

Book Overview

The Broadway musical, one of America's most distinctive contributions to Western music, has been chronicled, dissected, described, and debated, but never until now has its essential element--that glorious music--been analyzed directly in any significant detail. Moving beyond the anecdotes, production histories, and generalizations about theatrical style that mark so much of the critical literature, Joseph P. Swain offers a unique survey of the most important or representative musical plays, one that shows how the great Broadway composers have used the traditional tools of composition--melody, harmony, tonal movement, rhythm, and texture--to become powerful dramatists in their own right.
Illustrated with over 150 musical excerpts--a unique feature that gives Swain's analysis unparalleled depth and precision--the book yields new insights at every turn. It shows how particular musical solutions to dramatic problems gave Showboat and Oklahoma the power to change the course of the Broadway tradition, brought Carousel and West Side Story to worldwide recognition as masterpieces of their kind, and lent a light popular genre the formal complexity and emotional range to encompass a tremendous diversity of styles and materials, from Shakespearean drama (Kiss Me, Kate and West Side Story) to European opera (Porgy and Bess), and from age-old myth (My Fair Lady and Camelot) to still-current ethnic conflict (Fiddler on the Roof). All the great Broadway composers and musical-comedy teams are here--Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Frank Loesser, Leonard Bernstein, Lerner and Loewe--as well as a representative sample of the classic shows, including the sadly neglected The Most Happy Fella. In addition, Swain's thoughtful evaluation of the current scene illuminates issues of dramatic approach (Godspell), plot (A Chorus Line), subject matter (Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita), and musical rhetoric (Stephen Sondheim's output, exemplified by Sweeney Todd) that may determine the future course of the musical play.
Precise in focus, uncommonly rich in detail, and accessible to fans and scholars alike, The Broadway Musical will have to be read by anyone concerned with contemporary American music and drama, and by anyone who hopes truly to know this supposedly best-known of music.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195074823
• ISBN13: 9780195074826
• Release Date: July 1992
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.1" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Indispensible

This is one of the best books on musicals that I know of. It's serious about book, lyrics and music alike, and full of insight.The heart of the book is a series of studies of important musicals, one by each of a series of important writing teams (Kern/Hammerstein, Sondheim, Kander/Ebb, Rice/Lloyd Webber, Bock/Harnick -- Rodgers and Hammerstein get two chapters because of their importance). For each show, we get some interesting historical background, an outline of the plot, and detailed analysis of the music. The analysis is quite technical, but readable, and anyone can learn from it. Most importantly, it's not a dry analysis. The question Swain asks throughout is the question all musical writers should be asking themselves: how does the music help the show tell the story it wants to tell?He's not afraid to make strong judgements, either. He praises Jesus Christ Superstar for its eclectism and atmosphere, but considers that the reuse of tunes in different contexts in Evita robs them of narrative power; on this basis, he judges Evita a (relative) failure. His review of A Chorus Line is so hostile that the authors, uniquely for the shows under review in this book, refused him permission to use extracts from the score. Yet even in this review there's insight and sympathy. Read this book. It will educate your ears. You'll approach all musicals more intelligently after reading it.