AS 2 Optional Area of Study

The Musical, 1900 to

Today
The Broadway musical, 1919 – 1942
During this period the musical was coming into focus as a genre in its
own right.
In the early years of the century operetta was a flourishing form. It was
to influence the musical with its integration of music and drama.

Musical comedy, which had originated in London and was a descendant

of the music hall and vaudeville traditions, was also popular. It was to
influence the musical in its use of popular song and dance styles.

In the 1920’s and 30’s, works for the musical theatre were composed in
both of these styles and sometimes with elements of both, and a range
of terms, including ‘musical’ were and are used to describe them.
Interesting and important works were created by Kern and Hammerstein,
Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, the Gershwin brothers, Kurt Weill, and, in
Britain, Noel Coward and Ivor Novello.

Important features of musicals from this era include:

• The use of contemporary popular song styles, including those

influenced by jazz and ragtime;

• An increasing number of shows in which songs were integrated into

the action, creating mood, revealing character or advancing the plot;

• Popular dance as an important element in many productions; and

• Dance band influences on the pit orchestra: the saxophone was often
prominent, brass were sometimes closely voiced and/or muted, and the
piano was popular, playing in jazz styles or providing unobtrusive
harmonic and rhythmic accompanying textures.

Possible works for further study include the following.

Show Boat (1927; Kern/Hammerstein)

• Show Boat was a particularly influential show, pointing towards the
Broadway musical of the 1940s.

• It is based on a realistic plot and characters.

• It integrates songs, instrumental music, dance and crowd scenes into

a coherent and credible drama.

• The music is influenced by ‘black’ musical styles including ragtime, the

spiritual and the worksong; Kern provides pastiches appropriate to the
contexts and changing time periods of the action.
• Ol’ Man River is an important number, cast in a sophisticated popular
song form and providing material for musical leitmotifs for the
remainder of the musical.

• Other key musical motifs are used throughout, foreshadowing and

reminiscing, unifying the work.

• The first scene, including the opening chorus and the meeting of
Ravenal and Magnolia, is a possible choice for detailed study (see
Block, 1997, pages 34 – 39).

Anything Goes (1934; Porter)

• Anything Goes is a show whose main strength is its strong numbers

rather then its credibility or coherence as a drama.

• Key songs include I get a Kick out of You, You’re the Top, Anything
Goes and Blow, Gabriel, Blow.

• Porter uses a range of musical styles to create appropriate moods,

including a shanty-like sailor song and a parody of a hymn of praise.

• Porter provides effective musical characterisation of the main female

character, Reno Sweeney, using complex rhythms, with much
syncopation and a recurring crotchet triplet figure, balanced with
straightforward harmonies. Her character is a possible choice for
detailed study.

Girl Crazy (1930; Gershwin/Gershwin)

• Girl Crazy is one of the many musical comedies created by the

Gershwin brothers in the 1920s and early 30s.

• Like other shows of this type and era, it was built around the
personalities and abilities of its first main performers, who in this case
included Ethel Merman and Ginger Rogers.

• Key songs include Embraceable You, I Got Rhythm, Boy! What Love
has done to Me and But not for Me.

• The score includes some musical references to the action’s Western

setting.
• Some of the main themes are related musically to parts of George
Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

• I Got Rhythm is a possible choice for further detailed study of an

individual number.

Porgy and Bess (1935; Gershwin/Gershwin)

• Porgy and Bess may be viewed as an opera (‘folk opera’) or as a

musical.

• It includes declamatory recitative rather than spoken dialogue.

• The musical idiom is influenced by Romantic style but includes

elements of jazz such as flattened notes and stylised spirituals.

• Like Kern, Gershwin uses musical motifs for characters or ideas. He

goes beyond Kern in the way he develops motifs and melodies to
communicate characters’ changing circumstances and
relationships.

• The character of Porgy is a possible choice for further study. (The

musical ideas which inform his music are discussed in Block, 1997,
pages 76 – 79.)

Exploration and Expansion, 1943 – 1959

Oklahoma! (1943; Rodgers/Hammerstein) is often seen as a pivotal work

in the history of the musical in that it is particularly coherent and
‘integrated’, both musically and dramatically, qualities that became
increasingly valued and usual.

The period after Oklahoma! was one of dynamic growth, with a range of
diverse styles co-existing. In addition to Rodgers and Hammerstein,
influential composers and lyricists of this era were Cole Porter, Leonard
Bernstein, Loewe and Loesser, and Kurt Weill.

New developments during this era in recording, broadcasting and film

helped to bring musicals to a wider audience, leading to longer runs of
shows and more frequent revivals.
Important features of musicals from this era include:

• The conception of the musical as a form in which music and dance

supported the drama by advancing the plot and refining the
characterisation;

• Resulting developments in the conception of the role of the song and

of other elements of the music;

• The dominance of popular singing styles, with the female belt voice
and the male baritone increasingly used for the main characters;

• Developments in the use of dance and the role of the choreographer,

with important dance scenes in many musicals;

• Strong big band influences in the orchestra, with emphasis more on

reeds and brass than on strings;

• The beginnings of amplification for the orchestra, and, in the late

1950s, influences from popular music such as the use of the electric
guitar.

Possible works for further study include the following.

Oklahoma! (1943; Rodgers/Hammerstein)

• Oklahoma! was a very influential, ‘integrated’ musical play.

• It brought together a range of quite innovative techniques, including an

opening for solo voice rather than chorus, psychologically revealing
ballet, and songs used to develop character.

• The music is influenced by Romantic style, with expressive use of

chromaticism.

• Many songs are reprised, sometimes developed or altered in various

ways, to further the flow of the drama.

• Elements of the music and lyrics communicate the country setting of

the story.

• Minor characters are strongly drawn and are given important music.

• The first scene, from Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’ to People Will Say
We’re in Love, is a possible choice for detailed study (see Swain, pages
34 – 39).
Carousel (1945; Rodgers/Hammerstein)

• Carousel opens with The Carousel Waltz instead of an overture. This

number establishes the musical style of the whole show and provides
musical material for many of the other numbers.

• There is considerable use of melodrama, in which the characters speak

to the accompaniment of music from the orchestra, while much of the
sung music is melodically and rhythmically flexible, allowing for smooth
transitions.

• While Oklahoma! makes structural use of reprise, Carousel is based

more on musical continuity for dramatic progression.

• The relationship between Julie and Billy is a possible choice for

detailed study (see Block, chapter 8).

Kiss Me, Kate (1948; Porter)

• Kiss Me, Kate is based on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and
is constructed as a ‘play within a play’.

• Porter contrasts a Renaissance-style musical idiom (including

alternating major and minor modes, and madrigalian vocal textures) with
contemporary ones to characterise the two layers of the play
and to create irony.

• Contemporary styles used for the present-day story are very varied,
including, for example, parodies of an old-fashioned musical chorus, a
blues, a Viennese waltz and an operatic number.

• Porter made an effort to match the work of Rodgers and Hammerstein

in the use of musical motifs to establish, develop and link characters.

Guys and Dolls (1950; Loesser)

• Guys and Dolls was perceived as an integrated musical, although all

the songs were written first and the rest of the show was constructed
around them.

• Loesser achieves musical unity by associating particular rhythms with

specific characters, e.g. triplet crotchets for Adelaide, and even rhythms
gradually becoming more syncopated for Sarah.
• Loesser provides an unusual amount of counterpoint in this show; it is
interesting to note how little counterpoint, or even harmony between
soloists, is evident in many musicals.

• The opening scene, from Runyonland to The Oldest Established, is a

possible choice for detailed study (see Block, pages 204 – 209).

My Fair Lady (1956; Loewe/Lerner)

• My Fair Lady is based on the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw.

• The writers felt that they were taking a risk by departing from the
model set up by Rodgers and Hammerstein, in which there was a
secondary love story. This musical focuses on one main story.

• It is an integrated musical; the songs play a particularly effective role –

often involving rhythmic style or inter-relationships – in outlining the
changing characters and outlooks of Eliza and Professor Higgins.

• Rex Harrison, the first actor to play Higgins, introduced a new kind of
speech-singing to the musical.

West Side Story (1957; Bernstein/Sondheim)

• West Side Story is based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

• It is generally seen as the most significant musical since Oklahoma!

• It was the work of a team of four: Leonard Bernstein, the composer,

Jerome Robbins, the director and choreographer, Arthur Laurents, the
playwright, and Stephen Sondheim, the lyricist.

• The tragic plot was a new challenge, both for Broadway and for
Bernstein as a composer.

• There are several important dance numbers, all of which advance the
drama and are set, innovatively, to specially composed music.

• It has exceptionally thorough motivic and thematic integration: key

musical ideas include the tritone, the flattened seventh, the triad with
simultaneous major and minor thirds, and the hemiola. Strong links
between songs are also significant.
• The musical style, typical of all Bernstein’s work at this time, combines
symphonic and jazz styles. Latin rhythms and dance styles are also
important, conveying the ethnic background of the Puerto Rican gang.
In particular, he focuses on dissonant, chromatic and syncopated
elements to create musical tension suitable for the story and its setting.

• The ensemble Tonight is a possible choice for detailed study (see

Swain, 243 – 251).

1960 to the present day

After 1960 a new generation of composers and writers began to develop

the musical in a range of differing directions.

The ‘concept musical’ was an important innovation in which initial ideas

about staging influenced the musical and dramatic content. Examples
include Sweet Charity (Coleman, 1966), Chicago (Kander/Ebb, 1975) and
A Chorus Line (Hamlisch/Kleban, 1975).

Stephen Sondheim created several important and influential works,

including Follies, Sunday in the Park with George, Sweeney Todd and
Assassins, in which he explored different styles and settings and
pioneering new approaches to the musical.

From the late 1970s onwards ‘megamusicals’ became particularly

successful, generally opening in London and moving to Broadway.
These works included those by Andrew Lloyd Webber and by
Boublil and Schönberg.

Film has been a strong influence on the later twentieth century musical.
Some stage musicals have been translated into successful films, as was
common from the 1930s to the 1950s, but, more frequently, successful
films have been made into stage musicals (e.g. The Witches of Eastwick,
2000).

Even cartoon musicals have been turned into striking stage works – a
good example is Julie Taymor’s innovative adaptation of Disney’s The
Lion King (1998).

Important features of musicals from this era include:

• Influences on musical style from rock and pop music;

• Influences from a wide range of musical styles to suit the subject

matter or setting of a musical (e.g. 1950s pop in Grease, Eastern sounds
in Miss Saigon);
• The continuing influence of pop singing styles, with the use of body
microphones allowing more intimate and breathy vocal tones;

• For some musicals, a classic ‘Broadway’ orchestra, with big-band-style

scoring supported by drum kit and bass;

• Greater flexibility of scoring, such as the use of rock-style ensembles

(e.g. The Rocky Horror Show, 1973, Little Shop of Horrors, 1982) made
possible by more sophisticated on-stage amplification;

• The use of synthesizers to replace instruments such as strings, or to

create special effects;

• Practices made possible by the use of sound systems, such as pre-

recorded vocal lines for soloists or to strengthen chorus numbers, or
pre-recorded instrumental backing tracks added to the sound of
the live band.

Possible works for further study include the following:

A Chorus Line (Hamlisch/Kleban, 1975)

• A Chorus Line is a concept musical about the experience of chorus

dancers on Broadway. It was conceived by the choreographer and
director Michael Bennett, who then hired the composer Marvin Hamlisch
and lyricist Ed Kleban.

• Because of the nature of the show’s frame story, featuring the

characters at an audition, the main function of the songs is to define
character rather than to advance action.

• Hamlisch’s score includes a range of twentieth-century popular music

styles, such as 1930s jazz, rock and Broadway ballad.

• The show’s dances, appropriately, are important and work at various

levels: as the show’s basic language, since its setting is a dance
audition; as part of the characters’ stories, such as the tap dance I Can
Do That; and to express characters’ deeper feelings, such as The Music
and the Mirror.

• The scene Montage is a possible choice for detailed study (see Swain,
340 – 342).
Evita (Lloyd Webber/Rice, 1978)

• Evita is based on the true story of Eva Perón.

• The music is strongly influenced by opera: the libretto is sung

throughout.
• Two musical styles dominate, each linked to a key mode of expression:
Spanish-tinged soft rock, used to communicate pretence and cynicism,
and a more modern, somewhat syncopated and dissonant style, used to
communicate genuine emotion.

• Lloyd Webber uses a contrafactum technique in which melodies are re-

used from one song to another, with new words provided.

• The show was produced as a recording first and later presented as a

stage show.

Sweeney Todd (Sondheim, 1979)

• Sweeney Todd, based on a Victorian melodrama, addresses themes of

injustice and revenge.

• It contrasts a dark tone and atmosphere with comic elements.

• Sondheim’s musical style is unusual for a Broadway composer in its

use of non-functional harmonic language, influenced by composers
such as Ravel and Copland, with modal melodies common (e.g.
The Ballad of Sweeney Todd).

• Sondheim makes use of leitmotifs for each character and dramatic

theme (e.g. “obsession”). These are used in a Wagnerian way, to
enhance the drama and to build musical unity. They often feature in
accompaniments as well as in melodic lines, and counterpoint is a
significant characteristic of the score.

• Epiphany is a possible choice for further detailed study of an

individual number (see Swain, pages 374 – 378).

Les Misérables (Schönberg/Boublil, 1980/1985)

• Les Misérables is based on the epic novel by Victor Hugo. The original
version (1980) was in French. Like all Schönberg and Boublil musicals,
it is set against a background of war and includes an edifying message
for the audience.

• The show is on a very large scale in terms of cast, staging and

orchestration. Mass choral numbers (e.g. At the End of the Day, Do You
Hear the People Sing? and One Day More) fulfil important structural
roles in the work.

• There is some use of leitmotif (e.g. for characters such as Valjean) and
much use of contrafactum.

• Schönberg uses a rich, Romantic-style harmonic vocabulary, with

expressive changes of key and chromatic colour.

• The final scene of the first act, One Day More, is a possible choice for
detailed study (see Swain, pages 394 – 396).

The Phantom of the Opera (Lloyd Webber/Hart and

Stilgoe, 1986)

• The Phantom of the Opera is based on a theme of unrequited love,

telling a fantastical, opera-like story, set in the Paris Opera.

• The opera setting gives the show some of the qualities of the concept
musical: it includes scenes from three imaginary operas for which Lloyd
Webber provides appropriate pastiche styles. There are particularly
strong references to the music of Puccini.

• The sense of duality in the story is matched by Lloyd Webber’s general

musical style, which includes both Romantic and pop/rock elements.

• Solo numbers are used to define the natures of the main characters
(e.g. Angel of Music and Music of the Night for the Phantom, and Think
of Me for Christine).

• The character of the Phantom is a possible choice for further study

(see Snelson, pages 96 – 105.)
Study of the set composers and writers may focus on the works and
characteristics set out below.

George Gershwin (1898 – 1937) and Ira Gershwin

(1896 – 1983)

The musicals of the Gershwin brothers include:

• Lady, Be Good (1924)

• Tell Me More (1925)
• Oh, Kay! (1926)
• Funny Face (1927)
• Rosalie (1928)
• Treasure Girl (1928)
• Show Girl (1929)
• Strike up the Band (1930)
• Girl Crazy (1930) (see earlier notes)
• Of Thee I Sing (1931)
• Pardon My English (1933)
• Let ’em Eat Cake (1933)
• Porgy and Bess (1935) (see earlier notes)

George Gershwin, America’s most famous composer in the 1920s and

1930s, was primarily a songwriter. He began work on Tin Pan Alley, and
the success of his musicals depends largely on the strength of his
songs.

Many of his songs use standard AABA structures, with phrases rarely
longer than eight bars. His musical language is essentially diatonic, but
is enriched with striking key changes, with or without modulation, and
some melodic chromaticism. His rhythms are varied: square-cut,
declamatory rhythms (Swanee, from Sinbad), offbeat emphases
(Someone to Watch Over Me, from Oh, Kay!) and strong syncopations
(Fascinating Rhythm, from Lady, be Good!).

Ira Gershwin, his brother, was a deft writing partner, who generally
created his lyrics once the music of the song had been composed. After
George’s death he formed a number of successful professional
partnerships with other composers.

Most of George Gershwin’s theatre works are musical comedies,

conceived as a series of songs and often based round the abilities of a
star performer. His works from 1930 onwards, however, are more
integrated, with the songs advancing the action to some extent.

Porgy and Bess, one of his last and largest-scale works, is of a different
type altogether and can be classed as an opera because he uses a
declamatory vocal style in place of spoken dialogue, and because of the
demands on the singers in some of the ensembles. Jazz influences,
though, are clearly heard, both as an appropriate style for the work’s
setting, and to create dramatic effects at specific moments.

Richard Rodgers (1902 – 1979) and Oscar

Hammerstein II (1895 – 1960)

The musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein include:

• Oklahoma! (1943) (see earlier notes)

• Carousel (1945) (see earlier notes)
• Allegro (1947)
• South Pacific (1949)
• The King and I (1951)
• Me and Juliet (1953)
• Pipe Dream (1955)
• Flower Drum Song (1958)
• The Sound of Music (1959)

Prior to their first collaboration, on Oklahoma!, Rodgers had composed

a string of successful musicals with Lorenz Hart, while Hammerstein
had written the seminal Show Boat with Jerome Kern, along with other
works.

Oklahoma! proved to be hugely successful and influential. It was

perceived as the first truly ‘integrated’ musical, bringing together a
range of features which had been foreshadowed to some extent in
Rodgers’s and Hammerstein’s earlier works with other collaborators.
These features included, among others, the strong story, the way the
songs emerged seamlessly from the plot and enhanced the audience’s
perception of the characters, the use of long musical scenes, the
strikingly simple opening and the use of dance styles as narrative (see
Everett and Laird, page 127). The essentially patriotic message of the
musical also suited its time, the mid-point of America’s World War II
involvement.

The characteristics of Oklahoma! set the pattern and tone for the
continuing partnership of Rodgers and Hammerstein. The most
successful of these, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The
Sound of Music, featured strong, tightly integrated stories, strong
characters, particularly women, and many of the musical features heard
in Oklahoma!.

Rodgers’s musical style, based on a Romantic idiom, was particularly

effective in supporting Hammerstein’s lyrics and librettos and in
bringing characters to life. As well as his skills in the largescale
construction involved in a musical, he was an inventive and effective
song-writer. His use of rhythm and harmony were subtle and nuanced,
and his melodies are particularly strong. In his work with Hammerstein
he used increasingly complex and continuous forms. He was influenced
to some extent by jazz.

A characteristic Rodgers number was the waltz, which featured in most

of his shows with Hammerstein (e.g. Out of my Dreams from Oklahoma!
and Edelweiss from The Sound of Music).

Hammerstein’s lyrics are often deceptively simple, but simultaneously

apt and penetrating. His subtle use of structure and rhyme can
communicate complex ideas or emotions clearly and quickly.

Leonard Bernstein (1918 – 1990)

Bernstein’s musicals include:

• On the Town (1944; Comden, Green and Bernstein)
• Wonderful Town (1953; Comden and Green)
• West Side Story (1957; Bernstein and Sondheim) (see earlier notes)
• 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (1976; Lerner)

Bernstein was an eminent composer and conductor. Like Gershwin, his

compositional output included both serious and popular music; he
composed successfully in many different genres.

Bernstein’s musicals combine a fresh use of vernacular styles such as

jazz and Latin music with considerable technical musical sophistication.
On the Town, for example, includes blues influences (I Feel Like I’m Not
Out of Bed Yet), boogie-woogie (Come up to My Place), Broadway
stylings (Lonely Town), an Andrews Sisters parody (Do-Do-Re-Do) and
dissonant jazz rhythms (New York, New York). His music is essentially
tonal, while varying widely in surface style in order to communicate its
context.

Bernstein unified his scores by means of complex musical associations

between individual numbers and by the frequent use of key small-scale
motifs and intervals. West Side Story provides many examples of his
techniques in this respect. For example, the tritone, an interval with a
particularly striking effect, recurs frequently: at the start of Maria and
Cool, early in Something’s Coming, and, in the accompaniment, at some
important moments, during the Dance at the Gym. In each case the
tritone is approached and resolved in a dramatically significant way.
Other intervals are developed in comparable, though less prevalent
ways.

Bernstein was unusual among Broadway composers in that he

sometimes orchestrated his own music; his instrumentation is
frequently subtle and dramatically effective. He created symphonic
suites from some of his musicals.
West Side Story was the first Broadway musical in which dance and
drama were fully integrated. Bernstein elevated the importance of dance
scenes in his musicals by composing specifically for them. Although he
sometimes quotes key themes or motifs in dance sequences, they stand
as musical numbers in their own right, providing expression for
inarticulate characters or fulfilling structural purposes.

Bernstein’s collaborators played important roles in the success of his

musicals. They included Jerome Robbins, Betty Comden and Adolph
Green, Arthur Laurents, Stephen Sondheim and Alan Jay Lerner.

Andrew Lloyd Webber (1948 – )

Lloyd Webber’s musicals include:

• Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1968; Rice, after

Genesis)
• Jesus Christ Superstar (1970; Rice, after the Gospels)
• Jeeves (1975; Ackbourn, after Wodehouse)
• Evita (1976; Rice) (see earlier notes)
• Tell me on a Sunday (1980; Black)
• Cats (1981; Eliot, Stilgoe and Nunn, after Eliot)
• Starlight Express (1984; Stilgoe)
• The Phantom of the Opera (1986; Hart and Stilgoe, after Leroux) (see
earlier notes)
• Aspects of Love (1989; Black and Hart, after Garnett)
• Sunset Boulevard (1993; Black and Hampton)
• Whistle Down the Wind (1998; Steinman, Knop, Edwards and Lloyd
Webber, after Bell)
• The Beautiful Game (2000; Elton)

Lloyd Webber’s shows have been among the most popular, successful
and long-running in the history of the musical. He has created a large
number of enduring music theatre ‘heroes’, who tend to be united in
their quests for personal immortality or deliverance.

His music is characterised by a broad range of influences, used as

appropriate to his subject matter. For example, rock and pop influences
can be heard in much of his work (e.g. the Elvis-style Song of the King
from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, or Heaven on
their Minds from Jesus Christ Superstar). Starlight Express includes
rock, blues, gospel and country styles. Much of his output shows his
knowledge of classic Broadway styles, along with Romantic influences
on scoring (often luxuriant, with prominent strings and horn) and on
harmonic and melodic structure. Specific Romantic operatic styles
are pastiched in The Phantom of the Opera. Frequently he explores a
variety of styles within the bounds of one musical.
Characters are effectively brought to life by their music. In many cases,
a musical uses noticeably different styles for each of the main
characters. Clear examples of this include The Phantom of the Opera
and Sunset Boulevard.

The lyric ballad is a consistent element of Lloyd Webber’s work. These

tend to exploit the characteristics and range of specific types of solo
voice (e.g. the belt voice in Memory), and are often linked to strong
dramatic moments in the musicals. His use of simple structures and
memorable melodic material has resulted in success for many of his
ballads as songs in their own right.

Lloyd Webber often uses the compositional technique of contrafactum,

in which melodies from one song are reused in another, with different
words. While this technique provides a degree of musical unity, some
critics consider that it lessens the dramatic impact of his melody
because connections between the instances of a melody’s use are not
always clear.

There are some instances of musical ‘borrowing’ in Lloyd Webber’s

work. Here he alludes to the work of another composer, or models his
piece on another. Examples may include Memory, from Cats, and
On this Night of a Thousand Stars, from Evita.