On one of the 3, but not the other two you mentioned.

I'm no fan of musicals, but to compare ALW to geniuses such as Gilbert & Sullivan is simply laughable.
I find almost everything I've heard by ALW shallow, somewhat twee, and generally annoying. Not as annoying as ALW himself, but that's a seperate argument.

G&S (although I suppose they're more 'comic opera' than 'musical') are in an entirely different class. Their works propel the plot, not just fill a gap with an excuse for some music. You find yourself concentrating on the song to help follow the plot, more than just enjoying the music.

For my tuppence.

I'd not agree that any of the R&H stuff is intrinsically more worthwhile than ALW though. Of a type, certainly, but not any more important musically.

And here we have the crux of the matter - it's about personal taste. I don't like much Gilbert and Sullivan stuff at all, and would say that some of the criticisms you levelled at ALW stuff was at least equally true of their work.

Arguable. But the argument isn't helped by citing people who are virtually unknown. And, of course, while I take your general point that sheer popularity isn't the best criterion of artistic merit, your argument here falls down since for this particular purpose ( official recognition) it is surely extremely relevant that he has struck a chord with the public across the globe; and has composed for shows which have been phenomenally successful across the globe, and continue to be. Whereas those you mention are virtual unknowns.


We of course emphatically agree on that, but you seem to be confused; it is precisely [ibecause[/i few people are so introduced that the likes of Mozart are [inot[/i in the consciousness of, certainly, the vast majority of young people. You surely can't be arguing that they are?



You'd like to think so, and of course there is huge appreciation of such classical works, but nevertheless you'd have to agree that it's very much a minority interest, and that most young people are simply never introduced to classical music to any significant degree at all, and couldn't tell you one work by Mozart if you paid them. So I don't know what you mean when you say his music has not passed from consciousness, For people who appreciate it, it never will, but for the vast majority it never crossed their consciousness save perhaps as snippets used in advertising.


I don't understand how "the way in which he is hailed" is "not credible". He either is or is not hailed that way (as it happens, he is). You may find that incredible, in the vernacular, but not literally since you have to believe it, even if you don't agree with it. You seem to be confusing credibility with incredulity!

The problem with Lloyd Webber despite the latter part of his name is that he is not German.
If he was, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Fair comment, can't really argue with that.

Not often, I'd say.

Les Miserables is hardly a 'big' production, is it? There are hardly any props, and apart from the barricades there's hardly any scenery. All the visuals are achieved by damn good acting and clever use of a revolving stage.

It had a sense of massiveness when I saw it – the use of such a vast space (which itself demands a pretty large cast (big opera house level), and the story itself is epic (to say the least!).

I would just note that my problems with it are not the complaint that was prevalent when it opened – that classic literature shouldn't be made into musicals: I don't have an issue with that. My problems with it are different. I didn't review it (it opened before I was reviewing theatre in London), but bought a ticket to see it myself later, on the basis that I wanted to see such a big, important show. So I went with positive hopes. But for most of it, I was, frankly, bored – or at least than engaged.

But back to epic staging: think of [iMiss Saigon[/i with the helicopter (echoed more recently by having a flying car on stage in [iChitty Chitty Bang Bang[/i)

And the entire trend for thru-sung shows – started by a combination of Schönberg & Boublil, and LW – with epic storylines and big sets was repeated as though it guaranteed success. It was almost as though the musical had to become like the opera. The likes of Stephen Schwarz, whose small-scale show, [iThe Baker's Wife[/i, is a pleasure if not the greatest work of the musical theatre, next produced the utterly ridiculous [iChildren of Eden[/i, of which the least said the better.

[iMoby Dick[/i was ... well, let's not go there. There was one about Robin Hood (can't remember the name) that I walked out of at half-time and wrote probably my most negative review ever – there is a place for amateur drama: the West End is not it.

I even remember going to the Tricycle in Kilburn – a very small theatre – and seeing something (based on Kipling, if memory serves) with scaffolding sets and all the other things that had become hallmarks. It was utter ridiculousness.

And then, if you add to that the rise of the tribute musical – shows constructed around the songs of a group, group of artists or artist – then it can look very much like originality has fled. That's not to say some of those shows are not enjoyable – [iBuddy[/i was fun, as was [iFive Guys Named Moe[/i – but how many of them?!

Well not if you're a relativist.

Which, you'd like to think, would be the sort of thing that edumacashun might do (as with visual art and literature). But unfortunately, that has become utterly utilitarian and we are well on our way to returning to a world where many children and young people are never exposed to things that might possibly offer them cultural mobility.

What else can you be when it comes to something like this? If LLoyd Webber was some sort of hack who had never composed anything of any merit whatsoever, you could maybe say that he wasn't credible as a composer. But as he's responsible (at least in part) for several great tunes, and, granted, a fair few that are less great, all we can really say is that your personal preference leans more towards others in his field.

I'm not a big fan of musical theatre at all, but I enjoy [isome[/i Webber and Rice stuff as much as I enjoy [isome[/i Rogers and Hammerstein stuff. And more than I enjoy most Gilbert and Sullivan stuff. I say that as a classically-trained musician, not as someone who has suffered a lack of 'cultural mobility'.

But – to use an analogy – I know that Keats and assorted others wrote poetry that was amongst some of the finest that this country has produced in a great overall tradition of literature. I can even understand why (at least partly). But I don't have to actually [ienjoy[/i that verse or feel a need to pick it up.

So my objective and subjective analysis would not be the same – but there's no contradiction there.

It's easier with Keats with him having been dead for a couple of hundred years. Who's to say if you had encountered the works of the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber in two hundred years time, instead of encountering the works of the charmless, pug-faced Tory Andrew Lloyd Webber over the last twenty years, you wouldn't feel like you do about Keats' output: not for me, but has some artistic merit?

I'd like to think I can separate the man (or woman) from the work, though.

Wagner wasn't a particularly nice bloke (although not in the way he's been demonised in the wake of WWII), but that doesn't change the [ufact[/u that he is critically regarded by experts as being one of the three composers who, single-handedly, changed the face of serious music. And I can know both those things and say that I love some of his work – not all: some of the vocal stuff is not to my (subjective) taste, whereas some of the purely orchestral stuff is.

Debussy – a bit of a sod. Doesn't mean that [iPrelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune[/i isn't a stonkingly fabulous work and one of my own personal favourite pieces of music. But that latter point equally also doesn't mean that I think him to be in the (for want of better words) top layer of the pantheon of composers.

And I think you can apply it to living composers (or any other form of artist etc).

Personally, I'm not particularly into – say – Jimi Hendrix (yes, I know this is probably heresy). But I appreciate that that's a matter of subjective preference and not an indicator of Hendrix's importance both in terms of his place within the rock pantheon and the quality of his work within the context of rock music. There's some camp pop that is almost too much of a guilty secret to declare here (and I'm not talking about pop that could be defined, within that genre, as masterpieces of the short, air-light song) – but while they give me much personal pleasure, I'm not daft enough to pretend for one moment that they have any particular musical quality or that my liking them makes them better than, say, Hendrix.

As only a very slight aside: I watched a bit of the Bee Gees documentary the other night – god, what a bunch of pretentious, self-satisfied twocks (and they deeply remind me of Cliff Richard, which isn't particularly in their favour). But I really do like some of their records.

Just out of interest - just how many "tunes" are there in Les Miserable ?

I know I was a bit disappointed when I bought the double CD of the original cast recording only to find that most of the songs were sung to the same four or five tunes so once you'd heard the four or five of them that got played on radio then you'd basically heard the whole show.

See!!!!!

It's not just me!!!!!

That's pretty much my take on it, though I do enjoy a bit of musical theatre now and then. A junior school production of Joseph was my first break into music - I was 'spotted' and asked along to a local music school. I played in various orchestras and brass bands and toured the USA, Canada, some of Europe and much of the UK playing festivals and competitions. I still play various instruments and compose stuff for my own entertainment - from classical to heavy metal.

Webber has composed some dross, but also some absolute epics. So have most composers and musicians - every band has album fillers, every composer has a few 'lesser' numbers. To call him 'not credible' is frankly ridiculous. He has nothing to prove. He has a remarkable talent to engage audiences, move them and bring them back again and again to his productions. It may be a more 'popular' form of musical theatre but that's down to personal taste.

R&H and some of the names on this thread were indeed at the top of the field though despite their classics I can take or leave much of their work. Much of it just doesn't engage me, though I can appreciate its quality and how it works with the wider production. If I'm honest some of it seems to belong to a bygone era and hasn't aged well. That's just down to my own taste, with my roots firmly entrenched elsewhere.

On a serious note, I'd happily travel back in time and shoot them both for The Sound of Music.

Someone posted 'there's a light at the end of the tunnel' on the 'good management' thread. The first thing popped into my head was a song from Starlight Express and I've only seen that once, around 1986.

Nah, I'd let them live simply for letting Sinatra record "This nearly was mine" from South Pacific, a wonderfully under-played, subdued, recording in which music and vocal are seemingly sung to different tempos but merge together sublimely - have a listen on Spotify, but pick Sinatra/Nelson Riddle's version.

We must be back to snobbery then!





Seriously, can you say in musical terms why [iDon't Cry For Me Argentina[/i is inferior to, say, [iYou'll Never Walk Alone[/i? Or how [iMusic Of The Night[/i is poorer than [iYounger Than Springtime[/i?

Again, that's a criticism that might be levelled at any number of musicians or composers. Having played a few Mozart piano sonatas in my time, it's staggering how many times he reuses certain devices in different pieces. And, in more contemporary genres, can anyone truly say that Oasis' stuff doesn't all sound a bit 'samey'?

I think that [iDon't Cry For Me Argentina[/i is one of the best things that LW has written. I think it stands up against a great many songs by a great many other composers. I think it has complexity musically and is good lyrically. It's probably fair to say it's now a 'standard' and be can sung on its own and even in stylistically different ways. Given all that, it's probably fair to say that it's on a par with [iYou'll Never Walk Alone[/i.

But then I have never said that LW has never written a decent song. However, my initial point remains: there's a top song there – but where are the other songs, from the same show, that are even close in quality and memorability?

A good popular show has to be more than one song. Okay, one song might become more famous than any other, but you need more than one good song in that show.

Which takes us back to [iLes Mis[/i: a very lengthy show (as I remember it), with three memorable songs (at a pinch) and a lot of the rest that sort of blurs together.

Two pars back, I mentioned "popular" – and it was for a reason. I haven't invoked Stephen Sondheim in this discussion until now precisely because I was sticking with 'popular', as opposed to Sondheim's oeuvre, which has largely* not been aimed at the widest, most 'popular' audience, and does other things.

If you're going to write a show where you're not producing a series of striking, memorable numbers, then there has to be something else. With Sondheim, it's things like more philosophically-inclined plots and music that is also more complex. In [iA Little Night Music[/i, for instance, the entire show is written in waltz time to echo the period in which it's set. It's never boring though, as Sondheim has the ability to create enormous variety within the limits he's set himself.

His lyrics can be remarkable too – sometimes, his rhyming could leave even WS Gilbert in the shade.

When Sondheim does thru-sung, he's good enough to make it work (he doesn't use it all the time, anyway).

But as I said, Sondheim is not a popular composer in the usual understanding of what that means.

But for a really good popular composer of musicals, there has to be more than one good (or even great) song per show.

As for [iMusic Of The Night[/i – I think it's overblown wannabe-opera tosh.

And if you're going to carry that off successfully, you need to be Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé.






* [iFollies[/i and [iA Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum[/i are the exceptions, I think: the former because it's a pastiche/homage to an earlier period of popular shows and the latter, because it's a pretty broad comedy (a sort of a musical [iUp Pompeii[/i).

Cheers, enjoyed that.

Perhaps just a little mild torture for Sound of Music then.

On This Night Of A Thousand Stars and Another Suitcase In Another Hall are both reasonably close, I'd say.





But I think a lot of his shows do have a number of 'good' songs in them. Certainly as many as other composers in the same genre. And most shows only have one 'great' number in them. Taking Joseph (it's the one I know best) as an example, it might not have loads of songs that have become standards in their own right, but I think all the songs work well in the context of the production and none are unpleasant to listen to. Surely the job of a composer in musical theatre is to compose songs that work well in the show first and foremost. Anything else is a bonus.

OK Minty, just to save me the trouble, cos I can't be bothered and this is your bag anyway...........
Since this seems to be key to what makes someone great in an objective way, what do the 'experts' say about Lloyd Webber?

:1oamx624

To borrow from Wikipedia:

"Lloyd Webber has been accused of plagiarism in his works. His biographer, John Snelson, has acknowledged the strong similarity between the opening melody of the slow movement of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto and the Jesus Christ Superstar song "I Don't Know How to Love Him", but opines that Webber

In interviews promoting Amused to Death, Roger Waters, formerly of Pink Floyd, claimed that Lloyd Webber had plagiarised short chromatic riffs from the 1971 song "Echoes" for sections of The Phantom of the Opera, released in 1986; nevertheless, he decided not to file a lawsuit regarding the matter.

The songwriter Ray Repp made a similar claim about the same song, but insisted that Lloyd Webber stole the idea from him. Unlike Roger Waters, Ray Repp did decide to file a lawsuit, but the court eventually ruled in Lloyd Webber's favour.

Rick Wakeman, on his Grumpy Old Rockstar tour of 2008, accused Lloyd Webber of borrowing the main riff for the Phantom of the Opera tune from a section of his 1977 work "Judas Iscariot" from the album Criminal Record.

Lloyd Webber has also been accused of plagiarising Puccini, most notably in Requiem and The Phantom of the Opera. In the Program Guide for the San Francisco Opera's performance (2009–2010 season) of Puccini's Girl of the Golden West, on page 42, it states: "The climactic phrase in Dick Johnson'a aria, "Quello che taceta," bears a strong resemblance to a similar phrase in the Phantom's song, "Music of the Night," in Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical The Phantom of the Opera.

Following the musical's success, the Puccini estate filed suit against Lloyd Webber accusing him of plagiarism and the suit was settled out of court.

Lloyd Webber has also been accused of plagiarism by Dutch composer Louis Andriessen, who described him as "yet to think up a single note; in fact, the poor guy's never invented one note by himself."