Broadway: The American Musical

Posted by Sony BMG Masterworks

November 17, 2008

By Daniel Felsenfeld

It seems as the Broadway Musical wanes to what many people would consider a close (insofar as it is a part of the cultural dialogue—how many times has Ben Brantley written in the Times of his longing to return to the era where Broadway led pop rather than today’s vice-versa?) retrospective adds to the piles of other retrospectives, joining together to explain, often in gorgeously packaged and slickly produced products, just how great this thing actually was. Perhaps the most successful of these is called Broadway: The American Musical, a CD set of a series on PBS by the same title (one, mind you, that any fan would want, with great pictures, intelligent notes, and excellent recordings of age-old favorites).

Now I myself am a serious composer of symphonies, chamber music, operas, etc. But I have dark roots in the theatre, as a composer, and at one early point, an accompanist and conductor. So as someone who actively participated in this world (I wrote five, I played hundreds, I listened to everything) I am free to knock it a little because I do it with secret love. So when I got the (giftable) box for Broadway: The American Musical I did not start at the beginning, but put in the final disc to hear the most recent entries. Wow. Weird.

With a Proustian rush this music that defined my adolescence came back to me hard—“Memory” from Cats, “The American Dream” from Miss Saigon, “You’re Nothing Without Me” from City of Angels, “Do You Hear the People Sing” from Les Miserables, “Music of the Night” from Phantom of the Opera (which once I played in a darkened theatre in the presence of Mr. Lloyd Webber)—and I had one of those experiences where I heard something that I knew intimately for the first time, because, honestly, I don’t think I’ve sat and listened to, say, anything from Cats for two decades. Not bad, not bad at all. This kind of music, from those “big box” musicals that many think ruined Broadway in the 80s, is easy to condemn, like school cafeteria food, the subway system, the postal service, but in this context of no context, there’s much to love. It is one thing to hear this music in the theatre, in the presence of a floating tire or landing helicopter or earthbound chandelier, but here, in the privacy of my room, absent expensive razzle-dazzle, these people could really write tunes! “Memory,” for all its flaws, is deeply and satisfyingly melodic (even if it remains for most a guilty pleasure). Same for the tunes from those huge hits Miss Saigon and Les Miserables, not to mention Phantom of the Opera (which, I found out, still runs on Broadway—I kinda forgot it was there).

Now, maybe I betray my age, because, for better or for worse, big-box Broadway is my Broadway so I cannot help but love it for reasons of nostalgia. In my brain, these pieces work differently because I was younger and full of adolescent wonder. (By this I mean: when I listened today, edging 40, I am surprised by how synth-pop a lot of these scores sound because in my idealized vision of them they are lush orchestral offerings.) But perhaps you are younger than I, and might have opinions on the songs later on the disc—selections from The Boy from Oz, Mama Mia, Movin’ Out, those “jukebox” musicals of plundered pop catalogues sewn together with a narrative. Perhaps this is your Broadway and you are therefore able to make more intelligent comments about “Dancing Queen”, “I Go to Rio” or “Movin Out” because to me I cannot get the sounds of the originals from my mind.

Now, as tickets to these shows can run huge dollars, I’ve only seen one of the more recent “composed” shows (Wicked, mostly because Stephen Schwartz, the composer, is a friend). So I do not know what is happening onstage in, say, The Producers (who could get a ticket to that when it was here?) or Hairspray. Or The Lion King. Perhaps I have no comments on “Dancing Queen” because I don’t see it as anything other than a stand-alone song rather than part of a story. But I will say this for the future of the Broadway Musical: if “Defying Gravity” is any indication—a powerful, potent, intelligent song that outlines an absolutely electrifying moment on stage—then the idea that we can look back at Broadway like we’d examine a corpse is not remotely true. Eras end, but with songs this moving, this creative, this powerful still being written (and listened to by sold-out nightly crowds) we may actually be on the verge of a new era rather than at the end.

After looking forward, I’ll spend a little time looking back, seeing the past through the lens of the present, defying history’s gravity as it were.

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Broadway: The American Musical