Sondheim's Broadway Musicals (The Michigan American Music Series) - Hardcover

Banfield, Stephen 0

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0472102230 ISBN 13: 9780472102235

Publisher: University of Michigan Press, 1993

Synopsis

With thirteen Broadway musicals to his credit, Stephen Sondheim's career in the musical theater has outdistanced those of most of his contemporaries. Each of his shows has presented new challenges to audiences, and each has cast fresh perspectives on the nature and potential of the American musical, as well as probing deeply, often painfully, into the nature of our culture.
Sondheim's Broadway Musicals is the first book to take an in-depth look at Sondheim's work. Stephen Banfield examines each of Sondheim's musicals for Broadway, from West Side Story and Gypsy to the 1987 musical Into the Woods, and includes A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, Anyone Can Whistle, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures, Merrily We Roll Along, Sweeney Todd, and Sunday in the Park with George. Banfield also discusses Sondheim's other work, such as the 1991 show Assassins and his music for the 1990 film Dick Tracy--for which "Sooner or Later" won him an Academy Award for Best Song.
"Banfield seems almost to hear Sondheim's music with Sondheim's ears. This extremely valuable work discusses Sondheim's early training and subsequent career, his general compositional concerns, and his style. The meat of the book is a musical-dramatic analysis of his musicals . . . . For each musical, Banfield places the work and its components in a historical and typological text. He also treats in welcome detail the musical profile or universe of each show: Sondheim's use of generative intervals or interval complexes as source material, motifs that reappear in various guises in various songs, the sound world that defines the musical's emotional mind. The book will be as useful to those who are cool to Sondheim's work as to his fans." --Choice

About this title

About the Author:

Stephen Banfield is Stanley Hugh Badock Professor of Music, University of Bristol, UK. His other books include: Sensibility and English Song: Critical Studies of the Early Twentieth Century, Gerald Finzi: An English Composer, and Jerome Kern. Sondheim's Broadway Musicals, which was awarded the Kurt Weill Prize, for a best book on musical theatre, and the Lowens Award.

From Library Journal:

Banfield (school of performance studies, Univ. of Birmingham, England) has produced a thorough, scholarly work that emphasizes Sondheim's compositional process. The author spends a single chapter tracing Sondheim's background (including his close relationship with mentor Oscar Hammerstein), academic preparation, and various projects. Next is an academic study of each Sondheim musical for Broadway, from West Side Story (1957) to Into the Woods (1987). Much detail is devoted to scoring, specialty songs, and considerations inherent in each production, such as the Kabuki element in Pacific Overtures (1973) and the 19th-century period tone in A Little Night Music (1973). Banfield, who had his subject's full cooperation, includes an abundance of musical examples along with structure charts pertaining to lyric development or song placement. This outstanding work belongs in every academic library with 20th-century music or theater collections.
- Diane H. Albosta, Episcopal H.S. Lib., Alexandria, Va.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Michigan Press
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0472102230
• ISBN 13: 9780472102235
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 472