The Broadway Musical: A Critical and Musical Survey [Hardcover]

Joseph P. Swain (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 24, 1990

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

A nourishing stew spiced with the variety of "musically valuable" American musicals (e.g., Show Boat, Porgy and Bess, Kiss Me Kate, West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, Evita, A Chorus Line, Sweeney Todd ), this unique blend of history, criticism , and analysis is valuable for all who concern themselves with this sector of musical culture. The piano-vocal scores used as sources for musical examples will be comprehensible even to musical amateurs since the songs are often so familiar. The musical analyses use sophisticated specialized terminology; would-be composers will easily grasp it, others will learn a lot. The motivation to do so will come from Swain's fascinating arguments on how the music in these dramas carries the stories as much as the words do. A welcome addition to American music history.
- Bonnie Jo Dopp, Dist . of Columbia P.L.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Swain's valuable survey contains a great deal of perceptive musical and dramatic criticism and analysis..... (Geoffrey Block )

Swain's study should convince even the sceptic that the musical can be seriously and usefully analysed?.an essential book for those concerned with drama, song and popular arts.....

Swain's study should convince even the skeptic that the musical can be seriously and usefully analysed...an essential book for those concerned with drama, song, and popular arts....Swain has not only advanced the critical analysis of the Broadway musical,but has developed techniques that will enable the great composers of musicals to be given appropriate critical recognition.... --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (May 24, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195054342
• ISBN-13: 978-0195054347
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,550,685 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensible, April 20, 2004

By 

William Whyte (Somerville, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Broadway Musical: A Critical and Musical Survey (Paperback)

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.

0 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Showboat & Porgy and Bess by Gershwin, August 26, 2006

By 

Betty Burks "Betty Burks" (Knoxville, TN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Broadway Musical: A Critical and Musical Survey (Paperback)

Joseph Swain was a professor of music at Colgate University. He is an authority on Broadway shows and the music which carries them to success. He wrote" The influence of 'Showboat' was subliminal or subconscious, but there is no doubt that members of the younger generation of stage composers, especially George Gershwin and Richard Rodgers, were impressed by the play. It established a new set of dramatic ideals only approximated in the 1930s, but realized again and again thereafter." When George Gershwin labored to produce the folk-opera, 'Porgy and Bess' he was unjustly criticized as an outsider because the American Negro in 1935 coudl speak for himself. Things haven't changed in the past seventy years for some people; Essie Johnson declared at the KTA meeting that "we have NOT overcome." She is a product of the Gem Theater theatrics of that prohibition era, singing and dancing herself into the sidelines of local politics. And she's still not satisfied, but still holding old grudges. George Gershwin's 'Porgy and Bess' is a complicated case owing to its intensity of ethnic setting and expression. The main dramas of Porgy's loneliness and Bess' weakness remain an extreme but typical case of ethnic usage.

As did Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's 'Oklahoma' based on the play "Green Grow the Lilacs." Both of these musicals had beautiful songs intermingled with the story line. Who will ever forget "Old Man River." In 'The King and I' there is "Shall We Dance," and in 'Flower Drum Song, "You Are Beautiful" and "I Enjoy Being a Girl." 'Kiss Me Kate' is based on Shakespeare's drama. 'Fiddler On the Roof' has the most beautiful music throughout of all the musicals.

All the great composers like Jerome Kern, Frank Loesser, Lerner and Lowe, and Leonard Berstein with those mentioned above are included in this concise book about Broadway Musicals. They are good but, since I have yet to go to New York, I enjoy the movie versions, especially Richard Harris in "Camelot." He was a great King Arthur, the best there is, by far greater than Richard Burton on stage. I could go on and on about this fabulous music and the men who wrote it, but there comes a time for a conclusion so I hope that the English teacher at Grainger County High will not be too critical of my feeble renderings.