Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

An important and seminal work for students of musical theater and/or Sondheim. Like Joseph Swain's "The Broadway Musical," this book applies serious compostional analysis to an area that has not traditionally been considered worthy of consideration from that point of view. Even if you are not able to completely comprehend everything in this book, it is a fascinating and rewarding read. Banfield has a lot of insight not only into Sondheim's compostional processes, but also into the dramatic stucture of his musicals. The biographical details included are sufficient but not excessive for a book with this focus. I may disagree with Banfield here and there, and there is an occasional factual error, but his overall grasp of Sondheim's work and why it is important makes any quibbles ultimately trivial. Highly recommended.

As a musical theatre composer myself, this book was dead on as far as its intricate dissecting of Sondheim's scores. However, non-musicians take note: This book may not be for you. Banfield employs deep theortical analasys of Sondheim's work, and most readers without a background in music theory will find some of this book difficult to understand. As far as Banfield's analasys goes, it is right on target. He explains the various schemes and tecniques Sondheim uses in his music to make it sound exactly like what is being expressed. Banfield also does an excellent job in explaning the various actions that drove Sondheim to write his shows and the reactions that came from the critics. All in all, this is a wonderfully written book.

Banfield's text offers practically an autopsy of each of Sondheim's musicals. Very detailed and insightful. Helps if you know music and music theory. A must for any serious students of Sondheim's work

As a Sondheim afficionado and serious music student, I adored this book and the insights it gave into the techincal aspects of Sondheim's compositions. As Banfield says in the introduction, too often the music isn't given the serious consideration compositionally that it deserves. Just a warning though, the book is really just about the music, there is fairly little discussion of the dramatic or theatrical aspects of Sondheim's work. That being said, this is an amazingly intelligent, in depth, and scholarly treatment of Sondheim purely as a composer.

This book is wonderful in that Banfield has created a series of dissertations on the composition of each of Sondheim's most important works. Those of you who have extensive music theory background will find this book to be golden. Banfield uses musical exceprts and analyzes these small musical moments in regard to how they support the character or the situation and even foreshadowing at hand. I am reminded of a Bach sacred work in which the work is scored in such a way that the printed page creates a picture of the crucifix, yet at the same time depicts a remarkable musical moment. This is the sort of detail and craft that Sondheim uses. Sondheim is a man who is writing many years before his time. The politics and unions of New York Theatre have jaded him, but at any given moment one of Sondheim's works is being produced in revival and being understood far more so than the original production. "Merrily we Roll Along" is a brilliant work that has yet to be completely understood by the public, though "Sweeney Todd" is finally begining to be seen as the major work it is: one of the most important pieces of theatre to have been created so far. "Passion" was recognized as best musical at the Tony awards though never did a road production. "Passion" is brillaintly written so that there is no applause break, no intermission and the audience is not permitted a single moment from start to intense ending where he may slip back into the "real world." In this way, "Passion" moves more like a film, so that the audience, once caught into the magic, is not permitted even an instant of coming back to the surface, making the intensity of this work even more powerful. Sondheim's inteligence and insistence that our fast food nation use its mind to experience an evening of brilliance that often hits very close to home is both part of his brilliance and part of what causes critics to shy away. (We now laugh at the foolish critics who criticized the brilliant second act of "Sunday in The Park With George." Stephen Banfield's "Sondheim's Broadway Musical" gives us a book that is not only fun to read, but allows us to understand the work better. Before staging any Sondheim work yourself you must read this book and if you teach music theory, musical theatre or acting, then this is a book that must be included in the curriculum. For me? I read it both for the professional need as well as the intellectual stimulation. This is not a souvenier book but rather a brilliant study for those who are very serious about music, lyrics and the creation of character, life and art on the stage. Sondheim is an international treasure and we have the very unusual experience of living as contemporarys with a man who will be placed in history beside Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. Banfield's book will begin to show you why.

This is not a book for the casual Sondheim fan. Be warned, unless you have a fair degree of musical sophistication -- and this involves music theory and musicology -- this is not the book for you. But for those who do understand such arcane things as harmonic (including Schenkerian) analysis, or how a typical Broadway tune is constructed, or, to use Banfield's favorite term, the diegetic uses of music, this 1993 book is a gold mine. The emphasis throughout is on the music, not on dramatic construction or the lyrics themselves; they are noted but not dwelt on.

Banfield gives us some historical and biographical background, with a fair discussion of Sondheim's pre-Broadway career (including some tidbits about the collaboration with Bernstein on 'West Side Story'), an overview of the compositional process, detailed exegesis of each of Sondheim's works from 'A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum' through 'Into the Woods.' There are many scholarly references and a voluminous bibliography as well as a slightly light-weight index. One is disappointed that the book stops in the early 1990s. Perhaps Banfield will update it one day.

This is definitely a book for serious students of Sondheim's work. It is a densely written text that definitely repays close study.

Scott Morrison

Immediately before beginning this book, I read Stephen Sondheim : A Life by Meryle Secrest. (I recommend Secrest's biography). The two books together are powerful. It is will help to have an interest and some knowledge of musical harmony and piano, as I myself happen to have. Reading this book may well be as close as most of us will ever come to what it must have been like for Sondheim, when he was 16, to spend an afternoon with Hammerstein being taught the essentials of writing a musical comedy. Sondheim has always been generous with his time and energy to help up and coming musical comedy composers...Sondheim helped this book's author by providing comments and insites concerning the manuscript. Sondheim has never forgotten how greatful he was, when he was starting out, to be helped by many other people who helped him for unselfish reasons.

The author wrote this book with the Great One's blessing. Much insight to the great works are revealed. In short, this is a keeper!

This is an excellent publication, but very dense, and designed for the musicologist rather than just the fan. This covers Sondheim's works up to and including "Into The Woods".

Banfield is not "starry eyed" about Sondheim, and is, at times, critical of his 'borrowings' from other composers. He also insists on placing all his citations within the body of the text, rather than as footnotes or as an appendix at the end of the book. This makes for a very disjointed reading experience.

Worth a visit, but quite a plod through it's technicalities.

Despite the wealth of information which is hidden in this book, the professorial writing style makes it very difficult to unearth. The average sentence runs on for 7 full-length lines, and is annoyingly interrupted by literary name-dropping (Sondheim 1980) disguised as references and countless "the former" and "the latter"s. Many opinions are arrogantly offered with no clear examples, which is sadly typical of the "professor" mentality. I'm ashamed that my own college music lit professor is the editor of the series, and didn't ask the author to rewrite the book in a style meant to communicate rather than pontificate.