THE UNSUNG "SUNG" HEROES OF BROADWAY
(Edited from a review by Jaime Weinman in MacLean's Magazine
of Steven Suskin's book THE SOUND OF BROADWAY MUSIC )
of Steven Suskin's book THE SOUND OF BROADWAY MUSIC )
In a Broadway musical, the composer writes the tunes, but someone else writes the score for all the different musical instruments. The book THE SOUND OF BROADWAY MUSIC by theatre critic STEVEN SUSKIN is about the hidden musical geniuses of Broadway's Golden Age: the great ORCHESTRATORS (sometimes called Arrangers), who created memorable sounds like the slide whistle in the overture to GYPSY or the sentimental violin solo in "Some Enchanted Evening" from SOUTH PACIFIC. Almost no Broadway composer has time to orchestrate their own music, so it is up to orchestrators to take a melody and a few chords and make them sound better than anyone ever dreamed. “An orchestrator, handed a song that’s not so good, can dress it up and make it sound great,” says Suskin. Though they do a big job, orchestrators are mostly unknown, and so underrated that they weren’t eligible for Tony Awards until 1997. (Suskin explains that many composers “didn’t want to admit that they needed help.”) His book gives Broadway fans a sense of how important these men were to your favorite songs. It includes anecdote-filled biographies of classic orchestrators like ROBERT RUSSELL BENNETT and DON WALKER, as well as some currently active greats like JONATHAN TUNICK (Stephen Sondheim’s orchestrator). Orchestrators have to work so fast that most of them often call on "ghosts" (fellow orchestrators) to help them. With the aid of manuscripts and invoices, Suskin identifies who scored which songs in which shows. The book also explains that orchestrators have to do more than just assign notes to instruments. Many memorable accompaniment figures and harmonies came from them, especially since many of the composers they worked for were not trained musicians. And sometimes the orchestrator needs to work on the vocal music too: Suskin writes that the title song of OKLAHOMA! was going nowhere until Russell Bennett created a choral section for the number; his arrangement (in which the chorus spells out “O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A”) turned the song into a show-stopping hit. Even composers with extensive training depend on orchestrators to give their music a sound style that they themselves can’t provide, saying "I don’t want to sound old-fashioned," and they gave their arrangers a free hand. The composers said "this guy can make me sound good." Many of the men profiled in THE SOUND OF BROADWAY MUSIC brought new sounds to the world of Broadway, which Suskin says is “usually about 10 years behind” when it comes to musical trends, such as the sound of ’50s jazz bands in songs like "Steam Heat" from THE PAJAMA GAME and even rock ’n’ roll in BYE, BYE, BIRDIE. Other orchestrators found ways to serve the story. Walker’s orchestrations for FIDDLER ON THE ROOF used unusual instruments to capture the ethnic flavour of the show. These musicians didn’t crank out pages of music; they created theatre with musical instruments. But you have to pay a lot of people to play those instruments, and most producers now spend the money elsewhere. Suskin admires much of the work being done on Broadway today, but it’s a more canned sound, featuring “16 instruments with 10 of them plugged into amps, so the singers can’t be heard over it.” Still, there have been signs of life for classic orchestrators. The revival of SOUTH PACIFIC, which won seven Tony Awards, restored the original orchestrations by Bennett, with 30 instruments including a harp (which he often used to set the rhythm instead of the drums). The orchestrations were a selling point of the production, starting with the overture’s thrilling statement of "Bali H’ai." Richard Rodgers composed that song, but as Suskin’s book demonstrates, it takes an orchestrator to make a great song sound even better.
CLASSIC MUSICALS ORCHESTRATORS
WITH REFERENCE TO LERNER & LOEWE MUSICALS
ROBERT RUSSELL BENNETT (1894 - 1981)
MY FAIR LADY (1956) / CAMELOT (1960)
Showboat (Jerome Kern, 1927) / Of Thee I Sing (George Gershwin, 1931)
Anything Goes (Cole Porter, 1934) / Oklahoma! (Richard Rodgers, 1943)
Annie Get Your Gun (Irving Berlin, 1946) / Finian's Rainbow (Burton Lane, 1947)
Kiss Me Kate (Porter, 1948) / South Pacific (Rodgers, 1949)
The Sound of Music (Rodgers, 1959) / On a Clear Day... (Lane, 1965)
PHILIP J. LANG (1911 - 1986)
MY FAIR LADY (1956) / CAMELOT (1960)
MY FAIR LADY (1956) / CAMELOT (1960)
Annie Get Your Gun (Irving Berlin, 1946) / High Button Shoes (Jules Stein, 1947)
Where's Charley (Frank Loesser, 1948) / Can-Can (Cole Porter, 1953)
Fanny (Harold Rome, 1954) / Plain and Fancy (Albert Hague, 1955)
Li'l Abner (Gene DePaul, 1956) / Take Me Along (Bob Merrill, 1959)
Hello, Dolly (Jerry Herman, 1964) / Ben Franklin in Paris (Mark Sandrich, Jr, 1964)
Mame (Herman, 1966) / Applause (Charles Strouse, 1970) / Annie (Strouse, 1977)
Mack and Mabel (Herman, 1977) / 42nd Street (Harry Warren, 1980)
TED ROYAL (1904 - 1981)
BRIGADOON (1947) / PAINT YOUR WAGON (1951)
BRIGADOON (1947) / PAINT YOUR WAGON (1951)
DuBarry Was a Lady (Cole Porter, 1939) / On the Town (Leonard Bernstein, 1944)
Annie Get Your Gun (Irving Berlin, 1946) / Where's Charley (Frank Loesser, 1948)
Guys and Dolls (Loesser, 1950) / House of Flowers (Harold Arlen, 1954)
The Boy Friend (Sandy Wilson, 1954) / Mr Wonderful (Bock & Weiss, 1956).
CONRAD SALINGER (1901 - 1962)
BRIGADOON (film, 1954) / GIGI (film, 1958)
BRIGADOON (film, 1954) / GIGI (film, 1958)
Working with MGM Musical Director JOHNNY GREEN (1908-1989), Salinger was responsible for most of the MGM musical orchestrations during the Golden Age of film musicals, including Meet Me in St Louis (1944), Anchors Aweigh (1945), Good News (1947), On the Town (1949), Annie Get Your Gun (1950), Showboat (1950), An American in Paris (1951), Singin' in the Rain (1952), Kiss Me Kate (1953), The Band Wagon (1953), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), and many other of the famous MGM musicals.
DON WALKER (1907 - 1989)
(No acknowledged orchestrations for Lerner & Loewe
although he worked in same time period and probably
did uncredited work on some L&L orchestrations)
Life Begins at 8:40 (Harold Arlen, 1934) / Panama Hattie (Cole Porter, 1940)
By Jupiter (Richard Rodgers, 1942) / On the Town (Leonard Bernstein, 1944)
Carousel (Rodgers, 1945) / Finian's Rainbow (Burton Lane, 1947)
Call Me Madam (Irving Berlin, 1950) / Damn Yankees (Adler & Ross, 1955)
The Most Happy Fella (Frank Loesser, 1956) / The Music Man (Meredith Willson, 1957)
Anyone Can Whistle (Stephen Sondheim) / Fiddler on the Roof (Jerry Bock, 1964)Cabaret (John Kander, 1966) / By Jeeves (Andrew Lloyd Webber, 1975).
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