Andrew Lloyd Webber

I've read in many places, including this board, criticism of ALW.

I'm not a huge fan myself and have varying opinions on his shows. I love Evita, JCS, and Sunset Blvd, but loathe Cats and Joseph.

Most of the criticisms I've heard of him have been that he's not original, which I do not doubt, I just haven't heard any proof yet.

I would love to hear well thought out, intelligent explanations, as to why you may like or dislike him.

Updated On: 3/19/08 at 10:36 PM

Hahahaha, that actually explained a lot. Thanks.

ON ALW - "With one tune, he will write a show!"

On March 22, 1930, a genius was born, Stephen Sondheim.

On March 22, 1948, a hack was born, ALW.

It's all a matter of oppinion. I personally love ALW's music and musicals. Hal Prince himself said in an interview: "There is a whole snob attitude towards Andrew because he is so successful. He (Webber) knows what excites, energizes the empty space......His scores reflect a contemporary appreciation of rock and pop and blend them with the more traditional opera, music theatre, even liturgical canon....He creates musical motifs for each character, developing, then intertwining them into everything from duets to sextets to full chorus numbers, always deferring to the dramatic needs of the show....His songs (arias, if you prefer) are scenes- making this directors work such fun to do."

There are those who will never forgive Andrew for being so universally popular. They view several of his shows as being "tourist" attractions that rely heavily on spectacle in order to grab hold of a mass audience while putting little to no thought in the actual narrative and music. Those who love Webber disagree, I being one of them. What attracted me to several of his shows was not the spectacle but the beautiful music. I fell in love with "Evita" before I even saw the stage show. It was the soaring melodies that attracted me to it. The same goes for "Phantom". I had no idea the stage show offered crashing chandeliers, rising candelabras and pyrotechnics.

Re Webber and plagiarism, Michael John LaChiusa wrote in a review: "The accusations that Lloyd Webber had plagiarized Puccini (specifically, La Fanciulla) appeared with the commercial success of Phantom.. The story of Phantom takes place in an opera house, of course; much of the score is operatic parody. (Whether or not the parody proves successful enough to encourage a cheery wink at La Fanciulla rather than a smirk of recognition was at the heart of the issue for the Puccini estate.)".

Not every one thinks Webber plagiarized Puccini, Pink Floyd and Ray Repp and there is a lengthy list of successful composers/artists who have been accused of it. George Harrison was accused of plagiarism and lost. Does that mean he wasn't a good musician? Others who have been accused of it are Bach, John Williams, The Beatles (the opening guitar riff off an obscure 1961 Bobby Parker song titled "Watch Your Step," is echoed in the Beatles' song "I Feel Fine").... and the list goes on and on.

Interesting enough, Puccini himself was accused of plagiarism during the first performance of "Butterfly" and it shouldn't be surprising since assertions of plagiarism were not uncommon then. Puccini has also been constantly accused of "self plagiarism" and his work has been accused of sounding too much like Wagner's.

Updated On: 3/20/08 at 02:04 AM

Love that video Lizzy.

I don't hate-hate ALW as some do, but I do think he has never bothered to take that extra 'step-up' that most of other composers have done (or at least try to do). He seems to be quiet happy writing medium-level filler type muzak. Nothing wrong with it, it sells (or at least sold) but it can only go so far with me.

I think all his 70s work is quiet solid but I think he failed to explore new territory in the 80s.

He's very much the creepy old neighbor that my mom warned me against.

It's amazing he's had so many wives.

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That video is great, I especially like him at the piano with the calculator figuring out every $ he makes for every note. :)

Any chance we can start a list of his tunes and the ones they are plagiarized from to see how long it is?

LOL

I must have misread that.
You didn't just say Aspects of Love had a sondheimesque score???!!

He's hardly written a duller score (in terms of music and especially in terms of the lyrics that were written for him). What on earth is there sondheimesque in that score?
Plus: the story is anything but sondheimesque.

I would even agree more if you'd say Cats was sort of sondheimesque.

I think its all a matter of how you look at it. When ALW was popular Broadway was different.Times have changed. I don't like musicals from the 1920s but at the time they were cutting edge. And when ALW was popular his stuff was very cutting edge. Not to say I like all of his stuff. But most stuff is great. Like the score of Phantom he has put together a show that uses a little bit of all big time Opera composers of the time period. But you need to know your Opera to really catch it. Now making him a LORD is a whole different story!

Speaking as a person with a great deal of knowledge of classical and opera as well as MT, ALW is somewhat of a guilty pleasure.

Musicologically speaking, he's a thief, there's no two ways about it, but so were a LOT of famous composers, either borrowing from those who came before them or borrowing from themselves. This is not a new phenom that begins with ALW. Criticisms that stem from that aren't really valid.

However, he doesn't write intellectual music like Mr. Sondheim. If you analyze Sondheim's music through Schenkerian terms, it's fascinating, not to mention some of the tone painting he does. My main complaint about Mr. Sondheim is that he's too intellectual, and very often the raw dramaticism is lost, in my opinion. In any case, he's a much better lyricist in my estimation than a composer.

ALW certainly knows how to tell a story through his music though, and I think that is why he is so popular. The sheer drama that is present in most of his scores is infectious. The escapist in me loves to revel in those lush scores (especially Aspects of Love and Phantom). He has a good handle on Rock as well (unlike Mr. Sondheim, who couldn't write an authentic sounding Rap if Run DMC was pounding him), he knows what makes the average person excited, and that's a talent in and of itself.

Unfortunately, as I became older and I started to look for actual meaning in music (besides just lyrical meaning), I found ALW's music bankrupt of that. It's up to a climax and down again, putting you on a roller coaster that's a bit manipulative.

When I want music that nourishes my soul as well as my mind, I turn to composers like Adam Guettel, who obviously fills all of his music with musical as well as lyrical meaning (which is probably why it takes so long for him to write). This is what I was looking for, and it's lush and soaring as well as incredibly meaningful. Ultimately, that satisfies all my criteria.

I'm a tough musician to please, as far as these things go, but that doesn't mean I don't find something to appreciate in almost every composer I come across. I have a profound love for Sondheim, but it's different, and somewhat detached. I love the "golden age" stuff when it's not being corny, but even the corniness catches me sometimes, it's cute, I can't help it, but it's not high art just because R&H or one of their contemporaries wrote it.

I have a problem with people who talk in gradiose terms about how Broadway used to be. That's all fine and good, but we need to keep re-evaluating all the works in the canon, and when someone comes in with an opinion that flies in the face of tradition, instead of instantly dismissing it, I try to examine it, and ultimately even if I still don't agree, I come away with a hightened understanding.


Anyway, sorry for the rant.

Please keep ranting Bkcollector. That was a great post to read.

Are we talking about the chromatic rise and fall of the title song?
I'm not sure anyone can really claim an original right to that. It's a chromatic passage, I mean, it's like saying someone owns the Dorian mode or something like that. It doesn't make sense really.

When someone was talking of Greed earlier, this is an example of that. Trying to claim that a short chromatic passage is copyrightable?

So this is the chromatic passage. You can't really "steal" something like that. It's something that a two year old on a piano can come up with

1/2 step, 1/2 step, 1/2 step up, and the same thing down. It's just dramatic, it's not even the melody of the title song, it's just a short theme.

In any event, as a riff, it's even harder to prove, riffs are just that, little snippets of music. That's why so many big band titles are called "riff tunes" they are made up of very small musical ideas that are repeated.

Many people believe that because there are so many notes, the combinations of putting them together in composition are endless, and that's just not the case with Western Music, or any music for that matter. There are rules of counterpoint and harmony that must be followed to a certain extent in order to be classified as "music" to most people. Mind you, I'm not talking about classical composers after 1945, I'm talking about commercial popular music and theater music. There are only so many combinations of melody and harmony in the pop idiom, it's limited. This was bound to happen sooner or later, and there's really no way to prove it one way or another.

I can't believe someone went to court over this.

Updated On: 3/20/08 at 11:22 AM