Barnes on Guettel's Music: In PIAZZA's defense...help!

Keep in mind, Barnes has been known to not completely "get" some shows in the past. Case in point: FOLLIES. If I recall, he said the lyrcis were "fresh as a daisy" but the the melodies just weren't any good. Same thing with COMPANY too.

---

Don't take Barnes too seriously; he's been known to fall asleep at shows he's reviewing.

Do NOT take ANYTHING Clive Barnes says seriously -- no one else does. Barnes is 79 and has never been particularly sophisticated in being able to appreciate new and harmonically complex scores. And NO he's not a composer .... far from it -- to my knowledge, he's never written anything but misguided reviews of theatre and ballet for the last 40-odd years. He was the lead theatre and dance critic for the Times from 1967 to 1978 (or so). He was fired because his reviews were so generally out-of-step (and full of biases and insupportable opinions) that he was considered an embarassment to the paper. The Post (hardly a bastion of journalistic integrity) didn't care and hired him and he's been reviewing, as bad as he can, for them ever since. He needs to have retired a LONG time ago.

Because he writes for the Post, what he has to say doesn't carry a great deal of weight in terms of ticket sales or anything else. In fact, PIAZZA is doing very good business these days. Obviously many of his colleagues thoroughly disagreed with his assessment of the score (some of whom called this score the finest since Sondheim's PASSION), given that they just awarded PIAZZA's music and the orchestrations at the Drama Desks last night.

However, I do think that the score comes off MUCH better in the theatre than on those recordings on Nonesuch. Some of the truly gorgeous detail in the orchestration seemed to get lost in the recording process -- the articulation in the string arrangements and some of the subtle counterpoint with the horns, in particular, seems to have not been engineered well and comes off a bit generic-sounding to me (which it absolutely doesn't in the theatre). I think you'll be pleasantly surprised when you see the show in the theatre this summer.

---

Updated On: 5/23/05 at 08:57 PM

"Because he writes for the Post, what he has to say doesn't carry a great deal of weight in terms of ticket sales or anything else."

Riedel writes for the Post...come on Margo...

The only single critic that has the power to close a play on Broadway with a bad review is Ben Brantley. Period. All the rest have a minimal effect on box office sales. Now if ALL of them TOGETHER hate a play then, yes, it'll have an impact, but none of them individually has much power at all.

It's the power of the Times. It's been the case for decades (at LEAST since Brooks Atkinson). The Times can close a show ON Broadway or prevent a show that's off-Broadway (or in regional theatre or London) from moving TO Broadway with a single negative review.

Clives Barnes can't do that and hasn't had that sort of power since..... well, since the Times fired him over 25 years ago.

---

Wow, Music Man, couldn't disagree with you more. I think Guettel's score is anything but precious. I will only say I think he'd benefit from a stronger mentor in the lyrics department (or, better yet, a really powerful writer to at least co-write the lyrics)...but, musically, that score is lush, melodic (although apparently not to your liking) and EXTREMELY emotionally satisfying, particular "Fable and "Say it Somehow."

By way of summarizing Barnes and the Post, he is an old fart who has been known to fall asleep during performances and who writes for a paper (and I use the term loosely) that a good review doesn't sell many tickets. A slob writing for a rag although in his defense he wasn't always a hack.

Even in his prime when writing for the Times (1967-77) he had plenty of blind spots. Check Goldman's The Season. [I am assuming that everyone knows Barnes was the chief drama critic and chief dance critic for the Times and was demoted and the Powers-That-Be brought in another theatre critic. Murdoch who had just bought the Post, made Barnes an offer to be drama and dance critic again and he jumped at the chance. Then he found out it was Murdoch. Faust and all that. I'd sleep too.]

The only paper with clout is the aforementioned Times and it doesn't much matter who is writing the review. Its the paper not the critic any more.

---

I'm with Music Man. We can have a sophisticated ear, and yearn for challenging material (I loved PASSION), and still find the PIAZZA score lacking and inaccessible. Those of us unmoved by the score's impact are not musically illiterate; some of us wanted to adore it, and tried desperately to connect to the songs as they drifted into the rafters of the Beaumont. It's disappointment that informs my reaction to PIAZZA, not cynicism or having a closed mind.

---

No one ever accused you otherwise, Auggie.
But, for the record, I'll have to say I have the opposite opinions of yours on the scores of Passion and Piazza. I find Passion pretty much boring throughout, with the exception of "Loving You."

I don't think those of us unmoved by PIAZZA, or any other show, have an obligation to frame our responses with nods to genius. We are entitled to find genius where we find it, but hardly want to make our opinion "law." And critics are no tougher, and I doubt there was ever a time when they felt obligated to feel "supportive."

Consider:

"...'La Boheme,' even as it leaves little impression on the minds of the audience, will leave no great trace upon the history of our lyric theater," wrote an Italian critic in February 1896, after attending the premiere performance, conducted by Arturo Toscanini.

---

Auggie - thank god RENT came along to rescue it from obscurity

"Barnes is hardly the lone dissenter on the score."

Of the critics, dissention of Piazza's score is a very small minority and siding with Barnes isn't exactly something to brag about. Actually, this particular score has received the highest praise of a Broadway score in quite some time, even going so far as to have the cast recording glowingly reviewed in the Times. Does anyone know the last time that happened? I'd be curious to find out.

West Side Story's score had it's dissentors as well. More, in fact. Most of them considered it unmelodic simply because it used harmonies and structure not popular in musical theatre. What could be considered displeasing to the musical "experts" today could turn out to be a revered classic in 50 years. Isn't that interesting?

---