Favorite Overtures- Page 3
Favorite Overtures
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
re: re: re: re: Favorite Overtures#50
Posted: 8/11/03 at 4:14pm
Another vote for the "Funny Girl" overture.
I just got the remastered OCR and haven't been able to get past the overture.
It is electrifying...
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/20/03
re: re: re: re: re: Favorite Overtures#51
Posted: 8/11/03 at 4:47pm
I'm voting with my heart on this one and saying the astonishing overture to the 1981 flop MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG.
Joined: 12/31/69
Favorite Overtures#52
Posted: 8/12/03 at 2:56pm
The overture to Candide is one of the bests.
And I also have to admit that I liked Suessical. It is so upbeat you cannot help but want to dance around.
Other I liked were Sunset Boulevard, Merrily We Roll Along and A Little Night Music
Broadway Star Joined: 5/12/03
re: Favorite Overtures#53
Posted: 8/12/03 at 7:30pm
South Pacific--because SP was the first musical I was really fond of
Candide
Chicago
Phantom of the Opera
Dance of the Vampires---although I think it set up the wrong expectations for the tone of much of the rest of the show
re: re: Favorite Overtures#54
Posted: 8/13/03 at 2:49am
off the top of my head....
the producers
urinetown
thoroughly modern millie
we will rock you
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/18/03
Swing Joined: 8/12/03
re: re: re: re: re: Favorite Overtures#56
Posted: 8/13/03 at 11:56am
its gotta be:
1. The Phantom of the Opera
2.Les Miserables
3.Dance of the Vampires
those are the best of the best
Broadway Star Joined: 7/27/03
re: re: re: re: re: re: Favorite Overtures#57
Posted: 8/13/03 at 12:08pm
My favorites:
1.) Gypsy
2.) A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
3.) Merrily We Roll Along
4.) My Fair Lady
5.) Urinetown
6.) Thoroughly Modern Millie
7.) Jesus Christ Superstar
8.) Candide
9.) West Side Story
Joined: 12/31/69
re: re: re: re: re: re: re: Favorite Overtures#58
Posted: 8/13/03 at 2:57pm
1. Gypsy (all time favorite)!
2. La Cage
3. City of Angels
4. The Producers
5. TMM
Favorite Overtures#59
Posted: 8/13/03 at 6:19pm
South Pacific and the Carousel Waltz are both great.
Jesus Christ Superstar is one I love to turn up really loud.
Understudy Joined: 7/18/03
re: Favorite Overtures#60
Posted: 8/14/03 at 12:52amThe Producers, Urinetown, and On the Twentieth Century.
re: Favorite Overtures#62
Posted: 12/27/03 at 3:45am
GYPSY
MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG
SOUTH PACIFIC
MACK AND MABEL
THE KING AND I
FUNNY GIRL
et al
re: re: Favorite Overtures#63
Posted: 12/27/03 at 12:10pm
Candide
On the Twentieth Century
Carousel
Oklahoma
Gyspy
Nine
The Will Rogers Follies
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Chess
South Pacific
City of Angels
Threepenny Opera
Urinetown
re: re: re: re: re: Favorite Overtures#64
Posted: 12/27/03 at 12:13pmI love Millie's overture and 42nd Street's.
re: re: re: re: re: re: Favorite Overtures#65
Posted: 12/27/03 at 12:16pm
Jesus Christ Superstar
Man of La Mancha
Phantom of the Opera
Chicago
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/18/03
re: re: re: re: re: re: re: Favorite Overtures#66
Posted: 12/27/03 at 12:23pmCarousel has an overture?!?
Broadway Star Joined: 8/14/03
re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: Favorite Overtures#67
Posted: 12/27/03 at 1:03pmMy current favorite is Gypsy. It's so fun...but does it sound Disney to anybody else? Nine's is always worth a listen too. I could sing those lalala's for hours. =)
Favorite Overtures#68
Posted: 12/27/03 at 1:09pmMy favorite overture, hands down is Candide. I can listen to that anytime and feel so happy to hear it again. If you ever get the chance to hear it played by the New York Philharmonic at Central park in the summer, do NOT miss it.
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
re: re: Favorite Overtures#69
Posted: 12/27/03 at 3:02pm
1, MAN OF LA MANCHA
2. CANDIDE
3. MAME (the audience applauded each new tune)
4. TWHM (when it was finally added--and yes the
audiences applauded each new tune, as in MAME)
5. KISS ME KATE (When it had one!)
6. THE FULL MONTY
7. IRENE
8. NO, NO NANETTE (love the dual pianos)
9. ANYTHING GOES (either the original or Patti LuPone versions)
10. MY FAIR LADY
re: re: Favorite Overtures#70
Posted: 12/3/04 at 8:18pm
Gypsy
Wonderful Town
Urinetown
re: re: Favorite Overtures#71
Posted: 12/3/04 at 8:29pmcarousel's overture is "the carousel waltz," if i'm not mistaken.
Broadway Star Joined: 11/2/04
re: re: Favorite Overtures#72
Posted: 12/3/04 at 11:51pm
Fun thread.
A huge number of people either pick FUNNY GIRL or GYPSY as their favorite overture, but only one other person on this thread mentioned my favorite overture: PROMISES, PROMISES. It's utterly thrilling.
I am glad to see the MERRILY lovers here, though, that's my second favorite.
re: re: Favorite Overtures#73
Posted: 12/4/04 at 1:07am
Gypsy
Funny Girl
Cats
Dance of the Vampires
The Pajama Game
Bye Bye Birdie
Blood Brothers
The Mikado
The Pirates of Penzance
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
re: re: Favorite Overtures#74
Posted: 12/4/04 at 7:51am
Many of my favorites have been mentioned, but some great Phil Lang Overtures have not:
TAKE ME ALONG
JAMAICA
LI'L ABNER
Take Me Along's Overture is impossibly lush, with layer upon layer of detail. Listen to the huge sound of this Overture and weep for the anemic little bands we get nowadays, where you are lucky to have half as many musicians. The rollicking title song keeps popping in here and there until it positively explodes near the end of the Overture.
Jamaica's Overture, at least according to the CD liner notes, had not been released previously. It's a devilishly difficult piece of writing that the Broadway orchestra juuuuuuust about makes it through alive. Lots of tricky, shifting rhythms. Again, Lang builds and builds 'til "Push de Button," and the orchestra tears and swings through it. Great stuff.
Li'l Abner is again, another punishing piece of writing. Lots of soaring brass and furiously bowing strings and again, Lang smartly builds to one of the best numbers, "Jubilation T. Cornpone".
A couple of others that I greatly admire:
- Robert Russell Bennett's Overture to On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.
What's on the album is a combination of the Overture and the Entr'acte. But it's some of the liveliest writing he ever came up with. I LOVE the whirling circus music version of "On the SS Bernard Cohen".
- Eddie Sauter's Entr'acte to It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman.
Sauter's stuff is always unusual, sounding not quite like any other orchestrator. (Henry Sweet Henry, The Apple Tree and 1776 are some of his other shows). The Superman Entr'acte is fun and surprising and then ends with a fiendishly difficult bop version of "You've Got What I Need". On the CD, you can hear the reeds trying deperately to get through it, and they JUST make it. The one professional production of Superman that I saw, the orchestra wasn't nearly so lucky.
- Sid Ramin and Robert Ginzler's Overture to Wildcat
It's probably Sid Ramin's work, but he and Ginzler worked so closely together that you can never tell who did what. (Like in Gypsy). Wildcat's score is a mix of highs and lows, but the Overture starts off like a bat out of hell, and never lets up. It also makes the show sound like a million bucks.
Videos
