Sondheim / Llyod Webber Subject Matter...some thoughts

ahhhh...so alike...

BUT SO SO SO DIFFERENT.

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How true. I start to wonder if Llyod Webber is on some level responding to Sondheim.

Well.. I haven't really come to any conclusion. Just the intial thought. I don't know if goes any deeper than that... but if it does, and you have something to say on the matter..feel free to post it.

Updated On: 4/14/06 at 05:43 PM

So true Jazzy. You could draw a clos line between most any shows on Broadway if you used the love aspect of it. As a matter of fact, at this moment, I can't think of more than 5 musicals that don't have that as a major plot point. And, many shows that were created over 20 years ago, deal with showbiz, it's a very common theme among shows.

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Too cute, jasonf! But I know that they have been in the same room together publicly... but a very good guess nonetheless.

Good God! Now this is going to turn into a "Sondheim is the best and Webber is the worst" thread. Jeez!

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I can't beleive someone compared Company to Cats. That is just...wrong.

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Cats is not a concept musical because dancing cats is more of a gimmick reall. Company is THE concept musical.

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Ah, Sondheim. The second Webber.

Yes, Sondheim is a great composer, but come on!!! He is not the be all end all of musical theatre. People give him WAY too much credit. I mean, yes . . . he wrote shows that dealt with concepts and so on never tried before but give me a break. I'm sorry. Both men are great and have contributed much to the world of theatre, so lets just leave it at that.

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Some people would contend that Sondheim has raised the bar so high that he's pretty much ruined it for everybody. I do agree that he's given reign to contemporary musical theater composers to go wild, and that they do. I don't see Andrew Lloyd Webber having any signature style that seems to be inherent to him, so I would say that the whole genre of British Mega Musical has inspired people like Frankl Wildhorn to continue fashioning poperettas from the mold.

Spider, there's honestly absolutely no comparison. While there's an argument here, it is my belief that Webber is not half the composer that Stephen Sondheim is. That aside, Webber does not write his own lyrics. What Stephen Sondheim has done for lyrics and musical theater storytelling alone makes him more important by a long shot than Andrew Lloyd Webber, who quotes other people's music and theater when he isn't quoting himself. What gives Andrew Lloyd Webber his popular appeal is his sense of familiarity. It's music that feels like you've heard it before, a story you've heard before, everything is predictable.

Sondheim is the offspring of the generation before him of witty, intelligent composers and lyricists who shaped the musical theater. He took it in directions nobody ever expected from frothy entertainment (and while he certainly wasn't the only one to do such things, he is the most prominent). I'm not sure where Andrew Lloyd Webber is coming from besides a general music background and the 60's, but he rarely interests me. It's like white noise.

I give Andrew Lloyd Webber credit for picking adventurous subject matter, but while he may pick challenging or titillating concepts, they never really get explored. I would fault his lyricists rather than him.

There's something very kitschy about Andrew Lloyd Webber, in my opinion, that substitutes for the real emotion that you find in Stephen Sondheim's work. But still, both are capable of bad and good. I really like many Andrew Lloyd Webber songs. But if you're comparing the entire body of work of two men, there's no question.

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"Also, you are damning him because he does not write his own lyrics? So, you are saying that because Rodgers (in his early years) and Kander did not write their own lyrics, that they don't count as much as Sondheim? "

Thank you for saying that. I'm lukewarm on Webber, at best, but I hate it when people pull out that arguement. People have different strengths. Webber can compose damn catchy music, but probably can't write lyrics worth a damn and, frankly, I'm thankful he doesn't attempt something at which he'd likely fail in a miserable fashion. Likewise, Hammerstein wrote beautifully simple lyrics that complimented Rodgers' beautifully simple compositions. It's a matter of doing what you're good at: Webber is good at composing catchy scores, Rice is good at writing simplistic lyrics that fit Webber's music -- a match made in mediocracy heaven.

Altogether well said by spider. I take my hat off to you, man.

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