Thoughts about the recent Sweeney orchestrations/convention

[Fenchurch]

Posted: 11/21/06 at 1:05am

Someone recently asked me my thoughts about this piece and I decided to listen to the recording and comment on it as it played.

These are my thoughts, not edited in any way, just fragments and impressions as I listen. I think I stand by almost every one of them now that the experience is over though, I certainly got a lot out of it and I totally see Doyle's concept clearer now.
And as for the orchestration, I really enjoy it more than the original now.

Feel free to challenge me, I would like to eventually refine these ideas for a paper, so it needs to stand up to criticism.

If you're gonna flame, I don't take the bait, so don't even bother. I don't plan on wrinting responses, but just reading others. So if you're spoiling for a flame war, you're gonna get left out in the cold.

Thanks!

_______BEGIN________

Ballad of Sweeney Todd
Piano, trumpet, clarinet.
(Swing your razor high) - staccato notes. He saying "Listen to the words, but the harmony is as sharp as the razor. this is a sure sign that he is asking you to listen to more than just what Sondheim/Gemignani put there, you can explicate with dynamics, tone color. The composer is not the only god on this stage, the performer is also an interpreter, as is the orchestrator.

No place like london...

Accordion, certainly lends verisimilitude, one could possibly be found playing an accordion on a dock. Well done there.
The piano is perfect here, sounding like drops of water from the ship onto the dock.
The violin is playing the "barber and his wife" theme, it hangs in the air, alone, again as sharp as a knife, cutting through the dialogue before it.

The accompaniment for "How'd you like to" sound again like seagulls and distant blow horns, much more evocative of the scene than the full orchestra had.

This orchestration is definitely connected to Britten's Peter Grimes, Britten uses orchestration and his composition to evoke the seagulls on the shore and the sounds of living on a port village. Peter Grimes also goes mad like Sweeney, and both Sweeney Todd and Peter Grimes are popular british folk tales, often naughty children in the city were told they would be taken away by Sweeney Todd, but naughty children in the coastal towns and villages were often told that Peter Grimes would come and take them away in his fishing scowl and would never be seen again, so its more than just a idle journey for this orchestrator, it has meaning.
I hear this orchestrator saying "This piece is as important as that one" and what's more, more real people are talking about this music than peter Grimes right now, but not a lot of people are writing about this music in the same way, and therefore it's not getting exposure across academia.

"and she would fall" the violin is screeching up there on the top...its his madness creeping in already

'the lady, did she succumb" great dissonance there, in a full orchestra, it wouldn't be so pronounced.

"There's a hole" accompaniment, really shows up the rhythmic difficulty and complexity of the writing.
same thing in Worst Pies, because its one person playing the piano accompaniment, there is automatically more rhythmic integrity in the playing, and against her singing, (which I really enjoy now, and I never did before, because she's not screaming over an orchestra, she can use all of the vocal colors at her disposal). Also, this song now sounds more like a little lullaby, makes Mrs. Lovett an instantly likable character.
"Times is hard" no longer sounds like a blowhorn....love it.


The waltz for Lovett's barber and his wife...it starts out so liltingly, so beautiful, and slowing gets interrupted by the madness of the violin, right away. I definitely think the orchestrator is equating the violin with madness or at least adversity in this production, (I may be proven wrong, lets see), but at the very least its obvious that the orchestration is equitable to "reading between the lines" in literature, The orchestrator is having a conversation with the piece, highlighting this, underlining that. Very sophisticated stuff

These are my friends
Never knew this began as a waltz too, just like his memory of the ball before. But it gets turned into a four measure pattern later, he's so distracted he can't even keep a consistent time signature, he's a little "off" but when Lovett sings with him, she keeps up with his "oddness" and this is also when we have our first real inkling that She is "off" in the text too. He's talking about killing people (you'll soon drip precious rubies) and she'll all over him.

and the chorus comes back with their razor sharp staccato refrain.


Oh man, I love Green finch already, I hate coloratura sopranos who can't control their resonance, this woman is great. Her dynamics are wonderful, and its because she doesn't have to fight a huge orchestra, we get all subtlety again.

"whence comes this melody" is more insistent, that middle part that needs to grow and it always seemed as if the poor singer had no where to grow to because she was already singing at her loudest. The orchestration gives the performers a chance to flex their interpretive muscles as artists, because they aren't so taxed.

The flute in "look at me" is her bird, and now the bird can sing with both of them. And be a connection between them. Its more noticeable because its one instrument rather than a group.

Never heard that beautiful melody accompanying the dialogue between the beggar woman and anthony - haunting.

Im not crazy about this Anthony, but then again I've never been crazy about this song either. But I like that it's more personal sounding, and less of a declaration.

Pirelli's Magical Elixir.
LOVE the accordion. And again, a smaller ensemble means more rhythmic integrity. Its like im listening it for the first time and Im enthralled in the musical and rhythmic complexity, because its all that much tighter.

AWESOME that a woman is playing Pirelli. Its just refreshing, who wants to hear a tenor kill himself like that again.

And this gives Pirelli's music more power, because a woman who sings in that register has more room to add or take away intensity, tenors up there have basically one dynamic and timber, because its so hard to sing up there.

PERFECT accordion again in Johanna (the judge's) one, it puts him at the same level as the dock. He's not better than anyone. Clarinet, at the bottom of its register. totally illustrates the baseness of the judge's character. Also using horns to simulate his ecstatic orgasm, very nice.

The clarinet against Johanna's (I knew you'd marry me one day, etc., and repeats) line in is so awesome and to have it played by the clarinet which was just the judge's motif, it totally becomes the looming dread, singing its little descant against their insistent line. As if the Judge is on their tails.

Beadle, is this Alexander Gemignani? Hrm, he's doing Valjean on broadway now. Interesting. Im not sure if I like him yet. I think I do. Very clear, no showboating. Letting the music sing itself almost. Yes, in fact I do like him, when he sings in the quartet, he's fantastic, warm tones, not blasts. Nice.

“Todd, Todd Todd Todd Todd”, much better 0n this recording, adding so much more frenetic energy to it. Yes, Gemignani is excellent, very great singing on all parts on this piece. Excellent.

Todd and Judge, because the orchestration is so sparse, their whistling fits in with it better, if they are playing other instruments and singing, then they are also playing a third instrument with the whistling. It make so much sense, I really don't know why anyone didn't think of doing this show this way before. Kudos John Doyle.

Notice the clarinet in this version of "Now then my friends" The clarinet is the Judge, it's the Judge's time.
"Pretty as her mother" and then the strings (madness). I think I pegged that one.

yup, the violin plays the "pretty women" repeat after they sing it. and the then the madness hangs over him in the air. How sublime.

WOW. the pizzicato playing of the cello when the Judge catches them, it's Sweeney's mad JUST at bay, plucking......plucking, JUST about to break.
MAN that's powerful

"Epiphany - There's a whole in the world" ALL THE STRINGS
Totally madness. its out of the bag now. Get out of the f*&*ing way, because Sweeney has gone totally bat sh*t now. This is SO much scarier than the OBC.

"I'll never see Johanna" The cello is playing at its VERY highest pitches, on the tightest string. "I will have revenge" Everything is at its breaking point. Sweeney plays the cello in this production, , he's playing at his breaking point. It's all so powerful.
This is what I would call brilliant.

Little Priest
Another waltz, the time signature is their leitmotif, they share the waltz, what's more appropriate. Especially since their going to be working together now.
The whimsicalness of this piece is highlighted with this light orchestration, it reminds me of the "Round and Round" waltz from The Fantasticks, in this incarnation, it's far more lighthearted and almost heartwarming, which makes it that much more creepy.

Notice how Mrs. Lovett's meat pies have the a more scary, brassy accompaniment under it, its sinister now. and doesn't Patti play the Tuba in this piece? She is the embodiment of the sinisterness that is in the music, so it totally makes sense that she plays it.

The objection that I hear to this all the time is that it's "just a gimmick" but every decision I've come across has been connected to the piece, and people are always complaining how they aren't being true to the piece, but everything here is true the piece. This orchestrator and director obviously love this piece, and they see so much in it.


The Johanna Trio - So soft, trembling with yearning, and the contrast is amazing.
In the OBC, I always felt that the trio singing were the strong dominant theme, soaring over the orchestra, but here, the trio is soft and fragile, and the beggar woman's interjection is brash and insistent, totally changing the power balance, indicating that the madness is not going to be subservient to the other characters, the Mad beggar woman will no longer be shooed away by these characters, and what happens later, the madhouse breaks loose. It was a great metaphor in the original production, but not Doyle and the orchestrator are using foreshadowing, this is brilliant.

Johanna's added "Green Finch" in the wrong key is also a great touch, she's in the asylum singing...she's started to "lose" it, both her mind and the key, great metaphor for her being locked up as well as going mad.

By the Sea, I always thought this was a weird number, the music sounds 70s calypso ish, but I never got calypso from Ange, so it was just kinda weird rather than funny, but here the orchestration gives us more of a lounge feeling, and we can just watch her be cute, and it sticks out also as her departure from Todd's objective. She just wants to get him what he wants so that she can get what she wants, which is Todd. I love the 'Here comes the Bride' ending, it is totally something that a lounge band would do.


"Nothings gonna harm you" is so much warmer now, almost like one of the William Finn love songs, full of heart and vulnerable. Never got the vulnerable vibe from this song before.

"I know what Toby deserves..." very great "halloween" scariness.
and then her verse is accompanied by the mad string instrument, it just gets creepier and creepier.

"The years have changed me" There's the mad violin again.
"rest now my friend" do you hear the the ascending strings, as if Sweeney's madness is giving his absolution and sending him to heaven. Illustrating perhaps how Sweeney's revenge is already turning against him, would Sweeney have really wanted to to kill him just to send him to heaven? Isn't that what stays Hamlet's hand?

I never saw this before, well made operatic scene from when Sweeney recognizes that the Beggar woman is his wife, (this is really Sondheim, he is very good at what he does), his moment of recognition is expanded, time is skewed, its a convention that happens in opera all the time, a moment in time is suspended and usually things happen slower, (its why it often takes a person 12 to 15 minutes to die in an opera).
But Sweeney's madness doesn't allow for that, so his moment moves in and out of time, his Mad Scene where he finally snaps, snaps back and forth, which is why Lovett's explanation is too fast, as is her short reprise of "By the sea" We are seeing his time go in and out, and then it culminates in their waltz of shared objective again, because just live Lovett does throughout the show, she joins him in his plan and even helps him, because its mutually beneficial for her, so Sweeney plays her game, he sees that she wants him to marry her, or at lest take her away, she he pretends to acquiesce only long enough to bring her guard down and kill her. Ruthless, absolutely blood curdling.

These orchestrations are taking a page from the book of twentieth century opera. They are reinventing these works with that aesthetic, or at least that is my belief. Many twentieth century composers opt to have small or chamber orchestras as their main musical counterpart to the singers. It also speaks to how composers and orchestrators think of singers when it comes to opera and musical theater. Usually in opera, singers are musicians, and in musical theater, the musicians are musicians and the singers are usually the actors, that's a definite division. Because opera composers and orchestrators often include the singer in the overall musical texture of a piece, as opposed to a process where a composer or an orchestrator writes or arranges a piece and then places the vocal line around it. or writes a vocal line and then writes an orchestral accompaniment around it.

It's a really fundamentally different way of looking at vocal music, and these orchestrators are really opting to the performers are musicians, and John Doyle is explicitly demonstrating this by actually putting the musical instruments in the performers hands. It's a very strong statement, and as a musical theater performer who is now basically studying solely western art music now, I have seen both sides of it. My first love will always be musical theater, but I don't approach it the same way that I used to, and I think I'm grateful for that. I want more out of my musicals now, I listen for more, I feel I'm a more discerning listener, so the subtlety is not lost on me and these experiences are much more fulfilling for me.