West Side Story Act II Ballet - some music I've never heard

[morosco]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 11:57am

From amazon I downloaded what is described as the Kenneth Schermerhorn West Side Story recording (It has it's strengths and weaknesses. The guy who sings Tony is really good. The Maria is not so good. The orchestra sounds great. Some tempos are too slow. It only cost $7.99). It has a more complete ballet than I have ever heard recorded. Especially surprising is the sample that I have linked. Starting at 15 seconds in you'll hear several measures of music that I've never heard. Does anyone know if this portion of music was ever used in the original production?

West Side Story audio Act II Procession and Nightmare Updated On: 3/8/09 at 11:57 AM

[allofmylife]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 12:12pm

This sounds exactly like what the orchestra played in both versions of the show that I have directed (and therefore obviously remember the best) although there are some changes in the the key - very minor - from the stage version.

Sounds like the ballet to me.

Maybe some great orchestrator like elmore will weigh in....

[morosco]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 12:54pm

Until now I've never heard those measures on a recording. Not even on the Bernstein recording or the Jay Records Masterworks "complete" recording of the score.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 1:24pm

They are in the score

[morosco]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 1:40pm

Thanks allofmylife.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 3:44pm

That's my favorite recording of West Side Story. I just wish they'd recorded the movie version of "Somewhere" as a bonus track as I'm not very found of the ballet.

[morosco]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 3:59pm

I'm really liking this recording too. Especially Mike Eldred's thrillingly sung Tony. Probably the best Tony I've heard recorded. (It's unfortunate though that during Something's Coming it sounds like he sings "...one handed cat" instead of "...one handed catch". Meow. The overall clarity of the recording is amazing. (Although I could do without the Sharks and Jets ad libbing during dance segments. It sounds so fake.)

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 4:57pm

From what I've read, the recording in question does include some music in the ballet that had not been previously recorded, even by Bernstein, but it's in the "Nightmare" section."

Robbins made a cut to that section in the original production. It's only recently that an edition of the score has been published that restores the cut section. The Naxos recording conducted by Schermherhorn is the first to include that section (approximately 30 seconds of music).

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 5:19pm

I really like Mike Eldred as Tony on this recording as well. It's pretty much my reason for favoring this one above all the others. I really like that he sounds young and more "musical theatre" and less "opera". And I like the ad-libs -- at least during "The Rumble". It's a more exciting listen when you don't have the visuals. I understand the desire to have just the music recorded, but you get that on just about every other recording.

[morosco]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 5:44pm

Thanks for that info nobodyhome. I didn't think I had heard those 30 or so seconds before.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 6:23pm

I just listened to it for the first time this week, before seeing the revival, and quite liked it. It's nice to hear the whole score without opera singers.

Updated On: 3/8/09 at 06:23 PM

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 7:46pm

I didn't know about this recording. Will most definitely order it.

[wickedrentq]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 10:42pm

Was this really cut in the original production? Heh, never knew that.

This section was in the licensed version of the score we got in high school. We of course cut it, but it was there. I always assumed it was part of the nightmare, but never on the recording.

Let's see the part in question, at least the part cut from the OBCR, in measures is...okay, the whole Somewhere sequence has continuous measures (from the "under dialogue" prior to "I Will Take You Away..." through the ballet and song and nightmare and Maria & Tony singing at the end)...so the "Procession and Nightmare" which directly follows "Somewhere" the last note of singing starts at measure 160...the measures in question are measures 195-206. The OBCR plays the full measure 194, then goes directly to a pick-up to 207.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 11:09pm

I'm not a musician or a dancer so I don't have recall of music, but it doesn't sound familiar to me.

So I'm guessing here...maybe it was filler put in for the fire escapes to come back in.

I wasn't around in 1957--only 1980--but apparently Robbins would just dictate to the musical director, dance-music arranger--or even the rehearsal pianist--"I need a few bars here" and Bernstein would accommodate him.

I'm no

[allofmylife]

Posted: 3/9/09 at 12:41am

A great number of productions cut stuff that is not in the OBR because they use that for rehearsals. I always had a professional pianist do a full recording of all the dance material for the choreographer (and usually be on hand for rehearsals) and so that stuff stayed in.

[wickedrentq]

Posted: 3/9/09 at 10:33am

You're not kidding allmylife...I actually played in 2 high school productions of WSS...one the senior year for my HS, and the next year's summer county-wide high school theatre piece. In my high school's version, we even cut the first part of the mambo that's not on the OBCR!

What I really wonder about with the original production, well, amongst many other things, is how they were able to handle all the scene changes without adding music. There are several times throughout the score that scene-change music is provided, but I'm talking more during the songs...the Nightmare for instance, to go straight from the end of the Rumble back to the bedroom, to go straight from the ppp of "One Hand One Heart" to the ff of "Tonight." They must have put a lot of effort into making sure some of those musical transitions were able to occur so as to appropriately move scenery. Bravo to them for that.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 3/9/09 at 12:32pm

I seem to remember seeing photos of all the sets in the original Broadway production and thinking the sets were pretty simplistic - of course to provide as much stage as possible for dancing. Even with late 50s fly and cart stage technology, the set changes were probably pretty simple and you can start any scene in a tight spot as the truck rumbles in upstage (and believe you me, they used to rumble, squeak and groan.)

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/9/09 at 12:35pm

This still do, in this production. The improbably huge balcony/fire escape comes in over the quiet notes at the end of Maria as loud as a runaway A train.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 3/9/09 at 4:25pm

ah memories.....

Thanks pj

[Unknown User]

Posted: 3/11/09 at 2:58am

Bernstein did nearly all fo the dance music in WSS (very rare for Broadway of course) but according to one of his bios he wrote the Dream ballet largely in advance and Robbisn cut around it--so my first guess would be Robbins cut this in the first production and it's usually been cut since then? It's great to have it recorded though. I believe much of the other dance music (probably excepting the Prologue which was based on the cut song My Greatest Day and that Mooneroonie song thankfully cut anyway) was written live to the choreography.

This often causes probs in the world of ballet--even the classic Tchaikovsky scores are usually recorded in the versions he wrote--not the way he adapted the ballets to choreographer Petipa's staging and they're often performed (Swan Lake being only a success after he died with many changes made causing even more problems when companies foolishly go back to his original score).

Updated On: 3/11/09 at 02:58 AM

[wickedrentq]

Posted: 3/11/09 at 10:36am

Eric, which bio mentioned this? I don't think I read that one, definitely will.

[marknyc]

Posted: 3/11/09 at 5:42pm

From someone who has the score:

"The ballet is published in both the old and new vocal scores with cuts in the Nightmare section. The original rental parts had the same cuts so a complete recording of the ballet was impossible. Both the OBC recording and all others record the complete ballet with the cuts in the score and I don't believe there's any complete ballet recording."

He was pleased when I found the Schermerhorn recording, and verifies that it is the ONLY complete recording. Even Bernstein's own recording is the cut version.

[husk_charmer]

Posted: 3/11/09 at 6:39pm

So, this is going to make people hate me, but I didn't *get* West Side Story, and why people loved it so much, until this recording.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 3/11/09 at 9:18pm

I thought it was Seacrest's bio of Bernstein but I read 3 Bernstein books and two Jerome Robbins over the past year so I couldbe wrong. I did read it though--I'll try to check...

What's funny is my grandma bought this recording cheap and I looked at it when she showe dme and kinda snobbily thought to myself "it's probably an awful, cheap recording with no drama or style" but now I think I'm gonna have to borrow it...

[wickedrentq]

Posted: 3/12/09 at 10:45am

Hmm, I've actually never read the Seacrest one, I should definitely pick that up, I've been meaning to. My favorite thus far is the Gradenwitz one, but I've also read the Peyser and Burton ones.

mark, I'm a little confused...so you're saying that in the vocal score (which I don't/never had) the said parts are cut in all rental versions? So it jumps from 194, and says the next measure is 207? Or are the measure numbers changed?

That's really, really strange that those measures would be cut from the vocal score but not the instrumental score.