Your favourite orchestrations
Your favourite orchestrations
musicalperson17
Understudy Joined: 9/2/10
#1Your favourite orchestrations
Posted: 1/3/11 at 10:24pmGreat orchestrations are like a great dish. You may not taste each ingredient individually but they all blend into something great. Same goes for good orchestrations. I hate it when you can hear all the instruments try and blend and not sound harmonious. I'm curious to hear your opinions.
#2Your favourite orchestrations
Posted: 1/3/11 at 10:27pmI love the orchestrations for Phantom and Evita.
"There’s nothing quite like the power and the passion of Broadway music. "
Orangesaretuesdays
Stand-by Joined: 10/8/10
#2Your favourite orchestrations
Posted: 1/3/11 at 10:34pmThe original orchestrations for Company are thrilling!
chewy5000
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/1/09
#3Your favourite orchestrations
Posted: 1/4/11 at 12:43am
Jonathan Tunick can do no wrong.
I also have a thing for the woodwind in Anyone Can Whistle.
#4Your favourite orchestrations
Posted: 1/4/11 at 9:50am
Tunick is the model from whom all can learn. Starobin is excellent with smaller ensembles.
In the past several years, the best I've heard were Tunick's work on A Catered Affair and Larry Blank's for The Drowsy Chaperone.
philly03
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/20/07
#5Your favourite orchestrations
Posted: 1/4/11 at 10:15am
Tunick's orchestrations to Napoleon made the music interesting. He really is the best.
Also: Phantom of the Opera, Woman in White, .. most Lloyd Webber musicals.
#6Your favourite orchestrations
Posted: 1/4/11 at 11:34amAnything by Tunick. Almost anything by William Brohn or Bruce Coughlan or Michael Starobin.
Faced with these Loreleis, what man can moralize!
Jon
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/20/04
#8Your favourite orchestrations
Posted: 1/4/11 at 12:00pm
Some interesting ones:
MAN OF LA MANCHA - Brass, woodwinds, 2 Spanish guitars, 2 percussionists, no string section, no keyboards.
LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA - Piano, Strings, woodwinds, guitar, harp, percussion, no brass section.
SEE WHAT I WANNA SEE - piano, bass, two woodwind players, THREE percssion players.
#9Your favourite orchestrations
Posted: 1/4/11 at 12:15pmI love the massive amounts of percussion in Celebration. Also, the orchestrations to the original Madrid recording of Evita are sumptuous. But as far as ingenuity, I think Company and Into the Woods are tops.
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian
#10Your favourite orchestrations
Posted: 1/4/11 at 12:18pmI find the Madrid EVITA to be really lacking.
#11Your favourite orchestrations
Posted: 1/4/11 at 12:29pm
This is a tough one...
I, too, love the original "Company" and the Original "Funny Thing...Forum". And though I think it is a little too chorded in parts, "Sweeney Todd" has some excellent passages.
I know I will probably be killed for saying this, but "Little Women" has some gorgeous scoring, especially in both of Marme's numbers.
And, Wildhorn's "Camille Claudel" and Brown's "Parade" both make my list.
"She couldn't act scared on a New York City subway at three in the morning."- A review of Sarah Brightman for "The Phantom of the Opera"
rougeduck
Broadway Star Joined: 6/5/07
#12Your favourite orchestrations
Posted: 1/4/11 at 12:56pmRagtime (original) and Sweeney (original).
morosco
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/10/04
#13Your favourite orchestrations
Posted: 1/4/11 at 12:58pmI love the GRAND HOTEL orchestrations by Peter Matz.
rougeduck
Broadway Star Joined: 6/5/07
#14Your favourite orchestrations
Posted: 1/4/11 at 1:10pmIncidentally does anyone have the brilliant New York Philharmonic recording of Sweeney?
#15Your favourite orchestrations
Posted: 1/4/11 at 3:00pmanything by Stephen Sondheim
"Look I made a hat... where there never was a hat."
"Think of how I adore you, think of how much you love me. If I were perfect for you, wouldn't you tire of me?"
"Somebody, crowd me with love. Somebody, force me to care. Somebody, make me come through, I'll always be there, as frightened as you, to help us survive. Being alive. Being alive. Being alive!"
"There are worse things than staring at the water as you're posing for a picture after sleeping on the ferry after getting up at seven to come over to an island in the middle of a river half an hour from the city on a Sunday!"
Smaxie
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/26/05
#16Your favourite orchestrations
Posted: 1/4/11 at 3:14pmThere's lots of terrific orchestrators beyond Tunick's great work for the Sondheim shows. Check out the work of Sid Ramin, Robert Ginzler, Eddie Sauter, Billy Byers, Tori Zito, Ralph Burns, Irwin Kostal, Mort Lindsay, Luther Henderson... Almost everything they touched still sounds extraordinary.
Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.
SondheimFan5
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/20/10
#17Your favourite orchestrations
Posted: 1/4/11 at 3:36pm
I love Doug Besterman's work on THE PRODUCERS.
Next to that, pretty much anything by Jonathan Tunick (Follies, Sweeney) or Robert Russell Bennet (South Pacific, The King & I) is amazing. Also love Ragtime and the Scarlet Pimpernel.
morosco
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/10/04
#18Your favourite orchestrations
Posted: 1/4/11 at 3:58pmI really like Harold Wheeler's work as well. Especially Dreamgirls and Side Show.
bwaymizfit2
Understudy Joined: 5/19/06
#19Your favourite orchestrations
Posted: 1/4/11 at 4:05pm@gvanover. Let's just say that if shots get fired, we'll be going down together!
#20Your favourite orchestrations
Posted: 1/4/11 at 4:08pm
It's not that I don't adore great big full beautiful orchestras, and it's not that I don't adore the work of Jonathan Tunick (making musical theatre sound great since 1957!), but I have a LOT of love for Sarah Travis's orchestrations for Sweeney Todd. I love the way she cuts the instruments down to the bare minimum, but still maintains the spirit of the show and keeps some of the brilliant little moments you almost might not notice on any other day.
Updated On: 1/4/11 at 04:08 PM
#21Your favourite orchestrations
Posted: 1/4/11 at 4:48pm
Jonathan Tunick and William David Brohn were the two that sprung instantly to mind - Company, Into the Woods and Ragtime are particularly brilliant.
Has anyone read 'The Sound of Broadway Music - A Book of Orchestrators and Orchestrations' by Steven Suskin? Excellent book, highly recommended for anyone interested in the subject...
philly03
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/20/07
#22Your favourite orchestrations
Posted: 1/4/11 at 5:25pm
I'd put Frank WIldhorn's Camille Claudel on my list as well (which was orchestrated by Jonathan Tunick as well!).
Also: Edward B. Kessel who did "A Tale of Two Cities"!
#23Your favourite orchestrations
Posted: 1/4/11 at 5:57pmPhilip J Lang..Mame, Annie and 42nd Street.
#24Your favourite orchestrations
Posted: 1/4/11 at 6:16pmAnother Philip J. Lang: Fanny. Including the bass, 14 in the string section? That's kind of bananas and incredibly beautiful.
When I see the phrase "the ____ estate", I imagine a vast mansion in the country full of monocled men and high-collared women receiving letters about productions across the country and doing spit-takes at whatever they contain.
-Kad
Videos