Your favourite orchestrations

[musicalperson17]

Your favourite orchestrations#1

Posted: 1/3/11 at 10:24pm

Great 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.

[bwayphreak234]

Your favourite orchestrations#2

Posted: 1/3/11 at 10:27pm

I love the orchestrations for Phantom and Evita.

"There’s nothing quite like the power and the passion of Broadway music. "

[Orangesaretuesdays]

Your favourite orchestrations#2

Posted: 1/3/11 at 10:34pm

The original orchestrations for Company are thrilling!

[chewy5000]

Your favourite orchestrations#3

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.

[newintown]

Your favourite orchestrations#4

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]

Your favourite orchestrations#5

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.

[mallardo]

Your favourite orchestrations#6

Posted: 1/4/11 at 11:34am

Anything by Tunick. Almost anything by William Brohn or Bruce Coughlan or Michael Starobin.

Faced with these Loreleis, what man can moralize!

[ClapYo'Hands]

Your favourite orchestrations#7

Posted: 1/4/11 at 11:36am

Love Never Dies.

[Jon]

Your favourite orchestrations#8

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.

[Mister Matt]

Your favourite orchestrations#9

Posted: 1/4/11 at 12:15pm

I 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

[ClapYo'Hands]

Your favourite orchestrations#10

Posted: 1/4/11 at 12:18pm

I find the Madrid EVITA to be really lacking.

[gvanover]

Your favourite orchestrations#11

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]

Your favourite orchestrations#12

Posted: 1/4/11 at 12:56pm

Ragtime (original) and Sweeney (original).

[morosco]

Your favourite orchestrations#13

Posted: 1/4/11 at 12:58pm

I love the GRAND HOTEL orchestrations by Peter Matz.

[rougeduck]

Your favourite orchestrations#14

Posted: 1/4/11 at 1:10pm

Incidentally does anyone have the brilliant New York Philharmonic recording of Sweeney?

[SondheimFan23]

Your favourite orchestrations#15

Posted: 1/4/11 at 3:00pm

anything 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]

Your favourite orchestrations#16

Posted: 1/4/11 at 3:14pm

There'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]

Your favourite orchestrations#17

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]

Your favourite orchestrations#18

Posted: 1/4/11 at 3:58pm

I really like Harold Wheeler's work as well. Especially Dreamgirls and Side Show.

[bwaymizfit2]

Your favourite orchestrations#19

Posted: 1/4/11 at 4:05pm

@gvanover. Let's just say that if shots get fired, we'll be going down together!

[Weez]

Your favourite orchestrations#20

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.

Notes from the Earlham Street Gutter

Updated On: 1/4/11 at 04:08 PM

[Eastwickian]

Your favourite orchestrations#21

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]

Your favourite orchestrations#22

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"!

[Tamerlano]

Your favourite orchestrations#23

Posted: 1/4/11 at 5:57pm

Philip J Lang..Mame, Annie and 42nd Street.

[givesmevoice]

Your favourite orchestrations#24

Posted: 1/4/11 at 6:16pm

Another 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