Musicals

[The new erato]

I usually cannot stand musical, finding the vast majority to be tacky, schlocky, sentimental and musically worthless. And playing cello in most theatre orchestras is about as depressing as it gets... when they actually write vibrato in your part at certain points (as they do in Les Miserables for instance) you just wonder what kind of monkey is writing this trash.

There are three major exceptions for me - Bernstein's West Side Story and Candide and Weill's Threepenny opera. Are there any that are as musically good as these three masterpieces?

I know those 3; and in my opinion Showboat is every bit their equal.

[Tsaraslondon]

I usually cannot stand musicals, finding the vast majority to be tacky, schlocky, mawkish and musically worthless. And playing cello in most theatre orchestras is about as depressing as it gets... when they actually write vibrato in your part at certain points (as they do in Les Miserables for instance) you just wonder what kind of monkey is writing this trash.

There are three major exceptions for me - Bernstein's West Side Story and Candide and Weill's Threepenny opera. Are there any that are as musically good as these three masterpieces?

Most anything Sondheim wrote is worth looking at, but try, for starters, A Little Night Music (every musical number in triple or compound time), Sweeney Todd, not in the film version, but it's much more operatic stage version, and Sunday in the Park with George.

[SonicMan46]

I usually cannot stand musicals, finding the vast majority to be tacky, schlocky, mawkish and musically worthless. And playing cello in most theatre orchestras is about as depressing as it gets...

Guido - boy, I can't relate to that attitude - my wife & I are absolutely in love w/ musicals and have been viewing them in all forms (Broadway, locally, video, etc.) since the late 1960s - glad that people can have different opinions and choices - 

[Mark G. Simon]

I usually cannot stand musicals, finding the vast majority to be tacky, schlocky, mawkish and musically worthless. And playing cello in most theatre orchestras is about as depressing as it gets... when they actually write vibrato in your part at certain points (as they do in Les Miserables for instance) you just wonder what kind of monkey is writing this trash.

There are three major exceptions for me - Bernstein's West Side Story and Candide and Weill's Threepenny opera. Are there any that are as musically good as these three masterpieces?

Try Kurt Weill's Lady in the Dark. All the music in the show is gathered into 3 extended dream sequences, 15-20 minutes each, so there's an operatic continuity, and the music is constantly hinting at the tune which finally emerges as "My Ship". It's an excellent score, and the lyrics by Ira Gershwin are, as to be expected, clever and snappy.

[The new erato]

There are three major exceptions for me - Bernstein's West Side Story and Candide and Weill's Threepenny opera. Are there any that are as musically good as these three masterpieces?

Showboat is easily the equal of all those three.

[Tsaraslondon]

Try Kurt Weill's Lady in the Dark.

I'd also try Kurt Weil's Street Scene, almost operatic in conception.

[Guido]

Thanks all for these recommendations - I will follow them all up in due course. On a side note about Weill - I recently heard his thrid Symphony for the first time - great piece.

Sonicman - I agree  - each to their own!

[The new erato]

Thanks all for these recommendations - I will follow them all up in due course. On a side note about Weill - I recently heard his thrid Symphony for the first time - great piece.

Sonicman - I agree  - each to their own!

I thought he only wrote two?

[Guido]

I thought he only wrote two?

Sorry yes, I meant second.