Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #526454 in Books
• Published on: 1995-10-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 472 pages

From Library Journal
Banfield (school of performance studies, Univ. of Birmingham, England) has produced a thorough, scholarly work that emphasizes Sondheim's compositional process. The author spends a single chapter tracing Sondheim's background (including his close relationship with mentor Oscar Hammerstein), academic preparation, and various projects. Next is an academic study of each Sondheim musical for Broadway, from West Side Story (1957) to Into the Woods (1987). Much detail is devoted to scoring, specialty songs, and considerations inherent in each production, such as the Kabuki element in Pacific Overtures (1973) and the 19th-century period tone in A Little Night Music (1973). Banfield, who had his subject's full cooperation, includes an abundance of musical examples along with structure charts pertaining to lyric development or song placement. This outstanding work belongs in every academic library with 20th-century music or theater collections.
- Diane H. Albosta, Episcopal H.S. Lib., Alexandria, Va.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Scholarly Sondheim
This is an excellent publication, but very dense, and designed for the musicologist rather than just the fan. This covers Sondheim's works up to and including "Into The Woods".

Banfield is not "starry eyed" about Sondheim, and is, at times, critical of his 'borrowings' from other composers. He also insists on placing all his citations within the body of the text, rather than as footnotes or as an appendix at the end of the book. This makes for a very disjointed reading experience.

Worth a visit, but quite a plod through it's technicalities.

Not a book for everyone but one of the best out there
This book is wonderful in that Banfield has created a series of dissertations on the composition of each of Sondheim's most important works. Those of you who have extensive music theory background will find this book to be golden. Banfield uses musical exceprts and analyzes these small musical moments in regard to how they support the character or the situation and even foreshadowing at hand. I am reminded of a Bach sacred work in which the work is scored in such a way that the printed page creates a picture of the crucifix, yet at the same time depicts a remarkable musical moment. This is the sort of detail and craft that Sondheim uses. Sondheim is a man who is writing many years before his time. The politics and unions of New York Theatre have jaded him, but at any given moment one of Sondheim's works is being produced in revival and being understood far more so than the original production. "Merrily we Roll Along" is a brilliant work that has yet to be completely understood by the public, though "Sweeney Todd" is finally begining to be seen as the major work it is: one of the most important pieces of theatre to have been created so far. "Passion" was recognized as best musical at the Tony awards though never did a road production. "Passion" is brillaintly written so that there is no applause break, no intermission and the audience is not permitted a single moment from start to intense ending where he may slip back into the "real world." In this way, "Passion" moves more like a film, so that the audience, once caught into the magic, is not permitted even an instant of coming back to the surface, making the intensity of this work even more powerful. Sondheim's inteligence and insistence that our fast food nation use its mind to experience an evening of brilliance that often hits very close to home is both part of his brilliance and part of what causes critics to shy away. (We now laugh at the foolish critics who criticized the brilliant second act of "Sunday in The Park With George." Stephen Banfield's "Sondheim's Broadway Musical" gives us a book that is not only fun to read, but allows us to understand the work better. Before staging any Sondheim work yourself you must read this book and if you teach music theory, musical theatre or acting, then this is a book that must be included in the curriculum. For me? I read it both for the professional need as well as the intellectual stimulation. This is not a souvenier book but rather a brilliant study for those who are very serious about music, lyrics and the creation of character, life and art on the stage. Sondheim is an international treasure and we have the very unusual experience of living as contemporarys with a man who will be placed in history beside Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. Banfield's book will begin to show you why.

A Scholarly Investigation into Sondheim's Musical Methods
This is not a book for the casual Sondheim fan. Be warned, unless you have a fair degree of musical sophistication -- and this involves music theory and musicology -- this is not the book for you. But for those who do understand such arcane things as harmonic (including Schenkerian) analysis, or how a typical Broadway tune is constructed, or, to use Banfield's favorite term, the diegetic uses of music, this 1993 book is a gold mine. The emphasis throughout is on the music, not on dramatic construction or the lyrics themselves; they are noted but not dwelt on.

Banfield gives us some historical and biographical background, with a fair discussion of Sondheim's pre-Broadway career (including some tidbits about the collaboration with Bernstein on 'West Side Story'), an overview of the compositional process, detailed exegesis of each of Sondheim's works from 'A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum' through 'Into the Woods.' There are many scholarly references and a voluminous bibliography as well as a slightly light-weight index. One is disappointed that the book stops in the early 1990s. Perhaps Banfield will update it one day.

This is definitely a book for serious students of Sondheim's work. It is a densely written text that definitely repays close study.

Scott Morrison