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Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber is the most famous—and most controversial—composer of musical theater alive today. Hundreds of millions of people have seen his musicals, which include Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, Starlight Express, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, and Sunset Boulevard. Even more know his songs.
Lloyd Webber’s many awards include seven Tonys and three Grammys—but he has nonetheless been the subject of greater critical vitriol than any of his artistic peers. Why have both the man and his work provoked such extreme responses? Does he challenge his audiences, or merely recycle the comfortable and familiar? Over three decades, how has Lloyd Webber changed fundamentally what a musical can be?
In this sustained examination of Lloyd Webber’s creative career, the music scholar John Snelson explores the vast range of influences that have informed Lloyd Webber’s work, from film, rock, and pop music to Lloyd Webber’s own life story. This rigorous and sympathetic survey will be essential reading for anyone interested in Lloyd Webber’s musicals and the world of modern musical theater that he has been so instrumental in shaping.
Lloyd Webber’s many awards include seven Tonys and three Grammys—but he has nonetheless been the subject of greater critical vitriol than any of his artistic peers. Why have both the man and his work provoked such extreme responses? Does he challenge his audiences, or merely recycle the comfortable and familiar? Over three decades, how has Lloyd Webber changed fundamentally what a musical can be?
In this sustained examination of Lloyd Webber’s creative career, the music scholar John Snelson explores the vast range of influences that have informed Lloyd Webber’s work, from film, rock, and pop music to Lloyd Webber’s own life story. This rigorous and sympathetic survey will be essential reading for anyone interested in Lloyd Webber’s musicals and the world of modern musical theater that he has been so instrumental in shaping.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2004
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May 10, 2014
Thinking this was a biography before I started reading this book, which I received as a Christmas gift, I was happily surprised to find it an academic discussion of Andrew Lloyd Webber as a composer and as a ‘broadway master’. As it turns out, this is part of a series by Yale University Press on Broadway Masters and John Snelson’s entry is just one of many.
Even handed almost to a fault, Snelson does make a good argument for ALW’s relevance and importance to musical theatre. Even after reading the book I can’t really be sure if he actually enjoys any of the works or just found them a fascinating subject matter.
He doesn’t shy away from the controversies; there’s a whole chapter on the ‘borrowing’ and referencing of previous musical works that seems rampant in ALW’s music. Another chapter is a serious musical analysis of Phantom of the Opera, which I greatly appreciated (as Snelson notes in the introduction, for someone who has had such incredible success as a music theatre composer, Andrew Lloyd Webber has rarely if ever been studied seriously as a composer). The chapter on ALW’s relationship to film I found illuminating, particularly in how Snelson views the film versions of Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita (Snelson seems to be, along with myself, one of the few people to appreciate the virtues of the film version of Evita).
The thesis of this book seems to be that ALW cannot be judged by the same criteria as the traditional musical because his aims have always been to set himself aside from what we think of as ‘the Broadway musical’. “What Lloyd Webber has done so successfully is to see musical theater not as an isolated genre but as part of a much larger web of cultural connections,” as Snelson says in the concluding chapter.
The book suffers only a little from being published in 2004, though I do wonder what Snelson would make of ALW’s subsequent work, both in musicals (Love Never Dies) and TV (the reality shows for casting new productions). I imagine he’d have much to say on the 2004 film version of Phantom.
This book does assume you have a fairly detailed knowledge of not only music in general but Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music (it really is an academic work), but it’s definitely worth a read if you have an interest in ALW and the discussion of him as a composer of serious consideration.
Even handed almost to a fault, Snelson does make a good argument for ALW’s relevance and importance to musical theatre. Even after reading the book I can’t really be sure if he actually enjoys any of the works or just found them a fascinating subject matter.
He doesn’t shy away from the controversies; there’s a whole chapter on the ‘borrowing’ and referencing of previous musical works that seems rampant in ALW’s music. Another chapter is a serious musical analysis of Phantom of the Opera, which I greatly appreciated (as Snelson notes in the introduction, for someone who has had such incredible success as a music theatre composer, Andrew Lloyd Webber has rarely if ever been studied seriously as a composer). The chapter on ALW’s relationship to film I found illuminating, particularly in how Snelson views the film versions of Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita (Snelson seems to be, along with myself, one of the few people to appreciate the virtues of the film version of Evita).
The thesis of this book seems to be that ALW cannot be judged by the same criteria as the traditional musical because his aims have always been to set himself aside from what we think of as ‘the Broadway musical’. “What Lloyd Webber has done so successfully is to see musical theater not as an isolated genre but as part of a much larger web of cultural connections,” as Snelson says in the concluding chapter.
The book suffers only a little from being published in 2004, though I do wonder what Snelson would make of ALW’s subsequent work, both in musicals (Love Never Dies) and TV (the reality shows for casting new productions). I imagine he’d have much to say on the 2004 film version of Phantom.
This book does assume you have a fairly detailed knowledge of not only music in general but Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music (it really is an academic work), but it’s definitely worth a read if you have an interest in ALW and the discussion of him as a composer of serious consideration.
Displaying 1 of 1 review