On Apr 25, 6:03=A0pm, ElBob-O <robertjarmstr...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> I was watching the movie Molly Brown on TCM today and I noticed that
> characters were singing little snippets of Belly Up to the Bar, Boys
> before Molly actually sings the song through (apparently to establish
> that she knows the song from somewhere),
>
> I also remember that in Cats, Grizzabella sings a shorter version of
> Memory at the end of Act One, then sings the entire song in Act Two.
>
> Think of any others?
>
> (There are some shows like Wonderful Town! or the Charlap, et al Peter
> Pan that introduce the music in some other way, then use the music in
> a song: I don't mean those, but they are a similar case.)
Sr, Robert Anne *tries* to start "I Just Wanna Be A Star" early on in
"Nunsense" but is cut off by Reverend Mother. We hear the song in its
entirety mid Act II.
Likewise, the wedding song in "Will Rogers Follies" is quickly
interrupted by Ziegfeld (who insists that, in his show, the wedding
can't happen until the Act I Finale), adding the comic irony to the
song that, when we finally hear the song for real, Will and Betty have
already actually been married long enough to have four kids.
In the opening sequence of "Double Talk" snippets that occur in the
first few scenes of "City Of Angels," (these were not recorded on the
Broadway CD, but were included in montage form on the London
recording), one of them is a true precursor of Stine's eventual full
song (even starting with the same opening line, "This job is not to be
believed..")
We hear Aurora singing bits of the title song of "Kiss Of The Spider
Woman" in the opening scene of that show - but we have to wait until
late in the show to hear the full song.
"A New Brain" begins with a frustrated Gordon Schwinn trying
(unsuccessfully) to write a song about frogs having "so much spring"
in them - at the end of the show, he finds the new inspiration to turn
that fragment of a song into "I Feel So Much Spring."
I wouldn't use many examples from Webber or Schoenberg shows, because
frankly, often the amount of repeated repetitions (yes, I was
redundant on purpose) shows a simple lack of imagination, IMO - but I
will single out Judas' use of the opening verse of "Superstar" during
the Last Supper scene.
Sondheim, on the other hand - particularly from "Sweeney Todd" onward,
often uses a certain "modular" style of writing, where fragments of
songs develop into full songs, or material from one song gets used in
very different ways in another. Way too many examples to mention - but
one great example is the slow development of "Children Will Listen"
over the course of "Into The Woods" - from the verse section before
"Stay With Me" through the "Witch's Lament" to, finally, the full song
at the end of the show. (Similarly, the way "On The Steps Of The
Palace" develops out of the other "Very Nice Prince" duets between
Cinderella and the Baker's Wife.)
I assume your allusion to Peter Pan was the opening "Pavane" becoming
the tune of "Distant Melody." And yes, there are plenty of examples of
dance/incidental music based on songs not actually sung yet at that
point in the show - one of the oddest I can think of is the use of the
tune of "Brotherhood Of Man" as the Pirate Dance (on the TV show) in
the original score of "How To Succeed." Another odd one, perhaps, is
the use of "Luck Be A Lady" as the tune for "The Crapshooter's Dance"
only minutes before the actual song in "Guys And Dolls."
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