The Sound of Broadway Music: A Book of Orchestrators and Orchestrations

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Verse: On Orchestrators and Orchestration
Refrain: Men of Notes (And a Few Women, Too)
I. The Dreyfus System
II. Twelve Major Orchestrators
III. Ghosts and Other Helpers
IV. Valued Members of the Music Department
V. Comparative Orchestrators
Bridge: The Art of Orchestration
VI. From Song to Stage
VII. The Arrangement
VIII. Overture
IX. Meet the Colors
X. And Then Comes the Orchestrator
XI. The Orchestration
XII. Putting it Together
XIII. Sweeney in the Pit with Steve
Final Refrain: What's the Score?
XIV. About the Listings
XV. The Listings
XVI. Additional Shows by Other Orchestrators
Coda
Chronology
Acknowledgements
Sources and Bibliography
Index

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Broadway's top orchestrators - Robert Russell Bennett, Don Walker, Philip J. Lang, Jonathan Tunick - are names well known to musical theatre fans, but few people understand precisely what the orchestrator does. The Sound of Broadway Music is the first book ever written about these unsung stars of the Broadway musical whose work is so vital to each show's success. The book examines the careers of Broadway's major orchestrators and follows the song as it travels from the composer's piano to the orchestra pit. Steven Suskin has meticulously tracked down thousands of original orchestral scores, piecing together enigmatic notes and notations with long-forgotten documents and current interviews with dozens of composers, producers, conductors and arrangers. The information is separated into three main parts: a biographical section which gives a sense of the life and world of twelve major theatre orchestrators, as well as incorporating briefer sections on another thirty arrangers and conductors; a lively discussion of the art of orchestration, written for musical theatre enthusiasts (including those who do not read music); a biographical section which gives a sense of the life and world of twelve major theatre orchestrators, as well as incorporating briefer sections on another thirty arrangers and conductors; and an impressive show-by-show listing of more than seven hundred musicals, in many cases including a song-by-song listing of precisely who orchestrated what along with relevant comments from people involved with the productions. Stocked with intriguing facts and juicy anecdotes, many of which have never before appeared in print, The Sound of Broadway Music brings fascinating and often surprising new insight into the world of musical theatre.

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