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| re: Can we discuss / analyze? What's really required for a Fosca performance to work? | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 11:31 pm EST 03/02/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Can we discuss / analyze? What's really required for a Fosca performance to work? - GrumpyMorningBoy 05:43 pm EST 03/01/19 | |
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| I'm very curious what parts of the score you nearly detest. As a huge fan of the score, it's hard to imagine but I am curious. I feel like for most people the style of the score and its themes and motifs hook you, or they do not. The only parts I don't love as much are parts of the Soldier's Gossip, but even that I find enjoyable and servicing that part of the story/those character/the commenting on it that the audience needs/world building. | |
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| -- what I adore in Sondheim's writing for PASSION (and what I don't) | |
| Last Edit: GrumpyMorningBoy 03:38 am EST 03/04/19 | |
| Posted by: GrumpyMorningBoy 03:31 am EST 03/04/19 | |
| In reply to: re: Can we discuss / analyze? What's really required for a Fosca performance to work? - Chazwaza 11:31 pm EST 03/02/19 | |
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| I got the CD of PASSION the week it showed up at my local Borders Book Store. So... i've been sitting with this music for 20+ years. In that time, as I've aged, I've found that the whole piece makes a WHOLE LOT MORE SENSE now then it did when I was a young adult. In some ways, it's grown on me. But more than anything, I've come to realize just how unique and ballsy it was. I supposed, at the time, that we'd see / hear more musicals that resembled PASSION, and Sondheim was just ahead of the pack. I do think that some of LaChiusa's works (especially MARIE CHRISTINE) sit in a kind of similar space, tonally, but even within the full Sondheim canon, PASSION is a very rare bird. And as I write above, I do think that Sondheim's decisions on what love sounds like are trenemdously unique. I think the "your love will live in me" motif -- sung by Fosca (and by Clara as "how long were we apart") and then and repeated by the entire cast in the Finale -- is what love, at least in this piece, sounds like to Sondheim. It sounds unresolved. That melody just slips through those chords without ever landing happily on the tonic. My FAVORITE writing is the "Flashback" sequence. It's friggin genius. Up there with SWEENEY. The angular dissonance of the harmonies on "beauty is power / longing a disease" are, to me, the core of the entire musical. But the way the whole thing envelops spoken word / sung recitative, and knows exactly when to transition back and forth between the two, is arguably some of Sondheim's most skillfull writing of all time. The way he weaves real waltzes into the writing does (at times) evoke a bit of NIGHT MUSIC -- but how could it not, being in 3 -- but it works brilliantly here as a pattern that comments on the mores of the time. The way things are. The sexism, gender expectations, and limitations of being a woman are delivered in waltzes. I also LOVE the way that Greg Edelmann's character emerges here as a rare empath who shows true compassion for Fosca, and I adore the way their two melodies meet on the final note of on "it took her months to leave her bed." That's empathy, musicalized. I could go on and on about this sequence. I think it's astonishing. My biggest beefs with the score are the tone of some of the songs. I think a lot of the writing for Giorgio fails to reach the heights of the writing for Fosca. As a result, Giorgio, in the end, comes off as a bit emotionally immature in comparison to the other characters. I'm not sure if Sondheim musicalized the subtext as well as he could have. "Is This What You Call Love," as Georgio essentially scolds Fosca, is too one note for me, to be rather on the nose about it. I think the emotions of the lyric are far more complex than the music Sondheim composed here, which sounds a bit like a manic temper tantrum from someone who, frankly, needs to calm down. I'm not a composer, but if I were, I'd have matched that lyric with a melody that had more dynamics and complexity. I understand that it works to raise the stakes of the piece, and maybe that's why he wrote it this way, but I think it's a missed opportunity for a more nuanced exploration of those emotions from Giorgio. I like where the melody goes in the 'bridge' section -- "Love's, not a constant demand, it's a gift you bestow." Do you hear how Sondhem is trying to give Georgio the chance to change his tone of voice there? Sondheim's instinct was right. He should have applied that to the whole song. And finally, I'm really not convinced by the writing for "No One Has Ever Loved Me." It's probably the most important musical moment of the entire show, and I really don't think Sondheim's writing rises to the occasion. His melody on the opening lyric really isn't bad. Nice chromatics, nice range, nice inversion as it goes up. But from there, Sondheim pens a bit of a list about the things love is -- rather 1 Corinthians 13, no? -- and matches it to a melody that's banal and drab. Even the chords don't do anything all that interesting. It's like Sondheim had half a good melody in his mind to open this piece, but didn't know how to carry it forward and spin it into something more beautiful. God bless Jonathan Tunick, who really tries to dress it all up with some nice strings floating on top, but it's just not enough. I do think he knew that he hadn't struck gold there. Giorgio sings that thing once, and then they get OUTTA THERE, into the words! (with a little treat so Fosca can reprise "Happiness," which is the best melody of the whole show.) I think the score is uneven, yes. But when it's good, it's very, very good. This thread is many days old now and I'm not sure if anyone will read this, but it's been nice to put thoughts into words. :) - GMB |
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