Closer Than Ever - The Unique Six Decade Songwriting Partnership of Richard Maltby Jr.

How do musical theater songs actually get written? What enables some composer and lyricist partnerships to last for decades?

Composer David Shire and lyricist Richard Maltby, Jr., two of the most gifted songwriters of our time, are revered among musical theater lovers for their ground-breaking off-Broadway revues Starting Here, Starting Now and Closer Than Ever, as well as for the Broadway musicals Baby and Big. Rosenblum sets out to increase appreciation for Maltby and Shire's large and impressive body of work and establish their place in musical theater history. This book chronicles their sixty-six-year (and counting) partnership, giving full behind-the-scenes accounts of their musicals, interspersed with deep-dive analyses of standout individual numbers. Other well-known artistic figures who feature prominently in the Maltby/Shire story include Stephen Sondheim, Hal Prince, Michael Stewart, Francis Ford Coppola, Craig Lucas, Mike Ockrent, Susan Stroman, John Weidman, Charles Strouse, Garth Drabinsky, Adam Gopnik, Jason Robert Brown, and Jonathan Tunick.

Using his experiences as a Broadway conductor, music journalist, and professor of musical theater composition, as well as his long-term personal and professional acquaintance with both Maltby and Shire, Joshua Rosenblum is uniquely suited to chronicle their lives, careers, and creative output. The songwriters, both of whom are engaging and articulate in describing what they do, are quoted liberally throughout the book in exclusive interviews, creating the impression that one is spending time with two inspiring creative artists who happen to be great company.

List of contents

• Preface


• 1. Origins


• 2. The Fair-Haired Boys: The Sap of Life


• 3. Barbra


• 4. Dealing with Steve


• 5. I Have a Rich Wife: Love Match


• 6. How Bad Could I Be?


• 7. The First Thing They Give You is Writing the Obits


• 8. Lynne


• 9. Starting Here, Starting Now


• 10. "I Don't Remember Christmas"


• 11. He's the Arbiter, Really


• 12. Remember That Fats Waller Idea?: Ain't Misbehavin'


• 13. At the End of the Song, Everyone's Pregnant!


• 14. Baby


• 15. "The Story Goes On"


• 16. French is a Language That Doesn't Scan: Miss Saigon


• 17. One of the Finest Scores of the Year


• 18. Closer Than Ever


• 19. "The Bear, the Tiger, the Hamster and the Mole"


• 20. It Should Have Been Called "Small"


• 21. Big


• 22. "Little Susan Lawrence"


• 23. Bob Fosse's Wife, his Mistress, and his Daughter: Fosse


• 24. Next Thing I Knew I Was Writing the Show: Take Flight


• 25. Working with Other People


• 26. Produced by a Convicted Felon: Sousatzka


• 27. America Will Break Your Heart: Dancers at a Waterfall


• 28. Post-Partum: Baby Revival


• 29. Oh, That's What Those Songs Were About!


• 30. The Songwriters' Songwriters


• Appendix A: Starting Here, Starting Now - Musical Numbers and Sources


• Appendix B: Closer Than Ever - Musical Numbers and Sources


• Acknowledgements


• Bibliography


• Index

About the author

Joshua Rosenblum teaches Composing for Musical Theater at Yale University and Conducting at New York University. As a composer/lyricist, he wrote the scores to the off-Broadway musicals Fermat's Last Tango, Bush is Bad, and Einstein's Dreams (four Drama Desk Nominations). He has conducted fourteen Broadway and off-Broadway shows and has performed as pianist with the New York Pops at Carnegie Hall, the City Center Encores! Orchestra, and the American Symphony. A longtime contributor of reviews and features to Opera News, Rosenblum is a summa cum laude graduate of Yale College and holds a master's degree in Piano from the Yale School of Music.

Summary

How do musical theater songs actually get written? What enables some composer and lyricist partnerships to last for decades?

Composer David Shire and lyricist Richard Maltby, Jr., two of the most gifted songwriters of our time, are revered among musical theater lovers for their ground-breaking off-Broadway revues Starting Here, Starting Now and Closer Than Ever, as well as for the Broadway musicals Baby and Big. Rosenblum sets out to increase appreciation for Maltby and Shire's large and impressive body of work and establish their place in musical theater history. This book chronicles their sixty-six-year (and counting) partnership, giving full behind-the-scenes accounts of their musicals, interspersed with deep-dive analyses of standout individual numbers. Other well-known artistic figures who feature prominently in the Maltby/Shire story include Stephen Sondheim, Hal Prince, Michael Stewart, Francis Ford Coppola, Craig Lucas, Mike Ockrent, Susan Stroman, John Weidman, Charles Strouse, Garth Drabinsky, Adam Gopnik, Jason Robert Brown, and Jonathan Tunick.

Using his experiences as a Broadway conductor, music journalist, and professor of musical theater composition, as well as his long-term personal and professional acquaintance with both Maltby and Shire, Joshua Rosenblum is uniquely suited to chronicle their lives, careers, and creative output. The songwriters, both of whom are engaging and articulate in describing what they do, are quoted liberally throughout the book in exclusive interviews, creating the impression that one is spending time with two inspiring creative artists who happen to be great company.

Additional text

Rosenblum sets out to increase appreciation for Maltby and Shire's large and impressive body of work and establish their place in musical theater history.

Report

When a biographer digs deep enough to find that a theme song from a TV show in the 1970s actually came from a 1960s musical that closed before braving Broadway, you know he's done his research. Joshua Rosenblum, a respected musical director of many Broadway musicals, took a break from the podium to write this astonishing study of Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire's works. In unstinting detail, he has chronicled their great successes and bad-luck failures, all the while reminding us how great a songwriting team can be without becoming household names. And speaking of households, this book belongs in every one where a musical theater fan lives. Peter Filichia, Broadway Radio

Product details

• Authors: Joshua Rosenblum, Joshua (Lecturer in Music Rosenblum
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 17.07.2024
• EAN: 9780197758236
• ISBN: 978-0-19-775823-6
• No. of pages: 328
• Series: Broadway Legacies
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Theatre, ballet; Individual composers & musicians, specific bands & groups, Musicals, MUSIC / Individual Composer & Musician, MUSIC / Printed Music / General, PERFORMING ARTS / Theater / General, MUSIC / Genres & Styles / Musicals, Theatre Studies, Musicians, singers, bands and groups, Composers and songwriters, Musical scores, lyrics & libretti, Music of film and stage, Musical scores, lyrics and libretti