Andrew Lloyd Weber

I was shocked to discover he was straight.

Pretentious fop.

A generation? Which generation is that?

Is a Conservative who was friends with people like Sir Edward Heath and Dr. Henry Kissinger.

Webber*

He IS Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber!

Two b should be instead of one b in your title, OP.

r1 a lot of posh English guys ping to me.

I love Phantom of the Opera. I've gone as The Phantom to a halloween party.

All I Ask of You

[quote] almost certainty the richest British musician who has ever lived.

Paul McCartney and Elton John are worth more.

R10 of course

I much prefer his brother, the cellist Julian Lloyd Webber

His shows are generally not my favorites, but he is a talented tunesmith who has written a lot of great melodies over the decades.

IMO, Phantom is solid and is his only show that stands with B&S’s Les Mis and Miss Saigon. The hits from Cats are great, but I’ve never been super into the work as a whole. Same for Evita. Can’t say I’ve listened to much else besides his lovely coronation anthem to which Camilla did that sad curtsy during the ceremony.

I love his score for the original JEEVES. When the show was revived as BY JEEVES the score was almost completely replaced -not not for the better. The show was a notorious flop in London, and wags said that ALW himself scuttled all over London to buy up the cast album and keep it out of the public view. Some say he did it on the advice of Alan Jay Lerner. Whatever the reason, it was a mistake to pull the score and prevent a CD release. The score is perfectly suited to the material, and nothing to be ashamed of. Unfortunately, he has cannibalized the score over the years, so it would be embarrassing if the public at large got to hear the original.

R14 True. Memory and Don't Cry for Me Argentina are excellent ballads for a soprano.

That sounds like ALW was doing a knock off of the Sherman Brothers, R15. A bit twee this late in the day.

It was 1974, R17, and the character is Bertie Wooster. What would you expect??

Thoughts on his Requiem?

He's talented or was, his problem is he loves money more than he is talented. The biggest sellout there is.

Listening to the Requiem now. There's really not much there. A couple of good tunes, but no compositional thread. The Hosanna is catchy -in a pop-rock kind of way that is totally at odds with a requiem mass....

Such a FUG

Pretentious

Fun fluff

He only has a few great songs:

Memory

Don't Cry for Me Argentina

All I Ask of You

The Music of the Night

[quote]He's talented or was, his problem is he loves money more than he is talented. The biggest sellout there is.

That Frank!

Other than a couple of numbers in each musical, his filler music is boring and unremarkable.

What a fucking bitch!

Whatever the music, sappy as it is, the lyrics ruin almost any possible pleasure.

His shows are too loud.

Ruthie Henshall singing I Dreamed a Dream

Yes, a true talent. For a small show with charm, check out STEPHEN WARD.

Frightening plastic surgery

Did anyone see that desperate attempt at a money grab called "Love never dies", a POTO sequel? Dear lord that is an embarassment. Nice music, but the story is an embarassment

Jesus Christ Superstar forever!

He was married to Sarah Brightman for sometime in the late 1980's.

She's fat now.

The original Sunset Boulevard is underrated. It’s creepy in a good ways and the score is quite good. My god, those sets, even on the original tour.

Flew on a private plane from NYC to London to vote for a law gutting social services in House of Lords.

I Don't Know How To Love Him.

Completely destroyed it!!! Imagine people dressed as CATS dancing around on stage.

FYI - I Dreamed a Dream is from Les Miz - not an ALW musical.

[quote] Thoughts on his Requiem?

I’m looking forward.

I've never seen Sunset Blvd. but I like a lot of the music. I have no opinion on who the best Norma is. I think Betty Buckley was the first one I heard but I like Elaine Paige's vocals better

[quote]The Music of the Night

Sorry, that one's mine.

[quote]He was married to Sarah Brightman for sometime in the late 1980's. She's fat now.

So is he.

Patti LuPone had an edge needed for Sunset Boulevard that Glenn Close didn’t have. I’ve seen Glenn in two plays and whatever she has on screen doesn’t translate on stage.

Pie Jesu is hauntingly beautiful. I'm not qualified to review the rest of it R19.

I am a huge ALW fan, but his compositions since Sunset Boulevard have been very hit and miss. I am looking forward to his next score (I think I heard it is a musical based on The Illusionist), but hope there is more focus on new works than the millionth revival of Evita.

What is his beef with Glenn Close?

I've always been curious about Whistle Down The Wind, his collaboration with Jim Steinman. Webber is credited for writing the music and Steinman only for the lyrics but the music sounds so much like Steinman I have a hard time believing he wasn't involved to some degree.

[quote]Thoughts on his Requiem?

OMG, is he dead?

[quote]Flew on a private plane from NYC to London to vote for a law gutting social services in House of Lords.

Attaboy!

R15, I am the proud owner of a Jeeves LP. I searched for years to find one. The score is very, very pleasant, and not very well rehashed in the revisal of "By Jeeves."

ALW and Sondheim are my 2 favorite Broadway composers, and I love them equally. They compliment each other well, and fill in each other's gaps. Sondheim is a fine dining experience, ALW is breakfast at IHOP. I'll eat both, thank you. They are not mutually exclusive and how lucky we are to live in a world of two great composers who have given me such joy.

Phantom was my gateway drug to musical theater, having first seen it at 11 years old, in Toronto, at the Pantages, with Colm Wilkinson with my mom. My mom and I saw it one last time on April 14, 2023, at the Majestic, the night before it closed forever.

I saw an astounding production of Aspects of Love at Walnut Street Theatre in Philly. Terrible, terrible story, but enthralling production.

It irks me when Sondheim fans trash ALW, or visa versa.

R25 - No love for As If We Never Said Goodbye?

What did Sondheim think of ALW?

I’ve told this second hand story before of my friend overhearing a pretentious man blathering endlessly about the work of Andrew Lloyd Webber, but referring to him instead as Frank Lloyd Wright.

Have you told that story before? Well, bless your heart.

Don't Cry for Me, Datalounge

The truth is I never left you

I like Buenos Aires from Evita.

I love most anything Patti. Problem is, she leans her head so far back I can see into her sinuses.

That neck muscle strains too.

For R50: I saw Whistle Down the Wind on its first Saturday night in London. The show stopped for 45 min. due to a set failure. The audience did a sing-along of ALW songs. Little did we know... The song "Tyre Tracks and Broken Hearts" -which is the most Steinman-sounding song in the show, was lifted note-for-note from the the song "English Girls" in the Broadway version of Song and Dance. The production was truly awful -overblown and badly done. The southern accents were worse than Dick Van Dyke's "cockney" in Mary Poppins. The choreography was by a six-year-old. The saddest thing, though, was that you could see the potential for a sweet, little show there. Cut away the scenic excess and the twee dancing. Jetison the unnecessary characters and songs, and you'd have a lovely chamber piece that would be truly moving, and with a beautiful score. ALW's fame and power are his own worst enemies. No one dares to say "NO" to him. His best later work is actually The Beautiful Game, which was quite good (if cast a little long-in-the-tooth for the story).

I don't think even Norma Desmond's turbans are quite as consummately gay as OP's original post.

How do we feel about "School of Rock?" I remember being surprised that ALW still had that kind of music in him, so many years after JCS.

Rock bottom:

The latest Sunset displayed all the weaknesses. The few scenes with Norma Desmond have any energy. The rest is a snooze.

The director tried hard to cover up the clunkiness with staging tricks: live camera, Joe sings from outside the theatre and then gets naked—but overall, who cares?

[Quote] How do we feel about "School of Rock?" I remember being surprised that ALW still had that kind of music in him, so many years after JCS.

Interestingly, when School of Rock was advertised, it barely mentioned ALW. I’m sure that was a choice

What does “Don’t Cry for me, Argentina” even mean?

I don’t even understand it in the context of the musical

Once Lupone was sidelined by ALW, Betty Buckley was desperate to be his new muse

Woman in White is just rubbish. Not even a good tune

A capricious man who does capricious acts.

- Faye Dunaway

Thanks for that, r62. Very interesting. I went and listened to English Girls. Wow! I knew Steinman frequently recycled material (aka plagiarized himself) but I'm surprised Webber would do it.

To me A Kiss Is A Terrible Thing To Waste is the most Steinman-sounding song. I think it's the epic song-cycle structure Steinman was fond of (segueing back and forth into Tyre Tracks and Broken Hearts.) Steinman certainly liked the title - he has 2 other songs in his catalog with the same name. One was recorded by the Everly Brothers in the 80s but not released until 2005. The other is a demo by his studio project Pandora's Box. Musically neither is anything like the Whistle Down The Wind song so I'll have to concede that must be entirely a Webber composition

He's nothing next to Stephen Sondheim.

[quote]It irks me when Sondheim fans trash ALW, or visa versa.

I'm always surprised when an ALW fan has even heard of Sondheim.

One of the great Frasier moments is when Frasier and Kate are getting to know each other and they do "favorite color", "favorite food" etc. They get to Favorite Musical.

He says Sweeney Todd. She says, enthusiastically, Cats. We can immediately see from his face it's not going to work out.

[quote]What does “Don’t Cry for me, Argentina” even mean?

It is meant to be the sort of speech Trump gives at rallies. Bombastic BS that doesn't mean anything you can put your finger on but sounds like you should be sympathetic towards the speaker. When Elaine Paige sang it, she was plainly using it to test the strength of the descamisados' support for her.

Tim Rice was shocked that people interpreted it as a beautiful ballad.

Lloyd Webber has always cannibalized his own catalog. Listen to "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again", "Pie Jesu", and "Another Suitcase in Another Hall" back to back. The song now known as "Unexpected Song" from Song and Dance had an earlier life in the original production as the song "When You Want to Fall in Love." Before that it was a song about limericks called "Literary Men" in the original Jeeves (not included on the cast album). As mentioned earlier, "English Girls" was reworked as "Tyre Tracks and Broken Hearts." The list goes on... It's one thing to reuse an unrecorded song from a flop show -but ALW takes it to extremes.

For the record, Leonard Bernstein cannibalized a huge amount of his unrecorded score for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. No one likes to give up on a great tune...

[quote]Tim Rice was shocked that people interpreted it as a beautiful ballad.

That's the power of music. The way it can directly summon emotions often heightens - or even subverts - the text.

[quote]No one likes to give up on a great tune...

It's also easier when you don't have to write the lyrics yourself and simply order someone else to come up with all the new ideas.

Remember how The Carpenters recorded "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina" back in the day? It was the first cover of the song. recorded and released before the show even opened in London. At that time, all the money was on "Another Suitcase In Another Hall" or "I'd Be Surprisingly Good For You" as the show's breakout song. Maybe Richard and Karen have more to do with the song's success than people realize...

Love Never Dies was known as Paint Never Dries. Even Harold Prince told Webber he couldn't help with that one.

I enjoy his bombs the ones that everyone hates like Aspects of Love(wonderful Nunn production) and Bad Cinderella. I wouldn't be caught dead at any of his hits. Even David Letterman on his show said with a look of horror on his face 'What if Cats really is forever?'

Memory is a great song

R12, Julian is his son.

No, R82, Julian Lloyd Webber the cellist is Andrew's brother.

[quote]A man who wants to be judged above all by his work.

Whether he's judged by his work or the incredibly stupid, childish, uncaring, selfish things he has said and done repeatedly over the years, the judgment is going to be extremely negative in the eyes of many people.

[quote]IMO, Phantom is solid and is his only show that stands with B&S’s Les Mis and Miss Saigon.

MISS SAIGON is shite.

Julia Lloyd Webber is Andrew's brother and a very accomplished cellist. Just listen to his rendition of the Elgar Cello Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Yehudi Menuhin.

ALW has to work very hard to crank out anything original. Sondheim was slow, but ALW was slower. So he often repurposed old songs. When push comes to shove, he "borrows" ballads from the great opera masters - sometimes a few notes, sometimes a phrase, sometimes the whole bloody song. Probably the most famous "borrow" was the song "All I Ask Of You" from The Phantom of the Opera. It is an almost direct ripoff of an aria in Giacomo Puccini's 1910 opera La Fanciulla Del West (Girl of The Golden West). One reviewer of Phantom jokingly said words to the effect, "I love Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals. They're the only ones you can hum tunes from walking into the theater."

My bad R83. I had their CD from years ago, and misremembered that Julian was his son. Is there another musician that has a musical son named Julian that I might be confusing them with?

[quote]Probably the most famous "borrow" was the song "All I Ask Of You" from The Phantom of the Opera. It is an almost direct ripoff of an aria in Giacomo Puccini's 1910 opera La Fanciulla Del West (Girl of The Golden West).

Right show, wrong song -- the PHANTOM number that has a long phrase lifted directly from LA FANCIULLA DEL WEST is "Music of the Night."

[quote]Like Lloyd Webber's song "The Music of the Night", "All I Ask of You" was compared to the music found in Giacomo Puccini's 1910 opera La fanciulla del West.

Specifically these lyrics match the Puccini score:

Say you love me every waking moment

Turn my head with talk of summertime

Say you need me with you now and always

Promise me that all you say is true

That's all I ask of you

R90, I know LA FANCIULLA DEL WEST very well, and I can't think of any section of it that sounds like that section of "All I Ask of You," whereas the "Silently the senses abandon their defenses" section of "Music of the Night" sounds very much like a section of the tenor aria "Quello che tacete" from Act I of FANCIULLA. In the recording at the link, you can hear that melody played by the orchestra right at the very beginning, and then later sung by the tenor beginning at 0:58 through around1:10.

[quote] Remember how The Carpenters recorded "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina" back in the day?

Dear lord, no, and I'm in my mid-fifties.

I can't hate ALW if only because he introduced me to the beauty of Michael Crawford as Erik. I adore that man.

And to think all the clueless teenies think the Ramin Kariloo guy is the definitive Phantom because that asshole ALW wont release the OG Phantom pro shot.

The caricature looks more like Charles Boyer.

The first time I ever enjoyed CATS was the recently drag version in downtown Manhattan, apparently transferring to Bway soon.

It combined two oddities from the 1980’s: Cats and Paris is Burning.

It finally made total sense

What Webber took from Fanciulla and I love that opera is no more what R Strauss took from Schubert. There are countless examples of famous composers taking from other great composers. I'm the last one to defend Webber but that whole thing about what he took from Fanciulla was way overdone. Even listening to the excerpt above sounds more like an influence than a steal. I never think of Phantom when I hear that music. And I saw the original production with Crawford and Brightman.

When I was working at Tower in the classical department many decades ago at Lincoln Center when it was still in the basement Webber came in with Brightman very late one night. It was a Thursday night which was Brightman's night off from Phantom. What was he asking for? Fanciulla Del West. The only commercial recording out on CD at that time was the Neblett/Domingo. We were out. Had he heard the work really or was it subconscious in a long ago memory? There was already the controversy and another clerk said to me you should have said 'You've already heard it.'

I LOVE The Carpenters but that was an egregious misfire.

R96 and John Williams is the biggest thief of them all!

Egregious misfire?? Karen is perfectly lovely, and does the song better than many Evas I've seen onstage.

[quote] And to think all the clueless teenies think the Ramin Kariloo guy is the definitive Phantom because that asshole ALW wont release the OG Phantom pro shot.

There's an original Phantom pro shot?

When Madonna was going to do Evita with Oliver Stone didn't she include Webber as one of the three most misogynistic men she had ever met? The other two were Stone and producer Robert Stigwood.

R100 yes but its basically under lock and key in the vaults as many other broadway pro shots. It's listed in the Lincoln Center Performing Arts library, but ALW basically has to give you signed permission to see it.

R98 tell me about it. If there were no Richard Strauss John Williams would still be Johnny Williams.

Has he ever apologized for inflicting Sarah Brightman on the world?

[quote]There was already the controversy and another clerk said to me you should have said 'You've already heard it.'

I loved you Tower classical dept staff!! So knowledgeable about the genre

The great operatic tenor Jose Carreras singing The Music of the Night

Jose Carreras singing Wishing You Were Somehow Herer Again