Conference Proceedings by Boris H Y Wong
Music On Stage, 2015
This paper aims to unveil the innovative uses of song placement convention of the American musica... more This paper aims to unveil the innovative uses of song placement convention of the American musical theater by Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim (b. 1930) and his collaborators. Traditionally, “book time” (the advancing plot) is suspended for “lyric time” (musical numbers) to exaggerate emotions of characters and highlight the presentational aspect of performance. Sondheim in many of his works not only shows his full understanding to this convention, but also manipulates it to give his songs an even deeper level of implication. As a case study, I suggest the above notion allows us to understand better the cocktail party scene featuring the song “Putting It Together” in Act 2 of Sunday in the Park with George (1984), with the modern artist George busily greeting his guests in the party while “singing aloud” the difficulties of practicing modern art. However, what needs further investigation is the interaction between the two orders of time within the musical number that makes it so dramatically intensified: “book time” and “lyric time,” which represent socializing events happening in the party and self-reflection of the protagonist respectively, not only alternate with each other but overlap and interrupt one another as the song progresses. Also interesting is that “book time” is not only progressive, but the sequential events of greeting various groups of guests are also “organized” by George in his “lyric time” to be presented cumulatively. Finally, I demonstrate how this manipulation of the convention expresses the subject of the musical on discussing the nature of art.
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MPhil Thesis by Boris H Y Wong
MPhil Thesis, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Jan 2014
The collaboration of Stephen Sondheim (b. 1930) with James Lapine (b. 1949) in the 1980s inspires... more The collaboration of Stephen Sondheim (b. 1930) with James Lapine (b. 1949) in the 1980s inspires the Broadway composer in new creative directions. Sunday in the Park with George (1984) and Into the Woods (1988) date from the period when Sondheim reconsidered his direction in the theatre business. Both works thematically echo this creative situation. The first show is a meditation on art in which a contemporary artist is lost in his creative career, while the second show reflects on the very nature of the theatre―a medium for storytelling.
Sondheim’s reconsideration is also reflected in the structural and technical levels of his works. Demonstrated through a selection of songs from both musicals, this thesis first studies how the composer reorganizes the generic disjunction of “the two orders of time” to achieve more effective dramatic portrayal and characterization (Chapter 1 and 3).
In these musicals Sondheim also demonstrates the genre’s capacity for deeper levels of score coherence. Individual songs within the works are not merely connected by the libretto, but also are united by recurring musical techniques and motives to form more complex musical structures. In Sunday in the Park with George, an arch-form structure operates subtly to connect a series of songs across the two acts (Chapter 2). In Into the Woods, the bean motive recurs extensively throughout the show, guiding the serious listeners to discern the moral lessons that the fairy-tale characters have acquired from their interactions with the beans (Chapter 4).
In a broader sense, the aim of this thesis is to better understand Sondheim’s aesthetic point of view on the convention of the Broadway musical as a genre. He conceives the convention as a springboard to explore different possibilities for storytelling and songwriting in the genre.
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Conference Presentations by Boris H Y Wong
Since Singapore gained independence from Malaysia in 1965, the formation of brass bands in school... more Since Singapore gained independence from Malaysia in 1965, the formation of brass bands in schools had been considered a “high priority” by the government, with the aim to “engender group discipline, esprit de corps and a sense of national identity.” The School Band Movement was therefore launched in 1966 to also compensate for the lack of marching bands to be deployed in national ceremonies. While the historical overview on the School Band Movement demonstrates the practical level of using the marching band to serve Singapore’s social and political needs, this paper argues that there is another level of ideological and metaphorical conceptualization. Sociological studies on Singapore’s national identity construction suggest that during the country’s early years of independence the rhetoric of survival was used by the state leaders in their public speeches and writings. With the understanding of the brass band as a metaphor of power, this paper portrays Singapore’s national identity through a discourse analysis of the state’s interpretations on the marching band. I suggest that the brass band manifests the ideology of survivalism, which was partly yet largely constructed from the event during the National Day Parade in 1968 when the marching band students had to perform in an unexpected heavy rainstorm. The event, with the conceptualization attached to the brass band since then, was constructed as a collective memory of the nation, and in turn inspired interpretations in cultural forms.
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This paper aims to unveil the innovative uses of song placement convention of the American musica... more This paper aims to unveil the innovative uses of song placement convention of the American musical theater by Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim (b. 1930) and his collaborators. Traditionally, “book time” (the advancing plot) is suspended for “lyric time” (musical numbers) to exaggerate emotions of characters and highlight the presentational aspect of performance. Sondheim in many of his works not only shows his full understanding to this convention, but also manipulates it to give his songs an even deeper level of implication.
As a case study, I suggest the above notion allows us to understand better the cocktail party scene featuring the song “Putting It Together” in Act 2 of Sunday in the Park with George (1984), with the modern artist George busily greeting his guests in the party while “singing aloud” the difficulties of practicing modern art. However, what needs further investigation is the interaction between the two orders of time within the musical number that makes it so dramatically intensified: “book time” and “lyric time,” which represent socializing events happening in the party and self-reflection of the protagonist respectively, not only alternate with each other but overlap and interrupt one another as the song progresses. Also interesting is that “book time” is not only progressive, but the sequential events of greeting various groups of guests are also “organized” by George in his “lyric time” to be presented cumulatively. Finally, I demonstrate how this manipulation of the convention expresses the subject of the musical on discussing the nature of art.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
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Conference Proceedings by Boris H Y Wong
MPhil Thesis by Boris H Y Wong
Sondheim’s reconsideration is also reflected in the structural and technical levels of his works. Demonstrated through a selection of songs from both musicals, this thesis first studies how the composer reorganizes the generic disjunction of “the two orders of time” to achieve more effective dramatic portrayal and characterization (Chapter 1 and 3).
In these musicals Sondheim also demonstrates the genre’s capacity for deeper levels of score coherence. Individual songs within the works are not merely connected by the libretto, but also are united by recurring musical techniques and motives to form more complex musical structures. In Sunday in the Park with George, an arch-form structure operates subtly to connect a series of songs across the two acts (Chapter 2). In Into the Woods, the bean motive recurs extensively throughout the show, guiding the serious listeners to discern the moral lessons that the fairy-tale characters have acquired from their interactions with the beans (Chapter 4).
In a broader sense, the aim of this thesis is to better understand Sondheim’s aesthetic point of view on the convention of the Broadway musical as a genre. He conceives the convention as a springboard to explore different possibilities for storytelling and songwriting in the genre.
Conference Presentations by Boris H Y Wong
As a case study, I suggest the above notion allows us to understand better the cocktail party scene featuring the song “Putting It Together” in Act 2 of Sunday in the Park with George (1984), with the modern artist George busily greeting his guests in the party while “singing aloud” the difficulties of practicing modern art. However, what needs further investigation is the interaction between the two orders of time within the musical number that makes it so dramatically intensified: “book time” and “lyric time,” which represent socializing events happening in the party and self-reflection of the protagonist respectively, not only alternate with each other but overlap and interrupt one another as the song progresses. Also interesting is that “book time” is not only progressive, but the sequential events of greeting various groups of guests are also “organized” by George in his “lyric time” to be presented cumulatively. Finally, I demonstrate how this manipulation of the convention expresses the subject of the musical on discussing the nature of art.
Sondheim’s reconsideration is also reflected in the structural and technical levels of his works. Demonstrated through a selection of songs from both musicals, this thesis first studies how the composer reorganizes the generic disjunction of “the two orders of time” to achieve more effective dramatic portrayal and characterization (Chapter 1 and 3).
In these musicals Sondheim also demonstrates the genre’s capacity for deeper levels of score coherence. Individual songs within the works are not merely connected by the libretto, but also are united by recurring musical techniques and motives to form more complex musical structures. In Sunday in the Park with George, an arch-form structure operates subtly to connect a series of songs across the two acts (Chapter 2). In Into the Woods, the bean motive recurs extensively throughout the show, guiding the serious listeners to discern the moral lessons that the fairy-tale characters have acquired from their interactions with the beans (Chapter 4).
In a broader sense, the aim of this thesis is to better understand Sondheim’s aesthetic point of view on the convention of the Broadway musical as a genre. He conceives the convention as a springboard to explore different possibilities for storytelling and songwriting in the genre.
As a case study, I suggest the above notion allows us to understand better the cocktail party scene featuring the song “Putting It Together” in Act 2 of Sunday in the Park with George (1984), with the modern artist George busily greeting his guests in the party while “singing aloud” the difficulties of practicing modern art. However, what needs further investigation is the interaction between the two orders of time within the musical number that makes it so dramatically intensified: “book time” and “lyric time,” which represent socializing events happening in the party and self-reflection of the protagonist respectively, not only alternate with each other but overlap and interrupt one another as the song progresses. Also interesting is that “book time” is not only progressive, but the sequential events of greeting various groups of guests are also “organized” by George in his “lyric time” to be presented cumulatively. Finally, I demonstrate how this manipulation of the convention expresses the subject of the musical on discussing the nature of art.