On Dec 30, 2004, at 3:38 PM, Daniel Wolf wrote:
A related question, just out of curiosity (since I have nothing to do with popular music theatre): The Budapest Operetta regularly plays musicals, and plays them with an orchestra of 30 or more players, using sets of parts that are rented from abroad. I understand that the Broadway originals are played with much smaller ensembles, so are such larger orchestrations produced in parallel to the smaller originals, or are smaller originals written to be expanded as resources permit?
Daniel Wolf
The older shows were often written for about 26 or so, easily expandable in the string department for the purposes of the cast recording, or when the budget allows. The nature of the musical theatre business was that they wouldn't hope to recover their investment until after the show had closed and gone on tour, and had been available for rental for a while, so they intentionally arranged them to be playable with smaller bands by cutting lower instrument parts, just like those dance stocks from the 50's.
Some revivals were re-arranged for smaller orchestras (in these cost-cutting times), and some of those reduced orchestrations are available by rental. I understand that the norm nowadays with all those large Disney productions is to have TWO sets of orchestrations done; one set for 26 or so musicians, to be played for the first few weeks until all the reviews are in and the cast album recorded; the other set cut down to 12 to 16 musicians to be played for the rest of the run. I consider this practice to be highly immoral, akin to the old "bait and switch" tactic used by unscrupulous salesmen.
Christopher
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