The Phantom of the Opera

Lloyd Webber has also been accused of plagiarism by Dutch composer Louis Andriessen, who described him as "yet to think up a single note; in fact, the poor guy's never invented one note by himself."

So, I'm going to be reviewing the 2004 film adaptation of “The Phantom of the Opera”, the most successful musical in history. This should be interesting…

I should point out that I'm only going to be focusing on the music, not the lyrics.

We start off in Paris 1919 (I thought it was supposed to be set in 1911? Oh well…) at a public auction. It’s in black & white which makes it look like a really old film from the 30s or something (not that there’s anything wrong with black and white films from the 30s, but this film was released in 2004 so it’s a bit stupid…*)

*pre-emptive defence:  Yeah, alright, films like Schindler’s List and The Artist are in black and white too, but at least they were black and white for the whole film and not randomly switching between that and colour all the time for no reason (ending of Schindler’s List is in colour, yes, but that’s when it moves forward to modern day)

Old crap from the theatre is being sold at auction, including some music box with a monkey on it.

They then proceed to uncover the chandelier while a Pink Floyd song is playing. No wait, sorry, that’s the phantom of the opera leitmotif, my mistake. They raise the chandelier up as the film transitions from black & white to colour (1919 Paris – 1870 Paris).

The whole “black and white transition to colour” thing doesn’t really work here, especially since it starts black and white in 1919 then goes further back in time and ends up in colour. Apparently in this universe technicolor film was invented in the 19^th century but was abolished in the early 20^th century. I’m well aware that the point of it is to contrast the two time periods (before and after the incidents with the Phantom), but why couldn’t they have just used darker imagery for the 1919 scenes instead of making it all black and white? It’s not that hard to do, really, and it would have looked a lot better. 

An instrumental version of the Phantom of the Opera song plays throughout the transition. It’s ridiculous, because it’s supposed to be the dark theme of the Phantom, but it’s being played over unrelated scenes in the theatre; we’ve got some guys coming out of a stagecoach and entering the theatre, then inside the theatre everyone is getting ready for a dress rehearsal. With that theme over the top it sets a really dark tone for something that isn’t dark at all. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear the guy who organised the music for the film put it in the wrong place.

Now, one could argue that this is foreshadowing or simply portraying the theatre as a dark place of mystery or whatever… But no, I’m sorry, it’s just shit.

Overture

I joked earlier about the intro of this sounding like a Pink Floyd song, but to be fair it’s just a chromatic run and I doubt Webber deliberately stole the theme. If anyone knows how easy it is to accidently steal a theme, even when you’ve never heard of the band/song/piece you supposedly “stole” from, it’s me (happens to me all the time…).

This track basically starts off as an instrumental version of the main Phantom of the Opera song. The song itself isn’t that bad actually (he’s done a lot worse, that’s for damn sure) and this instrumental version does sound quite cool in places. I prefer this instrumental to the version with vocals.

It starts off with the chromatic theme on a pipe organ. Bb down to Gb then back up again. Then that develops by including notes on the high-end of the organ. We kick things off properly in the key of Bb minor, with the organ playing arpeggios while low brass instruments plays the melody. The melody starts off in the natural minor, but then for one descending run, it begins by descending in the natural minor and finishes on an A natural for a bit of variety (got to love that sharped 7^th degree – dat harmonic minor scale). It definitely sounds very dark and the organ arpeggios actually sound pretty cool. I think it would be better off without that shitty drum sound in the background though.

After that part, the piece modulates to B minor and the melody is taken over by higher pitched brass instruments for a nice contrast while the organ arpeggios continue. The contrast between the brass and organ throughout this whole instrumental sounds good. It’s a shame about the drums though.

This section finishes off with the chromatic run, but played a semi-tone higher, with B – G now.

When the instrumental finishes, it goes into the music from the dress rehearsal. It starts off monophonic with just a solo soprano melody, then a full chorus with orchestra joins in with the solo soprano, in F major. The piece ends with a very classical-esque cadence.

This part of the track is very short, lasting just under a minute. The chorus part is very mid-late 18^th century opera (and perhaps even early 19^th century), making simple use of functional harmony to build to the cadence. The monophonic singing part varies between melismatic and syllabic passages and does feature some variation in dynamics which prevents it from being boring (thus retaining listener interest).

Unfortunately though, neither parts are particularly good. They’re not bad but they don’t strike me as being particularly impressive.  It’s just simple melodies with simple harmony.

The instrumental theme, while sounding pretty damn cool with the organ-brass contrast, doesn’t really feature anything impressive, musically, besides what I already mentioned. The drums are also out of place here and should have been left out. There isn’t really anything impressive about this in terms of the composition and the techniques. It’s all so simple. Generally speaking, for music to be popular, it needs to be simple with predictable melodic lines and chord progressions, which explains exactly why Andrew Lloyd Webber’s works are generally very popular.

The reason simple, predictable music is the most popular is because the brain dislikes music that is “challenging” (with simple music, the brain knows what’s coming next because it follows a certain pattern – functional harmony which aims to resolve itself on the tonic chord – and the brain likes patterns! This is evident in many aspects of life besides music, most notably the acquisition of language, which is studied by developmental linguists – You know how children keep making “mistakes” when speaking? That’s the brain trying to make sense of the language. The brain tries to find patterns in speech and tries to work the language out. This is actually one method by which language constantly evolves. An example: I dive, I dived, I dove – the traditional past-tense form of ‘dive’ is ‘dived’ and that is the one used in Britain. However, in America and Canada, dove is becoming more frequently used in certain areas for the past-tense form. The reason for this? – I drive, I drove. Therefore, I dive, I dove. It’s a perfectly logical conjugation when you think about it. In English, there are two main classes of verb – Germanic Strong Verb and Germanic Weak Verb. Strong verbs have a vowel change to indicate past tense (drive - drove) whereas weak verbs add –ed (dive – dived). Interestingly, many strong verbs have ended up changing over to weak verbs since the times of Old English, but in this instance America/Canada is taking a step back (from Weak Verb to Strong Verb) with the verb ‘dive’. I could go into more detail about all this, but I’m already way off track as it is…). This is why certain classical music (particularly contemporary music of the 20^th century) is considered “hard to listen to” because it goes against what your brain expects to hear by making use of stuff that doesn’t follow an expected progression based on Tonic-SubDominant-Dominant and uses interrupted cadences, notes outside the diatonic scale, etc. This is generally why Classical-era music is the easiest to “get into” for non-classical listeners, because it basically all uses functional harmony, with periodic phrasing for melodic lines (basically, melodies that follow patterns). The melody-dominated homophony of classical music certainly helps too, since pop music nearly always uses the same texture (chords with a melody over the top). Then Baroque is the next easiest, because it follows the same diatonic functions as the Classical era, but the texture is more complex (particularly in Late Baroque music), being contrapuntal rather than homophonic. Also, melodies are usually heavily decorated and less “singable” than classical melodies, which might upset the brains of modern people. The music of the classical period is generally less complex than that of the baroque period; it all pretty much uses simply tonic-dominant progressions… Then Romantic music comes along and starts going away from the “rules” set in the baroque and classical periods, which is why Romantic can be hard to get into (especially late romanticism, with the likes of impressionist music showing up, using whole tone scales and shit). The hardest to get into is probably 20^th century contemporary music, where a lot of experimentation with music can be found which completely throws functional harmony out the window and does whatever the hell it wants. Modern pop music is so mind-numbingly simple and extremely predictable which is why so many people like it (it’s easy to listen to because it follows simple patterns!).

…But I digress…

I’m not going to attack his music for being simple since that’s the style he’s going for, but he does need to do a bit more in terms of development and orchestration to make up for the simplistic nature of the songs.

The second part is also extremely simple; it literally sounds like Webber took a single lesson on functional harmony and then wrote that chorus section. To be fair to him though, a lot of classical composers would end an aria this simply, not making things too complex and it serves as a nice big “full stop” to the song and is a clear indicator to the audience that the song is finished (off the top of my head, I can recall a few Salieri arias ending in this fashion).

But wait a minute… Isn’t this supposed to be 1870? That’s late-Romantic territory and I’m pretty sure late-Romantic arias didn’t end so classically. I dunno, maybe they’re supposed to be performing an old classical opera? All I can say is that if it is supposed to be a new late 19^th century opera, then Webber has failed.

With all this taken into consideration, I’ll give it:

6/10

The music finally stops and we see the dress rehearsal in action.

Wait a minute… Is that Hornswoggle?

Well that was random.

Anyway, the rehearsal is interrupted by some joker who announces his retirement and hands over ownership of the theatre to two other jokers. Interestingly enough, one of them is Albert Einstein.

In this universe, he went into scrap metal trading rather than theoretical physics.

Now we are introduced to Christine and Raúl (who doesn’t play football in this universe). Before anyone starts crying: Yes, I do realise it’s actually spelt Raoul.

After that crap is over, the dress rehearsal continues. After the rehearsal, the female lead has a breakdown over the fact that the new owners are fools and refuses to perform in the public performance. They manage to convince her to sing an aria for them right there, so she proceeds to sing “Think of Me”.

There’s a very disturbing moment during this rendition of “Think of Me” where Albert Einstein jizzes in his pants:

The guy standing behind them is not impressed...

Just as Einstein is reaching his 2^nd climax, one of the backdrops collapses! Turns out the phantom didn’t like her singing. Either that or he was disturbed by Einstein’s jizzing.

Because of this, the lead singer throws another fit and starts screaming something incomprehensible (I don’t even want to guess what language it’s supposed to be) and storms off.

Turns out the phantom dropped these fools a letter welcoming the new owners to the opera house, demands that box 5 is left empty so he can use it, and reminds the fools that his salary is due. Right…

The owners decide to let Christine play the lead role since the screaming bitch refuses to perform. To test her out, they have her sing the “Think of Me” aria the screaming bitch was singing earlier (for some reason, the first rendition of Think of Me was in F# major, but Christine’s version is in D major).

Einstein proceeds to jizz several times during her rendition.

The film does a cool transition from that scene to the public performance. It’s very well done, I must say.

After Christine stops singing for a moment, the audience applauds and Raúl decides to start singing as he leaves the theatre… But the performance isn’t over yet! Christine starts singing again (why were people applauding in the middle of an aria anyway? The damn thing wasn’t finished).

NOW the aria is finished and she gets a standing ovation.

Think of Me

It starts off with a simple piano part playing D major arpeggios with Christine singing a simple melody. It progresses Tonic - Dominant - Subdominant - Dominant, repeated twice, then it switches to the relative minor (B minor), initially making use of the harmonic minor before reverting to the natural minor with the progression B minor – F# major – B minor – E minor – D major – B minor – E minor – F# minor – G minor  A major – D major.  The vocal line has a nice ascending diminished arpeggio over the F# major chord in this bit (A# - C# - E), which is cool (well, actually, it’s an F# dominant 7th arpeggio, but the F# is held for longer, then the A# C# E arpeggio is played quickly). After the A major – D major cadence, the orchestra comes in and the piece modulates to Eb major (what is it with Webber and modulations to the minor supertonic?). In this section, the strings take over the melody for a short while before Christine sings again. The progression is the same as before, just a semi-tone higher, obviously. The orchestration is nothing special; a few arpeggios here and there, but it mostly serves only to provide the backing chords for Christine to sing over. It could have benefited from some intelligent call and response, but I guess that’s asking a bit too much of Webber.

After Christine finishes, Raúl begins to sing (basically the same melody as the one Christine was singing) for a few bars before Christine takes over again. It builds up to a cadence, but… Webber tries to be clever and interrupts the cadence with an extended monophonic vocal line before finally resolving. It’s a popular technique used by many respected composers throughout history (particularly composers of lieder in the 19^th century), so I can’t complain, right? Wrong… You see, if you’re going to do something like this you have to make it flow properly. What Webber does is he stops the music then busts out a random vocal line which features a bit of ornamentation, then stops momentarily before coming back in with the orchestra to resolve. Because of this, it lacks a natural musical flow and thus ends up sounding a bit out of place with the rest of the song. He should have kept the vocal line going after the music stopped and then flow directly into an arpeggiated vocal line, flow (with crescendo) directly into the final note when the orchestra comes back in, then resolve together. This would have given it a nice flow.

In this song’s defence, the melody is quite nice (simple but effective), so I can’t really moan at that. To be honest, that’s usually the only positive thing I ever have to say about Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music – He makes some nice melodies (well, when he’s not stealing them from other composers), I’ll give him that. It’s just a shame he doesn’t know how to develop these melodies properly.

Visually, there’s not much to say about it. She just stands still on stage for some reason (back when I was studying music performance at college, we were always told to keep things interesting for the audience, visually – standing completely still on stage wouldn’t get us very good marks for performance). Well, to be fair, she does move her arms a bit, so it’s not all bad; it’s just that a bit more movement would have been more visually interesting for the audience (not that they seemed to care; they applauded twice – once in the middle of the aria and again at the end).

Well, anyway… I give this:

6/10

We see Raúl wandering around backstage with more appropriate music for the scene – It’s nice, simple, major key so it fits better than the dark crap used at the start. Unfortunately this music doesn’t last long, as it quickly goes into an instrumental version of “Think of Me”. However, this version is just strings and still works with the scene (at least it doesn’t have deep brass and pipe organs and shit).

Next we see Christine in… Actually, where the fuck is she? It looks like a church.

Then that Meg girl comes in and we hear about how Christine hears voices all the time. She thinks it’s the spirit of her father or something. She heads off with Meg to the dressing room while continuing to sing about some angel of music.

Angel of Music

This starts with Meg singing over a harp playing chords and arpeggios. Then strings take over the theme for a few bars before Christine comes in with the harp back playing arpeggios again, but with strings reinforcing the chords as well this time. It starts in 6/8 time in the key of Bb major, playing Tonic -Dominant progressions, as usual. Then for Christine’s part, it modulates to the relative minor and progresses Gminor – Eb major – C minor – D major (sharped 7^th degree, for the win?). Christine’s melody on this bit actually has legit antecedent-consequent phrasing here!

*Cue Handel’s hallelujah chorus*

It works and sounds good! It has a nice melodic shape! Not only that, but the string section has a nice response of its own after each of Christine’s lines, before going into the next one. For once, Webber, you’re doing it right. The flow from the strings to Christine singing actually works well for once (the way it flows into the relative minor). I must admit, I’m quite shocked that Webber is using call and response here, and it’s actually not bad. Sure, it’s not exactly Mozartean, but it sure as hell puts Tsunku to shame (not that that’s hard to do). It features a crescendo which builds up to… absolutely nothing. Well, it “builds” to a simpler, thinner version of the theme with less going on. In this next section, the roles are reversed; Christine sings the bit in Bb major while Meg sings the G minor section. This song uses a lot of doubling with the instruments – as in, he uses an instrument to play the same melody as the voice to reinforce it or give it depth. He varies this by using different instruments to double up the vocal line which sometimes works, but sometimes it just sounds weird. Meg takes over the melody once again, and as her part finishes the song builds nicely with a crescendo into the next part with Christine singing again. The way it modulates here is nice – We’re in Db major now, with the same melody and progression as before, just higher up. Unfortunately, this next bit is a disgrace. For some strange reason, Webber thought it would be a good idea to put in the most annoying cello line of all time; it plays the same note (tonic) continuously in a constant quaver rhythm. I don’t know what he was thinking. Maybe he thought he was being clever by using a tonic pedal? Thankfully it doesn’t last too long. The next section is interesting; we have some call and response with the two vocalists. I guess Webber went all out for this one. Very simple stuff, but I’m still shocked he used it at all. They also harmonise each other at points – The harmonies are a bit disturbing for some reason, but there are certain points where it works nicely.

As with the previous song, the melodies are simple and don’t really develop as the song progresses. Webber’s use of rhythmic and melodic variation is limited at the best of times, but I don’t think he does anything in this one (besides some nice antecedent-consequent phrasing for one melody). Well, unless you count modulation as development… Which I guess counts (it would be hypocritical of me to say otherwise, since I do this myself), but I demand more, damn it!

I’ll give this:

6/10

If Webber decides to do something creative for a change in the later songs, maybe he’ll get higher than a 6…

When she finally shuts up, she goes into a room which I can only assume is her indoor garden.

Shortly after, Raúl finally shows up and gives her more flowers for her garden, which he stole from the owners just outside the room. Of course, they bust out into song and reminisce. No point reviewing this “song”, since it’s too short.

This is classic - He says the line “You sang like an angel tonight”… Well, apparently it wasn’t good enough to keep you in your seat because you got up, started fucking singing and walked out in the middle of the aria.

And how did it take him so long to get to the room when:

1.          He left the performance hall LONG before she did, since he got bored half way through her aria.
2.        After she finished she went to that church room, or whatever you want to call it, where she stayed for a while (she even took the time to sing a duet with that Meg girl). 

So he had plenty of time to get to her room, even if he didn’t know where it was. It’s beyond me how she made it to the room before him. Hell, he had enough time to go and meet her as she was getting off the stage if he moved quickly enough!

After Raúl leaves, we see someone locking the door and all the lights in the opera house go out. Then the candles mysteriously go out in her garden! Turns out it’s the phantom, who starts singing. This turns into a duet based on the “Angel of Music” song. Raúl returns to the room and starts crying because it’s locked and he can hear the phantom singing. It turns out that the mirror is actually a secret door and she goes with the phantom through it. Right… How did no one notice this before? Fascinates me.

The Mirror

This is the duet with the phantom and Christine. The song is based on the “Angel of Music” song from earlier, so I won’t have to write too much about this.

It starts off with the phantom singing over some weird ass noises, with some low woodwind joining in later. Christine takes over the theme with those noises still in the background and has woodwind backing her up (higher pitched this time). Then strings come in to reinforce the melody line, which the phantom sings (thankfully, those annoying noises are gone now). This builds up with a nice crescendo into… Oh fuck no. He had to, didn’t he? That bastard cello line from “Angel of Music” is back again. Dammit, it lasts a lot longer this time as well. He trolls us too, because it stops briefly at one point, making us think we’ve been spared from anymore torture, but it comes back again after a couple of seconds. While this is all going on, the strings provide the chords.

The song finishes off with a constant steady beat. It’s like a less annoying version of the cello line, but it’s still annoying. It also features an organ (well, the very high end of the organ; no low end organ sounds here) and there’s one bit with tremolo strings, for some reason (they only show up briefly and come out of nowhere, then go away again as suddenly as they came). The phantom sings over the top of this.

The modulation spam in this song is disturbing. Starts off in Bb major, as in Angel of Music, but then when Christine comes in, it modulates up to the minor supertonic (again…), so in B major now (well, I suppose technically it’s C flat major if it’s the minor supertonic of Bb major, but who cares? Let’s just say it goes up a semitone…). Then, in the section after the crescendo, we’re in D major. I’m pretty sure it ends in D minor (the bit with the phantom singing at the end). Since the Phantom of the Opera song (which starts immediately after this one finishes) starts in D minor, that makes sense, I guess.

This time round, there is no call and response. In fact, the entire thing is a lot simpler and has less depth than before. This is definitely not as good as “Angel of Music”.

Yet again, there is no real development, besides modulation. Webber seems to think putting more noises in as the song progresses counts as “development”… That’s not exactly what I’m talking about, fool. Please try to do something with the melody…

5/10

After she goes with the phantom through the mirror, the famous “Phantom of the Opera” song starts. So, they head on back to the phantom’s lair. This guy has a serious candle fetish; I’ve never seen so many candles in my life… He even has candles coming out of the damn water! (They light up as soon as they emerge, because he’s magic, apparently). There are candles all over the place down here. He’s lucky he’s magic, or he’d be spending a fucking fortune on matches to light these damn things.

Phantom of the Opera

It starts off with that chromatic run I mentioned before (in the overture section). This time it’s in D minor, so the run is D-Bb. It has an annoying constant noise playing throughout this song. I don’t know what it’s supposed to be but it sounds shit. Drums actually work for this version, unlike the version from the overture, but these drum sounds are a disgrace. I have no problem with the beat itself, because it actually works fine, but the sounds make me sick.

The melodies and stuff are the same as in the overture, so I don’t need to go over that again (like what scale it’s using).

After the chromatic intro, Christine sings her stanza. It has that annoying noise playing throughout, of course (this noise is actually worse than the cello from “Angel of Music” and “The Mirror”, believe it or not… And it never stops!). The melody is actually quite good and even features nice development (Shock! What’s the world coming to?). The drum beat continues in this section too and it also features strings playing the chords. After the stanza, we get a reprise of the chromatic run from the beginning.

The phantom now has a stanza. Basically the same as Christine’s stanza, but in G minor this time (same melody and the music is basically the same except for a few bits of extra percussion… because, you know, he “develops” the music). After this, we get another reprise of the chromatic run.

Okay, this is getting old Webber… Another stanza, but with both of them this time… Same damn music and melody again. Alright, sure, it has modulated to E minor this time, but who cares? The melody is UNCHANGED yet again! So, Webber, the extent of your “melodic development” skills is putting a variation of the melody in the same stanza and leaving it at that for the rest of the song? Well, that and modulation.  Christine starts off, then the phantom takes over briefly before they harmonise together (in octaves, because Webber is creative). After this, we get yet another reprise of the chromatic run but with a string melody over the top as well this time! How exciting.

You’ll never guess what comes next. It’s another stanza with the same motherfucking melody and music. Well, almost the same; it has more noises this time… Like I said in the previous song review:

Webber seems to think putting more noises in as the song progresses counts as “development”

You’re doing it wrong, Webber.

Anyway… This is basically the opposite of the previous stanza – Phantom starts off singing, then Christine takes over briefly before they harmonise together (unison/octaves/whatever again). Also, it modulates yet again, this time to F minor.

I know I said earlier the melody is good, but after you hear it about 20 times (unchanged each time), it gets old pretty damn fast. After this, we get ANOTHER chromatic run reprise…

Wow, a new section! Well, kind of… It’s basically just the chromatic run being repeated but with Christine singing over the top.  I have to admit, this is one of the best sections of music Webber has ever created. The vocal line is just a descending and ascending line, but it is possibly the most impressive vocal writing he’s done (don’t worry though – it’s not that impressive. It’s just impressive for Webber). Well, that’s assuming he did write it (perhaps he stole it from a 19^th century or early 20^th century composer? That’s what he usually does).The reason this section is particularly good (for Webber standards, at least) is the way it all flows; the melody line (which gets insanely high, by the way. I think Mozart’s Queen of the Night is one of the few (if not only) arias/songs that go higher) flows nicely over the chromatic run and the way it flows through the modulations is also good. However, Webber decides to put random organ noises in it which disrupt what was going on and don’t really add anything.  I can tell what he was trying to do with the organ, but he has lost. It’s another classic case of “Webber putting too much unnecessary shit in the instrumentation/orchestration which makes the song end up sounding like a mess”. This section starts in F minor, then modulates to G minor, then finally to A minor.

The song finishes off with a few descending bass lines with the phantom singing over it (also singing descending lines). Then he randomly starts screaming the same melody an octave higher for a short while, and then quietens down again when he realises the person he’s talking (/singing) to is right in front of him, so there’s no need to shout.

I call bullshit on this - In the film, Christine is sitting down throughout her whole “Sing, my angel of music” vocal section… I’m pretty sure that’s not even possible - you can’t do that sort of crap while sitting down; you need to be stood up and use your full lung capacity and shit (It’s pretty much impossible to do this kind of singing sitting down in a boat, especially with those loud high pitched held notes with vibrato).

6/10

The melodies, even though they are constantly repeated and get old, are actually good (especially that “Sing, my angel of music” section) and are among his best. The annoying noise that plays throughout the whole song drives me insane though and the drums sound shit, but on the whole it’s not a complete piece of shit. Also, to be fair to him, the way he frequently modulates is good and it does keep things fairly interesting despite the repetition. However, it would be nice to hear something else happen, besides a bombardment of modulations.

Due to my constant complaining about his melodies and how he “doesn’t develop them” or “do anything with them”, by now you’re probably wondering “Well, what the HELL counts as good development then, you idiot?”. A good question and one I probably should answer now before I go any further.

With all Webber melodies, he has his antecedent phrase and consequent phrase(s), which is standard melodic writing. With this subject (musical phrase/idea/theme/whatever) he usually only “develops” it through the use of modulation. There is absolutely nothing wrong with using modulation to develop a song and keep things interesting, but there is something wrong with using the same damn subject nonstop throughout a whole song. Even if it’s in a different key, if it uses the same intervals and rhythms, it’s the same damn subject. When one wants to look at good development of a subject, one need not look any further than the late 18^th century sonata form and the master of that form, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He develops a subject by presenting alternatives of it, such as changed rhythms, inversions, same rhythms with different intervals (etc) all to add variety and develop the piece. By using techniques such as inversions, he can take the listener “on a musical journey”, because it is still the subject and the listener subconsciously (or perhaps sometimes consciously, for people who understand about subject development and listen out for it in compositions… but for the average person, it’s usually subconscious) recognises that pattern as the subject, so the listener can feel the music developing as it progresses even when they aren’t consciously aware of it (we’re back to the issue of the brain liking patterns :P). If one was to use a completely different subject for each section, rather than developing the main subject, then it wouldn’t work because the brain of the listener would be like “What is this shit? This isn’t a pattern! I am disappoint…” and therefore the piece would be uninteresting. Likewise, using the exact same subject for the whole piece would present the same problem (unless you’re writing a minimalist piece, which requires repetition of an idea) but to a lesser extent; it is still the same pattern but it’s not really going anywhere.

Perhaps you are already moaning that “This is a song from a musical, not a fucking classical symphony” and yeah, alright, fair enough, but Mozart did use similar subject development techniques for his arias so the point still stands! The next argument would be that this is 20^th century musical, not an opera. Yeah, but musicals are considered the “modern opera”. Some musicals are better suited with songs of a typical pop style (in terms of songwriting/composition), like High School Musical, so one wouldn’t expect much subject development there… However, Webber’s style (in this musical, at least) is extremely similar to the style of late 19^th century/early 20^th century opera composers, so that is why I demand some kind of development. Not necessarily Mozartean development, but he needs to move the melodies in some kind of direction, surely!

I’ll present an early 20^th century aria which shows off how to develop a simple phrase.

It’s “Nessun Dorma” by Puccini. Just listen to how the phrase flows into its variations. That is some serious phrase writing there! Also pay attention to the call and response phrasing between the strings and voice. The way he adds to the instrumentation as the song progresses to add more depth is also impressive (whereas Webber adds to the instrumentation simply to add more noises, as I already mentioned). He doesn’t overcomplicate things by adding unnecessary layers of sound, like Webber does; he keeps it simple and gives the melody depth at the right moments. Now, perhaps you may think “Well, the same thing repeats again later without any change! So why are you picking on Webber?”  And if you are thinking that, you have failed. The phrase itself is well-developed already if you actually listen to its variation. Meanwhile, Webber does minimal variations in his consequent phrase(s) and just repeats it. Puccini takes the antecedent and adds a few interesting consequent phrases and this ends up with a phrase intended to be the main part of the aria (like a Chorus in pop songs). The bit that repeats is actually an alternate version of the phrase; it starts the same (just orchestra, before the vocals join in again) but then as it is ending it nicely builds into the resolution of the aria. THIS IS THE DEVELOPMENT I AM LOOKING FOR IN WEBBER’S SONGS! I’m not asking him to vary the subject considerably every single time it repeats; I want him to build it up and lead into other sections or resolutions or variations or whatever. What Webber does instead is bombard us with the same damn thing constantly, adding unnecessary layers of noise and doing nothing but modulate. That Puccini aria is nice and short, so the main phrase does not become too repetitive, unlike Webber’s songs which repeat the same damn melodies for about 5 minutes.

There is a reason I picked a Puccini aria for this example – Because Webber is actually considered by some to be “the modern Puccini”. To be honest, I agree with that; his style of writing (particularly in this Phantom of the Opera musical) is very similar, albeit inferior, to the style of Puccini’s post-romantic operatic style. For example, Puccini’s operas were usually through-composed (no recitatives, just continuous music), much like Webber’s Phantom of the Opera, and he used leitmotivs, like Webber does here. Not to mention the fact Webber mimics (or tries to, at least) Puccini’s orchestration style (especially in terms of how the instrumentation adds depth or whatever to the melody). So, since Webber is supposed to be the new Puccini, I expect more Puccini-style developments.

Anyway…

This goes straight into the next song, “Music of the Night”. Not much going on here – He’s just showing her the lair while singing about how she’s going to sing for him (singception).

This guy isn’t wasting any time; this is the first time they’ve actually met (before this, she thought he was the spirit of her father) yet he’s pulling all kinds of moves on her.

It’s beyond me how she’s able to take this with no objections; he’s rubbing his hands over her while singing “you will belong to me”.

This guy has serious issues… Serious issues… He has a life size model of Christine in his lair (when he showed the real Christine, she fainted… I hope she now realises how much of a freak this guy is). I honestly don’t even want to guess what he does with that model.

Now he just put the unconscious Christine on his bed! Admittedly, it’s a badass bed, but that doesn’t mean you can use it as an excuse to rape a woman you’ve been stalking.

 “Quello che tacete” from Puccini’s “La Fanciulla del West” Music of the Night

The first thing that needs to be debated is whether or not this really does rip off Puccini. The melody in question is from the aria “Quello che tacete” and the version that shows up in Music of the Night is quite literally a note-for-note copy of it. I mentioned earlier that it’s surprisingly easy to accidently steal melodies, but is that the case here? Admittedly, there is a possibility that it is mere coincidence, but I firmly believe that he stole this one and I’ll explain why:

1.       This Puccini melody actually features good development and phrasing, as one would expect from a Puccini aria. This is the first big clue that Webber stole it because, let’s be honest, when was the last time we actually heard him using melodic variation/development like this? Never! This isn’t a typical Andrew Lloyd Webber melody; it’s too impressive to be a Webber melody! One could argue “oh, maybe he just had a moment of genius” but my reply to that is “fuck you”… I’m not buying it, I’m afraid.
2.        If the first point wasn’t enough, this is the one that really confirms it for me: The Puccini estate filed a lawsuit against this song and it was settled out of court with no details released to the public! Sounds a bit fishy to me…

The combination of those two points is what convinces me that he stole this. Feel free to come to your own conclusion though.

Anyway…

We start off with the phantom singing over strings playing the chords, as usual. It starts off with a simple melody which ends up as the Puccini melody. The strings play some tremolo parts under the Puccini bit. After the phantom sings for a bit, a string melody takes over for a while before the phantom comes back in. We hear a bit of pizzicato on the low strings when the phantom starts singing again and we also get some woodwind adding a bit of depth to the piece (well, kind of… They don’t fit brilliantly, but oh well). It’s basically just a repeat of the first bit though, on the whole.

It starts in Db major 4/4 time, but initially with a compound time feel (triplets) before going back to the standard 4/4 time feel, and essentially follows the same progressions as the previous songs.

Then it builds with a crescendo into more Puccini. This bit actually uses some impressive call and response, surprisingly (the strings and voice use nice little “question + answer” phasing). This climaxes with a serious falsetto note as the music dies away and it gets quiet again. This bit is highly impressive (I guess that’s thanks to Puccini), because it goes all over the place – B major, E major, A major, Eb major, Ab major, then finally resolving on a Db major chord with the falsetto. The phrasing here is also good (thanks, Puccini?) and the way it flows over the epic chord progression I just mentioned is awesome.

Following this, we get a repeat of the first section with some pretty poor part writing, it must be said. For some reason he puts in chromatic runs on the strings to try and add depth, but it serves only to disturb me. No modulation this time! Same key(s) as before.

It then builds with crescendo into a repeated section (the part with good call and response – the bit that goes all over the damn place), which also features good phrasing, but the brass is bit too dominating here. Why aren’t those bad boys playing con sordino? This climaxes with another falsetto (well, it’s not really falsetto this time; nowhere near high enough), but rather than the music dying away, the music (and voice) stops momentarily before going into a quieter passage. This short break in the music actually works pretty well and sounds good.

After the quiet passage, we get another repeat of the opening section. Thankfully, Webber omitted the disturbing string runs this time round. Yet again, it’s the same key(s) as before. I guess Webber finally got bored of his semitone modulations! Following this, we get a repeat of the first section again but it’s instrumental this time round, with brass playing the melody.  After a while, the phantom comes back in when the music gets quieter to finish up the song with a cadence. It’s actually an interesting cadence, because it doesn’t resolve as one would expect; the voice resolves, but the chords carry on before finally resolving (while the vocal note is being held throughout). Pretty impressive stuff, I must say.  

Throughout the piece, Webber uses instruments to double up the voices as he did with previous songs. Again, he varies the instrument which does the doubling to provide some contrast.

Overall, I give this:

6/10

This may possibly be one of the best songs in Phantom of the Opera (and one of the best Webber songs in general), perhaps because he didn’t write most of the melodies in it. I would have given this a higher score, but I deducted points because it’s Puccini. Even so, it still has some creative stuff in here: The call and response used here is good and the way he interrupted the cadence at the end was pretty good and the orchestration is impressive at some points. Unfortunately, some of the part writing in this is disgraceful so I guess it all balances out in the end. Also, the scenes in the film while this song is playing are deeply disturbing, which doesn’t help the rating. This is the sort of thing I meant when I said he has Puccini’s style of writing (alright, sure, he stole from Puccini for this, so I guess that would make sense here) – The way the orchestration works in this song sounds very much like Puccini’s style, such as the way the orchestration “answers” the vocal lines and takes over the main theme from the voice at certain parts and at the resolution. The way the phrase builds (like the one I pointed out earlier, with Nessun Dorma) is great and it leads to new sections and the resolution like I was asking for! I would have given this 8 or 9 out of 10 if it wasn’t a rewritten Puccini aria.

When that ends, Meg shows up at Christine’s garden (who the fuck unlocked the door? And where the hell did Raúl go!? Did he just say “well, fuck her then” and walk away!?). She wanders around the garden looking for Christine, but then notices the secret door in the mirror! Of course, she goes in because she is a fool. While she wonders around down there, Madame Giry shows up behind her and drags her stupid ass back.

Then we get a weird scene in the dormitory in which Madame Giry slaps a bitch.

Bitchslap

Right, well after that very short and very random scene we are back in the phantom’s lair.

Christine awakens, gets out of the bed and starts singing (of course) about what she remembers from the night before. Then the bitch does something pretty stupid – She goes up to the phantom and takes his mask off. He completely flips out, pushes her over and starts screaming some shit (I have no idea what though). To say he goes “batshit crazy” would be a gross understatement... What an overreaction.

Right… Now he’s singing. Only in a musical will you find people who start singing when they completely flip out, I guess.

I’m not going to bother fully reviewing these ones, since they aren’t actually full songs, but I will say they are pretty shit.

Well, he seems completely calm now, you’d think nothing happened.

Damn it, now it’s gone “back” (or should that be “forward”?) to 1919 Paris again and it’s in black and white… They have failed me for the last time.

The auction has finished and we see the guy who bought the music box sitting in a stagecoach. He nods his head to the woman outside (who was also in the auction and actually bid against him, for a short while, for the music box), who nods back. Then the stagecoach heads off while she just watches him go off into the distance and he watches her in the mirror.

Right… Not a single line of dialogue in this section. It’s completely random. What is the point of it? It completely disrupts everything because it randomly goes to the black and white 1919 section for no reason at all and it doesn’t last long and features no dialogue or exposition of any kind, then it goes back to 1870 with colour again. What were they trying to achieve with that scene? It makes me sick.

So now we’re back in the opera house and we get more singing. These idiots spend ages singing about letters and it turns out the phantom wants Christine to play the part for the next performance, not some other fool, or something terrible will happen (apparently). But they decide to ignore all the letters and make Christine play a different, silent role while the other bitch plays the lead. Then we see them getting ready for the big performance, singing about their prima donna while they’re doing it. 

Music plays throughout all of this; it’s a pretty damn long section of music at nearly 11 minutes long. I’ll review it all as one whole track, since that’s what it is on the CD.

Notes…/Prima Donna

Now, I have to admit, this first part (“Notes…”) is actually pretty good. I don’t mean “good by Webber standards” either; I mean this is good in general. It starts off in F major with a nice and happy melody with good part writing (Webber has succeeded). It’s only a short phrase, but it’s well written. However, its resolution is interrupted by a modulation to G minor! (impressive…) The strings here build the tension nicely. Unless I’m going insane, there are a few bars of 7/4 here too!

After that, it goes back to the happy tune from the start, in C major this time. Still phrased as impressively as the first time round, but with highly impressive doubling with instruments as well. He usually messes up the doubling by using instruments which don’t really work well, but here they fit in nicely; he doesn’t have them doubling the whole line, just certain bits and it works great. Next, it’s back into the tense minor bit, fitting with the scene perfectly. Someone must have taught Webber how to double with instruments effectively for this song, because the way he emphasises certain words/beats through the use of instrument doubling is very good.

Next, another repeat of the happy bit, in D major this time. Instead of interrupting and going to the minor section again, it continues with an extension of the melody before continuing into a repetition of the same section again. Webber has gone back to his roots with repeating melodies with no variation outside of modulation.  Eventually it ends up in E flat major with the same melody again. Well, at least his doubling is still good throughout all this.

Next we have the return of the minor, tense section. Basically the same as before, just in a new key, of course.

Then we finally get something new – Just some descending bass with some vocal melody over the top. It’s a nice contrast to the other sections, but it doesn’t last very long.

Next, it’s back to the minor/tense section again, but this is where things start getting out of control… The guy who taught Webber how to double obviously said “fuck this” and left by this point, because some unacceptable orchestration is present here. The oboe trills are out of control and just make everything sound like a mess. Now, there are two ways of looking at this – 1: Webber did this deliberately to match up with the scene, because at this point things are really out of control and a mess, so one could say Webber reflected this chaos in the music by making it messy as well. Or 2: Webber was trying to add depth and failed… Well, maybe he did do it for the purpose of reflecting the action on stage at this point. I’ll give him the benefit of a doubt here.

Then it’s back to the contrasting section with a descending bass and a bit of a melody over it. When this finishes, the music stops briefly before going back to the first theme, back in the original key too (F major).

After that, there’s not really any music; it’s almost like a recitative, but not quite. There’s a droning synth noise playing while the Phantom sings his letter, which is disturbing. What’s more disturbing is the random sounds and orchestration that plays alongside while he’s singing, with the harps and shit. Who does Webber think he is - Debussy?

Now it returns to that minor/tense theme again. The structure of this song is out of control, with sections flying in and out all over the place.

The end of this notes thing is basically a transition into the “Prima Donna” section… What a racket this section is… Lines all over the place and it’s not exactly Bach-level contrapuntal texture with perfect harmonisation…

After the racket, there are a few sung lines before going into the main part of the song. This is in C major, with a sort of Waltz feel about it (it’s tempo di valse). The melody is very nice and the orchestration is very effective for once. It basically progresses around chords I, ii, V and vi. Soon after, we get a modulation into the subdominant (F major) when the Prima Donna comes in, screaming the place down as sopranos tend to do. This is a complete mess… All these singing parts are going on at the same time, doing their own lines. Bach would be sick if he heard this racket… This is NOT the correct way to handle multiple vocal lines simultaneously, Webber! Listen to Bach’s Mass in B minor, or Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis to hear it done right.

This is incredibly painful to listen to simply because Webber doesn’t know how to handle polyphony, but besides the horrific mess of parts, it’s pretty good; the melodies themselves are fine and the orchestration is better here than what Webber usually manages, but all of those vocal parts playing together makes it hard to listen to anything because it’s too busy making me sick… Unlike the first section “Notes”, this isn’t really supposed to be “messy” or chaotic, so the argument that Webber did it deliberately to match the chaos on stage (or screen, in the case of this film) doesn’t work for this bit like it did in the first section (unless you try coming up with bullshit like “but they’re trying to prepare the prima donna for the big performance! That’s quite chaotic and stressful”).

So, there are a lot of good things about this (both “Notes” and “Prima Donna”), the Notes section in particular is very good, albeit slightly repetitive after a while. The Prima Donna section starts off promisingly with a nice melody and progression, but it’s ruined by the biggest butchery of polyphony I’ve ever heard.

I’ll give this:

6/10

The rape and ruin of polyphony is what really drags this rating down. The repetition of the Notes section and the lack of any real variation found in the Prima Donna section also drags it down a bit more.

After that racket, the show starts, with a disturbing abundance of pink in the scene…

Then we see the phantom show up backstage, being emo because his beloved Christine wasn’t given the leading role.

They begin singing the aria “poor fool, he makes me laugh”, but it’s cut short when the phantom comes out from the backstage area and starts crying about box 5 not being left empty. Then, after a few minutes of random awkwardness, the phantom just walks away and apparently everyone in the audience is blind because no one notices a black figure walking around in plain sight above the stage.

They restart the poor fool aria again, while the only person in the whole theatre with a working set of eyes follows the phantom backstage. The prima donna’s voice messes up because of the shit she was spraying into her mouth before restarting the aria (the phantom swapped it over so she'd fuck up), much to the amusement of everyone in the audience who paid to see a professional production and not some comedy show… I don’t know what kind of people comprise the audience of this theatre, but they either applaud in the middle of arias or laugh when they realise they’ve spent a lot of money on a half-assed production which fucks up throughout the whole thing. Zero fucks have been given by this theatre’s audience in its entire history.

The owners get on stage and apologise even though everyone seems to be enjoying themselves. What are they going to say, “We are sorry that you are enjoying yourselves tonight”? Seemingly not, because they say the performance will resume in 10 minutes, but with Christine playing the leading role this time because the other woman failed them for the last time. In the meantime, they have the orchestra play the ballet from act 3. The conductor’s reaction is like “what the fuck?”.

"The ballet from act 3!? This is madness!"

I don’t know how this music passes as a “ballet”, because it’s literally nothing more than the “poor fool, he makes me laugh” aria without words.

While all this crap is going on, the phantom goes after the guy who was following him backstage and fucking kills him, then leaves his corpse hanging above the stage, causing plenty of psychological trauma to all the kids in the audience.

During all the chaos, Raúl rushes backstage to find Christine while the owners come up with even more bullshit, telling the audience to stay in their seats. After all, it’s only a dead body, it’s nothing to get upset about.

"Haven't you fools ever seen a dead body before? Grow some balls!"

They say it was just an accident… Well, I say “they”, but Einstein spends the whole time looking like he’s about to be sick, so he’s not saying anything.

I can’t really review this track because it’s basically nothing more than a collection of very short songs. The “poor fool” thing at the start only lasts about 30 seconds, which is a shame because it’s actually amazing – Webber really captures the feel of a classical aria with this one. However… I’m pretty sure this one is a new opera being premiered, which goes back to what I was saying at the start – This is not a late 19^th century style aria. So, even when Webber succeeds he fails. If the story was set in, say, 1780, then it would be great. Next part of the track is the restart of the poor fool aria, with all the fuck-ups from the singer so there’s not really anything to say about this one. Then it’s the ballet, which as I already mentioned is just the orchestra playing the poor fool aria for a short while, so again there’s nothing more to say.   

The next scene is Raúl and Christine backstage heading up the stairs because Christine is saying the phantom will kill Raúl, so she’s leading him away. They end up on the roof and Christine has an emo moment.

"How could this happen to me?"

Raúl keeps trying to convince her it was just a dream while Christine is trying to convince him that there really is a phantom of the opera.  So much for getting away from the phantom – he’s there, lurking in the shadows!

Why have you brought me here

This song is basically a reprise of the phantom of the opera song and the music of the night. It kicks off with the phantom of the opera melody, sung by Raúl with answers after each line by Christine. Next the roles are reversed, with Christine singing the melody and Raúl providing the answers. This is all in G minor and a lot more fast paced than it is in the phantom of the opera song – basically a non-stop bombardment of melodies from the song without the pauses. Unfortunately, Webber attempts polyphony again. It’s not as bad as it was in prima donna, but it’s still a bit of a mess. However, there are moments throughout where it works nicely, with the two parts acting in an almost antiphonal-style manner. Webber really does love his semitone modulations; yet again he goes up a semitone here, into G# minor. Some of the orchestration here is simply unacceptable even by Webber’s standards; some truly random flute lines which add nothing to the music. I think he was trying to add to the tension of the scene with these parts, but it just doesn’t work. It would be perfectly fine without them, to be honest. Some of the other parts are actually really good – for example, the string runs here fit nicely and sound great while helping with the tension building side of things. This is yet another classic case of “Webber putting too much unnecessary shit in the instrumentation/orchestration which makes the song end up sounding like a mess”.

Throughout this section, there is an accompaniment from the orchestra with a constant beat (though not an annoying one like before), sitting behind the vocal parts and creating tension. 

After the phantom of the opera reprise finishes, it transitions into the reprise of the Music of the Night (so, the return of Puccini). Just like before, it sounds amazing and flows nicely. Also – dat high G#. This bit doesn’t last long and it goes into a new melody, which is nice and simple with very minimal orchestration and in G major. The track finishes with a transition into the next song, “All I Ask of You”.

Well, I’ll give this:

5/10

The reprise of the phantom of the opera is a bit messy in places with the attempted polyphony and the flute… Oh god the flute… It makes me sick. However, the return of the amazing Puccini part in Music of the Night redeems the track and the final melody with the simple orchestration is nice.

Immediately after this track, Raúl and Christine sing “All I Ask of You”. The phantom definitely isn’t going to be happy listening to this; Raúl is saying he’ll love and protect her because she’s scared of the phantom and then they share a kiss while the phantom watches on from the shadows, with feelings of “How could this happen to me?” etched onto his face (or the parts of his face that are actually visible, at least).

After they finish up on the roof, they head back down to the theatre. The phantom now has another emo moment, crying about the fact that Christine loves Raúl.

All I ask of you + All I ask of you (Reprise)

May as well review these together, since the reprise comes immediately after the original version.

Things kick off in Db major, common time, with Raúl singing the melody. Next, Christine sings a melody of her own over dat chord progression. Yes, it’s the classic I-vi-IV-V, a very popular pop chord progression, with perhaps only I-V-vi-IV being more commonly used in pop music. The first phrase is over I-vi-IV-V, then the second phrase is over a variant of that – I-vi-V. Raúl then returns with the first melody, followed by Christine singing Raúl’s melody. Then Raúl sings the melody with dat chord progression. All of this is in the same key so far, I’m shocked. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before the classic Webber semitone modulation shows up though. Christine then does the same melody again. This is phantom of the opera all over again, but without modulations. It finishes off with both of them singing together with what is possibly the best crescendo-climax Webber has ever come up with. Seriously, it builds up really nicely into the orchestra playing the melody line. Extremely Puccini-esque. Extremely well done. Then at the end of the phrase, Raúl and Christine come back in, fortissimo, with the orchestra, and then it dies right down to pianissimo to finish off, which creates a very nice contrast.

In terms of the orchestration, it’s extremely well done. It opens with strings playing chords and some simple harp arpeggios, while the strings double the melody Raúl is singing. This continues into the Christine melody section, but with the strings not only doubling but also proving a nice answer to each phrase. He also doubles with the woodwind parts in the next section which creates a nice contrast and these parts also have a nice answer with a descending melody after each phrase, creating contrast with the violin answers in the earlier section. Webber’s use of dynamics here is really good – building up and dying down at the right moments, creating excellent contrasts in the music. Then, of course, dat timpani roll in the climax which builds into the instrumental section with the violins playing the melody and brass instruments playing a nice answer after each phrase, creating yet more contrast with previous sections.

Incredibly, the orchestration is pretty much perfect. I honestly cannot fault it anywhere. He doesn’t add unnecessary layers of sound, he creates depth at the right moments, he doubles effectively throughout the entire song and he creates good contrast by varying the orchestration throughout. This is possibly the closest to Puccini he’s ever come. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say this is on par with the work of Puccini.

The melodies are very well phrased and build into new sections and the resolution, Puccini-style, which is great.

Regarding the reprise, it starts off as a simpler version of the song with a thinner texture and simpler orchestration, with the Phantom singing the melody. This time, it’s in C major. Then he hears Christine and Raúl singing the song in his head, which isn’t as full in texture as it was in the original version, but it has the harp part back again. Then, as it builds into the end of the phrase, the phantom comes back in to finish. It lands on a C and then the chromatic phantom theme plays. The transition into the chromatic theme is awesome. The orchestration in this reprise is still just as good as it is in the first version.

So, was this a moment of genius from Webber, or did he steal another Puccini aria and I haven’t noticed? I’d love to say he stole it, but to be honest this is most likely original. I can’t recall Puccini using dat chord progression in his arias, after all.

Congratulations Webber, you’ve finally done it completely right!

9/10

The only reason this doesn’t get the full 10/10 is because it does get a little repetitive (perhaps just one stanza too many, Webber) and there is no modulation to help develop the song (the reprise being in a different key doesn’t count because they’re technically different songs). He’s been spamming modulations all over the place up until now, yet for this one song he doesn’t bother? He didn’t have to modulate with every stanza, but if he had modulated at the climax it would have been amazing. Would have earned it the full 10/10 as well, I’d say.

Oh no… Now the film has gone back(/forward) to the black and white bits again. I will not tolerate this faggotry for much longer.

The guy in the stagecoach is watching a young couple kissing and is reminded of his kiss with Christine during the All I Ask of You song (in case no one has figured it out yet – this fool is Raúl). Then it goes back to the colour time again… Yet again, not a single line of dialogue is spoken in this black and white section. However, unlike the last time, this one actually did have some exposition – it basically points out that this guy is Raúl for people who didn’t already realise. But I still say it’s completely pointless…

Disturbingly, this next scene with the fireworks has an orchestral version of Angel of Music playing in the background for some reason. Right, now it’s playing an orchestral version of Music of the Night. *sigh* now it’s playing All I Ask of You… Next, the chromatic run from phantom of the opera. Finally, it finishes with the melody from “Notes…”.

This track is called “Entr’Acte” and I refuse to review this one simply because it’s nothing more than recycled melodies from earlier songs. Webber is clearly trying to fish for higher ratings from me by putting in his best melodies of the musical so far with very well done orchestration. I will not indulge him.

Curiously, the version of the track that shows up in the film only has Angel of Music and the Notes melodies, but the track on the cd I have has all the other ones I listed. Oh well…

So, basically, the owners are having a masquerade ball at the theatre. Of course, there is a song about it. However, the phantom randomly shows up wearing his most disturbing outfit.

He says he’s written a new opera and gives them the score. Well, he doesn’t really “give” it to them, because he just slams the score onto the floor… He clearly has no respect for his own music.

Masquerade/Why so silent

Both these songs are on one track on the cd, so I’ll review it as that (like Notes/Prima Donna).

Starts off in C major, 4/4 time. Not the most harmonically interesting song he’s ever done, that’s for sure. There’s a frequent tonic pedal throughout, but thankfully it’s not annoying like the cello from Angel of Music. Rhythmically, the melody isn’t particularly interesting either. It also gets very repetitive very quickly. It’s almost drone music… Did La Monte Young write this? Though I guess for what the scene calls for, it doesn’t really have to be anything more than what Webber has done for it. The orchestration is straight forward – some cymbals every now and then, brass and wind responses for each phrase. Use of harp for doubling. It’s all fine for what it is.

The next section is in Db major (Webber going back to his semitone modulations). Some good call and response between all the vocal parts here. Wind parts, harp and strings accompany the melody.

The next section is Think of Me back again. Exactly the same melody and key (D major – a semitone modulation yet again) as the first time. Orchestration is a bit different this time though, with strings and flute backing up the melody lines. This bit finishes off with some call and response between Raúl and Christine, and then it goes into an instrumental section. This starts off in A major (not a semitone modulation? What’s the world coming to?) and features some arpeggio spamming and chromatic runs, which ends up leading into a semitone modulation to Bb major, which is basically the same thing as before, just a semitone higher. These parts have good orchestration with variation and call and response between the different sections of the orchestra.

Eventually, it goes back to the first section again, in C major again. Pretty much exactly the same as before. Though this time it modulates into Eb major with less orchestration going on – just a cymbal and timpani, then brass comes in after the first phrase, followed by the rest of the orchestra. Creates a nice contrast.

After that, the chromatic phantom leitmotif plays. Then we get a spamming Eb note in the bass while the phantom sings over it, which is supposed to be the “why so silent” song, though it’s difficult to call this song. Of course, Webber puts his usual random sounds in throughout this bit, though this time they actually work.

I’ll give this:

5/10

I don’t really have any complaints about the orchestration here, but the sections themselves aren’t particularly interesting. Some parts drone on a bit and some parts don’t really go anywhere or do anything. The instrumental section with the mad violin runs is pretty good though. Perhaps this track serves its purpose fine for the scene, but I still think it could have been done a lot better than what he ended up doing for it.

After all that, the phantom goes back to what he was on about earlier – telling Christine that she belongs to him, leading feminists around the world to cry “Women are not objects!”. Unfortunately for them, the phantom doesn’t have any fucks to give.

He then disappears through a conveniently placed trap door in the floor and Raúl follows him down. For some reason, there is a house of mirrors below that trap door. Not sure why that is, but oh well…

Mrs Exposition (Madame Giry) shows up and drags his stupid ass out of there and proceeds to give the backstory of the phantom.

Motherfucker… Now it’s gone back/forward to another black and white bit. Raúl is in the stagecoach and watching a deer running by. I’m no expert when it comes to deer, but don’t they usually stay in herds? That would make sense, considering how vulnerable they would be to predators if they are alone. So, why is this deer running around alone with not a single other deer in sight?

 "I knew I shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque..."

 And… that’s pretty much it. These scenes are beginning to make me physically ill.

Thankfully, it has gone back to colour again, though I’ve no idea what’s going on. Christine is heading over to the cemetery to see her father’s grave, for some reason. Unbeknownst to her, the phantom is driving. Raúl, being the fool he is, chases after them on a horse.

Upon arrival, she proceeds to walk as slow as humanly possible through the cemetery, singing the song “Wishing you were somehow here again” while doing so.

Wishing you were somehow here again

The songs starts off with Christine spamming Eb (Webber has spammed Eb for the last time). 30 seconds of the note Eb. Riveting stuff.

Next it goes to the actual song itself, in G major (rendering the Eb completely pointless… Could have at least chosen a key which actually features Eb). The melody is based around chords I, IV, V and vi. Orchestration is nicely done again. I don’t know why it took him so long to get the orchestration good; the musical started off by disturbing me and then eventually got good with All I Ask of You and has stayed good. Some of the phrasing in the melody is very well done, but at the same time some of it is a bit shit. Webber randomly shifts to G minor for the next bit (so I guess the Eb spam earlier was supposed to foreshadow this section? Webber has failed me). This section features some harp broken chords/arpeggios as usual, with woodwinds and strings backing up the melody and providing chords.

Next, it’s an instrumental section of the melody back in G major again, which is quickly followed by the return of Christine singing as it builds up with the strings doubling the melody and with a nice crescendo and brass answers into the modulation to Bb major. This section begins fortissimo with brass doubling the melody, but quickly dies down to pianissimo with strings doing the doubling. Then it builds back up again with timpani and brass and shit. The dynamic contrast throughout all of this is very good. The orchestration gets a little messy at times, with a bit too much going on behind the melody. Not quite another classic case of “Webber putting too much unnecessary shit in the instrumentation/orchestration which makes the song end up sounding like a mess” because it doesn’t make everything too messy, it’s just that I feel it would have worked better if he hadn’t overloaded the orchestration with multiple parts and answers all over the place and instead just focused on reinforcing the melody, like he did in All I Ask of You. The song finishes off with a variant of the Angel of Music melody, which dies down with diminuendo into the final cadence, which works nicely.

I give this:

7/10

On the whole, it’s a well done song. Some of the melodic phrasing is a bit weak, but then again some of it is very well done so it all balances out. The majority of the orchestration is effective and works great, but sometimes it is a little too over the top for what it needs to be. He again uses dynamic contrasts to great effect and this time round the melodies don’t get too repetitive because the song doesn’t drag on for too long. The epic modulation into Bb after the build up near the end is exactly the kind of modulation I was looking for in All I Ask of You, because it gives the song a great lift.

As Christine experiences yet another emo moment, the phantom reveals himself and they start singing together. This is basically a shorter variation of the duet from Angel of Music. Not even any point reviewing it, since it’s basically exactly the same. Webber loves to spam this melody, doesn’t he? It’s all over the musical, probably more often than even the phantom leitmotif (chromatic run).

Raúl then shows up and engages in a sword fight with the phantom. This scene drags on forever and features some highly disturbing background music. Disturbing because it’s shit and can’t decide what the hell it wants to do.

Raúl gets the phantom down and is about to strike the final blow, but Christine stops him and they ride off back to the theatre together.

Back at the theatre, Raúl says they’ll set up a trap for the phantom by playing along with “his game” by performing his shit and apprehend him when he attends the performance. Christine isn’t convinced by Raúl’s plan and cries (literally this time) in her church area and tells him she doesn’t want to do it.

After Raúl tries convincing her to do it, we see the phantom preparing for the performance. This is followed by the start of the opera which is based on the story Don Juan. Needless to say, this is no Don Giovanni…

This is quite a racket at the start and yet again it’s too classical-esque for late 19^th century opera. His actual songs (like All I Ask of You) are actually a lot closer to the style of late 19^th century opera than the actual opera parts themselves in this musical. Then there’s some aria which again is ripped from a 18^th century opera. Webber’s failure continues.

Strangely, none of this music is even on the cd, so I don’t see any point doing individual reviews for all this shit.

After the aria finishes, the phantom ambushes the fat bastard who was singing it backstage.

"Your singing has made me sick for the last time"

Christine then goes onto the stage and starts the next aria. The phantom has taken the place of the guy singing earlier and apparently nobody notices the disturbing difference in body size between the two. He then joins Christine on stage and starts singing. This ends up becoming the “Point of No Return” song. This is more like a late 19^th century aria, but still a bit too 20^th century post-romanticism, but oh well it’s closer than the classical stuff from earlier.

It seems the fools finally realise that this guy is the phantom. I guess they’re just waiting for the right moment now… As the police surround the area waiting to get hold of him, Christine takes off his mask because she’s a fool. The phantom proceeds to take Christine back down to his lair again and destroys the chandelier, which sets fire to the theatre. Raúl once again follows them.

The Point of No Return

The phantom kicks things off with the melody, in F minor, 4/4 time. It initially progresses around tonic-dominant chords before it goes back to the F minor chord, followed by an F major chord, which is awesome. It then goes into what can either be described as Ab major or F Aeolian, depending on how you look at it. You could consider the progression of this bit as IV-V-vi in Ab major or VI-VII-i (Db – Eb – F) in the Aeolian mode on F (heavy metal style). This repeats a second time, and then it moves all over the place – it plays a Db major chord, then Gb major, which then goes to B major, then D major, then Gb major again, then Db major and finally to C major to prepare for the return to F minor. I’m impressed. The strings build up the tension at the start with a steady rhythm, which is continued by the bass while the rest of the strings start backing up the melody and providing well-crafted answers to the phrases. Then flutes and violins double the melody. All the orchestration here is excellent – on the same level as All I Ask of You; he doesn’t add unnecessary noise and it serves to reinforce the melody, provide nice answers to the phrases, it all build and dies away nicely and it gives good depth at the right moments.

After the phantom’s section, Christine sings a melody which doesn’t really do anything. It’s just a little descending melody backed up by the orchestration with some rather disturbing phrasing. She then sings the melody the phantom was singing, with the impressive orchestration back again. This section follows the exact same progression and is in the same key as before (F minor). The next section modulates to G minor with both Christine and the phantom singing together with some more awesome orchestration and very effective use of dynamic contrasts. Same melody and progression as before (just higher, of course).

The phantom then sings alone, singing the melody from All I Ask of You. Same key as the Raúl version. Orchestration is very simple here – strings backing up the vocal line with a counter-melody and harp playing more arps (he loves his harp arpeggios). When the melody repeats there is some subtle brass in the orchestration giving some depth. This then epicly builds with a huge crescendo into a fortissimo section, much like in the first version of the song, even including the timpani roll. However, yet again it does not modulate. The cadence at the end is interrupted (coinciding with when Christine takes the mask off) – it plays chord V and is about to resolve but then the phantom leitmotif plays! This rendition of phantom of the opera is very similar to the overture version, but with string runs instead of organ arpeggios. Doesn’t last long though and it just serves as background music for when the phantom takes Christine down to his lair.

Very impressive stuff again, very much on the same level as All I Ask of You. This song can be considered to be in two parts, with the Point of No Return being the first part and another reprise of All I Ask of You as the second part. Point of No Return can be considered ternary form, with the phantom’s section being section A, Christine’s random descending melody bit being section B and the return of the main theme with both of them singing as the return of section A.

I give this:

9/10

The orchestration is very impressive here and the melodies are well phrased. He kind of cheats though, by bringing back All I Ask of You, but oh well. Because both parts are relatively short, the melodies do not get repetitive, which is great. He again uses dynamic contrasts to great effect here, in both parts. The reason this doesn’t get the full 10/10 is because the middle section of point of no return disturbs me and kind of disrupts the flow for me. Not to mention the orchestration in this bit is a little disturbing too. Other than that, I can’t really fault it. This is the best song in phantom of the opera and one of the best constructed songs you’ll ever find in a musical.

Well, it goes straight into the final song of the musical – “Down Once More…/Track Down This Murderer”, which is a monstrous finale at nearly 12 minutes long.

After chasing them for a bit, Raúl ends up in the phantom’s lair. The phantom is now basically telling Christine he wants to fuck her (you don’t say? I would never have guessed…). Well, marry her and fuck her.

Raúl finally catches up with them. But the phantom ties him up and threatens to kill him if Christine doesn’t accept his offer of being his forever. This guy really is psychopathic. After Christine kisses him, he tells both her and Raúl to get the hell out of there, because everyone is heading down to the lair to get hold of the phantom.

As the pair leave, the phantom smashes up every mirror he owns because I guess he’s sick of his own reflection now. But when everyone shows up in his lair, he’s nowhere to be seen!

Down Once More…/Track Down This Murderer

This is all basically nothing more than reprises of the previous melodies of the musical, which is fine since this is the grand finale.

It begins with the melody from Music of the Night – the awesome one with the crazy chord progression. Same key and progression as before. The orchestration is pretty much exactly the same as well. This is only a short section, lasting just 20ish seconds.

The next bits fail me. Some random stuff going on, they aren’t really songs and really don’t do anything. We get a random return of the phantom of the opera melody. None of these sections last very long. We get another return of a melody from Music of the Night (not the same one as at the start). This is an example of a song with ADD, because it keeps changing all over the damn place. Well, I suppose this isn’t really a song because it’s just a mash-up of previous melodies with which to finish off the musical.

Next, with the bit where Raúl shows up, the melody from “Notes…” shows up again (the minor bit, not the happy main theme… that wouldn’t have worked here). The orchestration throughout all this mess varies between being effective and being shit. For example, the bit where the phantom ties up Raúl has some of the most disturbing brass writing I have ever heard, then in the next scene with the point of no return music the orchestration works very well.

Regarding this section, he attempts polyphony again with all 3 of the singers. This definitely is not as bad as the prima donna shit. In fact, there are moments where it actually works nicely with the three melodies interweaving effectively. Of course, it’s not exactly Bach, but it’s still pretty good. This immediately transitions into another return of the Angel of Music melody. The bit where she kisses the phantom has some awesome orchestration, with a nice build up into the bit where it’s just the orchestra on its own. He doesn’t overdo it like he did in Wishing you were somehow here again.

That ends the “Down Once More…” section. Track Down This Murderer begins with the phantom of the opera melody with an annoying constant noise designed specifically to make me sick. After that, the monkey thing plays its melody which is the masquerade song from earlier. Strangely it works a lot better with just a little music box noise instead of the full orchestra.

Ah, a return of All I Ask of You. Just as good as it was before. Nice little counter-melody on the strings behind the main melody. Then it builds into a crescendo as usual with the phantom finishing it off with possibly the most epic cadence of the whole musical, leading into a section with just the orchestra (the bit where he smashes the mirrors) which is very well orchestrated. Dies down at the end as the musical plays its final cadence, which is the same as the cadence from Music of the Night – you know, where it continues on before finally resolving. Though this time it doesn’t have a vocal line over the top resolving while the chords continue, but oh well.

I give this:

6/10

It’s a bit of a mess in places and it works very well in places. I was going to give it a 5/10, but the awesome finale (return of All I Ask of You, with awesome orchestration, dat cadence and the nice final cadence) brought the score up because it’s a great and effective way to end the musical.

Unfortunately, the film doesn’t end there which would have been awesome… Instead it goes to yet another black and white scene. Raúl is holding the monkey thing he got at the auction and places it on the grave of Christine. There is also a rose there on the grave, obviously alluding to the fact that the phantom is still around.

FAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINARIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII! The film is finished. Completely pointless ending scene and it should have ended with the finale of “Track Down This Murderer”.

Perhaps I’ve been a bit too harsh on Webber at times. After all, one could argue that he’s invented a new style of musical developed from the post-romantic style of early 20^th century opera composers (particularly Puccini) and using elements of popular music, so that’s always a plus point. I just think he could do more with some of his stuff and not overload the orchestration with stupid noises too often.

For some reason, he starts off the musical at a mediocre standard, but then from All I Ask of You onwards, the orchestration and music and phrasing and everything is generally really good (with some exceptions here and there, of course…). Maybe he finally figured out how to do it properly by that point? Who knows…

Taking all the ratings of the individual songs into account, along with the musical bits between songs and taking whole context into consideration, I give this musical:

6.5/10

Despite some great moments, there are too many mediocre or poor moments for me. There are only two songs from this musical I’d listen to outside of the musical itself – All I Ask of You and Point of No Return. This style of his has great potential as demonstrated by those two songs and if all the songs were up to the same standard in terms of phrasing and orchestration, I’d actually enjoy the musical very much. Instead, there are only a few moments I can say I enjoyed, which isn’t really good enough. But oh well…

Regarding my rating system – I’m rating them in regards to how good I think this style of music can be, not compared to any other style of opera or music (including pop music or Puccini’s style or other musicals). So, for example, in Point of No Return and All I Ask of You I believe that’s the closest to perfect for this particular kind of style achieved in this musical. He actually does manage to perfect the style (in my opinion at least) in a song outside of this musical… Just for a bonus, here’s Webber’s best song and the pinnacle of this particular style he’s created:

Till I Hear You Sing (from “Love Never Dies”)

Starts off nice and simple – establishing the melody, with a tonic pedal behind it and some nice little piano parts backing up the melody and providing responses to the main phrase. This then leads into a lovely passing modulation to the subdominant. The music briefly stops before coming back again and playing an Aeolian cadence on D, followed by a iib-V-I cadence back in F major. Awesome stuff. The melody then repeats, same as before, but the orchestration has more depth this time with strings playing a counter-melody and a harp playing some broken chords. As it ends with that cadence back into F major, it builds into a new section which is in A minor briefly, before going back to a ii-V-I cadence back to F major again. The build up is nicely done and the orchestration here is excellent with the instruments reinforcing the melody effectively and providing appropriate depth. Next, it repeats those two sections again (the F major section, build up, then A minor section).

As the song progresses the orchestration adds more depth, but not Webber’s usual unnecessary depth – it all serves a good purpose and makes the song feel like it’s progressing despite the fact it repeats the same sections. In the first return to the F major section, after the A minor bit, the cadence dies down and quietly returns to the F major bit, but in the second time it shows up, it builds up into a climax which creates an amazing contrast and prevents it from being repetitive.

The dynamic contrasts in this song are incredible and the way he builds up the orchestration as the song progresses is easily the best he has ever done.

The final return of the F major section after the big build up, it starts fortissimo, but then dies down slightly, to around piano, then builds back up again into what is without a doubt the best cadence Webber has ever wrote. After the passing modulation to the subdominant, which is where it starts building up, it has a slight ritenuto during the iib-V-I cadence. But on chord V, the music stops briefly before it comes back for the final cadence in a style very similar to that of Music of the Night – the voice resolves and holds the note while the orchestra continues with chords, interrupting the cadence before finally resolving. Extremely effective.

I cannot give this anything other than:

10/10

Orchestration is perfect and the way he builds it up as the song progresses is amazing. The phrasing is easily among his best. His use of dynamic contrasts is incredible. The way he subtly passes by the subdominant is fantastic. Despite the fact he doesn’t modulate in the final climax, this still has an incredible impact because of the way he built up the orchestration from practically nothing into a huge climax at the end. Besides, his passing modulations here make up for the lack of modulation at the end, I say. I don’t believe Webber will ever top this song. I remember when I first heard this song (live, during its first run at the west end in 2010) and it blew my mind – I was thinking “How the hell did Webber write this?”. The fact that Ramin Karimloo was playing the role of the phantom certainly helped with my impression of the song – he has one hell of a powerful voice and sounds even better live than he does on the CD.

In fact, this very song is the one that made me think more deeply about what exactly Webber’s style is all about, so instead of just dismissing all his stuff as shit because it doesn’t match up to the greats of the past, I started listening to his stuff more analytically and figuring out exactly what it is he’s going for with this sound, which ended up leading to this review. Sure, the majority of his stuff is pretty mediocre or poor even when taking the new style and stuff into consideration, but there are a few great songs he’s managed. He reminds of Tsunku, who himself writes mostly shit but comes out with the occasional good song.

Well, I guess that just about wraps things up with this review. Remember, this is all just opinion and I was just having a laugh with it all, so don’t take any of it too seriously.