Enchanted Evenings:The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber Block, Geoffrey (large ebook reader .txt) 📖

that Junior manages to assert in his opening seven-measure phrase (one measure less than the nearly ubiquitous eight of Tin Pan Alley and Broadway songs). The “conventional” theater song (e.g., “Anything Goes”) would present four eight-measure phrases to create an A-A-B-A or thirty-two-bar song form. Blitzstein’s altered phrase lengths (A[7]-A[7]-B[6+6+2]-A[7+4] measures) within the A-A-B-A structure manage to acknowledge convention at the same time he defies and ridicules it.

In contrast to Junior Mister, who concludes his first A section a half-step too low for the accompanying harmony (E against a D-major chord), Sister Mister, in her complementary seven-measure phrase (the second A of the askew A-A-B-A), manages to conclude correctly on a tonic D in the melody. Blitzstein, however, subverts the harmonic implication of Sister’s more self-assured D (again on the word “spoon”) with harmony that will rapidly depart from the home tonic. The B section, which begins in F minor (Example 6.2) and consists of two nearly melodically identical six-bar phrases followed by Sister Mister’s two-bar patter that leads back to the final A section, is remarkable for the C in measure 17 (on “-la-” of “pop-u-la-tion”) and measure 23 (on “nev-” of “nev-er”), a lowered or blue fifth that is relatively rare in Broadway songs (and even somewhat unusual in jazz before the 1940s).

Example 6.1. “Croon-Spoon” (beginning)

The punch line of the final A derives from the inability of either Junior or Sister Mister to successfully resolve the harmony. After six measures, Junior should be ready to conclude the song one measure later to preserve the odd but symmetrical seven-bar units of the first two A sections. Instead, Sister Mister, after a fermata (a hold of indefinite length), repeats her brother’s last three measures and Junior, after another fermata, repeats the third measure one more time before the siblings screech out the original tonic to conclude the thirty-nine-measure tune.

Following Brecht and his own evolution as a reformed modernist with a social agenda, Blitzstein is of course telling us to avoid singing what he considers to be vapid songs about croon, spoon, and June, even as Junior tells us in the bridge of this song that “Oh, the crooner’s life is a blessed one, / He makes the population happy.” Junior concludes his song with his own didactic message directed toward the poor who are “not immune” to the wonders of croon spoon. “If they’re [the poor] without a suit, / They shouldn’t give a hoot, / When they can substitute—CROON!” In Pins and Needles, the inspired and phenomenally popular revue presented by the International Garment Workers Union the same year as Cradle, Rome asks his audience to “Sing a Song of Social Significance.” “Croon–Spoon,” a song far removed from social significance, serves as a forum in which Blitzstein can lambaste songs that do not respond to his call for social action and provides the composer-lyricist with an irresistible opportunity to ridicule performers who sing socially useless songs.31

Example 6.2. “Croon-Spoon” (B section, or release)

Lawn of Mr. Mister: “The Freedom of the Press” and “Honolulu”

During the Windsor run of Cradle, Blitzstein concluded an article, “On Writing for the Theatre,” with some remarks on the relationship between theory and practice in this work.

When I started to write the Cradle I had a whole and beautiful theory lined up about it. Music was to be used for those sections which were predominantly lyric, satirical, and dramatic. My theories got kicked headlong as soon as I started to write; it became clear to me that the theatre is so elusive an animal that each situation demands its own solution, and so, in a particularly dramatic spot, I found the music simply had to stop. I also found that certain pieces of ordinary plot-exposition could be handled very well by music (The Freedom of the Press is a plot-song).

“The Freedom of the Press” begins immediately (attacca subito) after Mr. Mister excuses Junior and Sister Mister, an exit underscored by the vamp that began “Croon-Spoon.” Blitzstein called this duet between Mr. Mister and Editor Daily a plot-song because the song narrates (or plots) the entire process by which Daily reinterprets the meaning behind its title: the freedom of the press can be a freedom to distort as well as to impart the truth. The plot is as follows: Daily reveals that he is willing to sell out to the highest bidder (first stanza, A); Daily expresses his willingness to change a story, that is, “if something’s wrong with it [the story] why then we’ll print to fit” (second stanza, B); and Daily learns that Mr. Mister had purchased the paper that morning (third stanza, Mr. Mister’s final A).

Following a vigorous six-measure introduction, the form of the song is strophic in three identical musical stanzas. Blitzstein subdivides each stanza into an a-b-a-b-c-d form, in which the melody of the rapid (=160) a sections (eight measures each) sung by Mr. Mister are tonally centered in F (concluding in C minor) and the equally fast b sections (also eight measures) are answered by Editor Daily in a passage that begins abruptly one step higher in D major (“All my gift …”) and modulates to A major (on “very kind”) before Mr. Mister returns to the a section and a D-minor seventh with equal abruptness (Example 6.3 on next page).32

When Editor Daily returns to his b section (“Just you call …”), Blitzstein has him sing a whole step higher than his original D major (in E major) for greater intensity. In the brief c section Mr. Mister departs from the relentlessness and speed of his (and Editor Daily’s) earlier material and for four measures sings, “lento e dolce” (slow and sweetly), the menacing words “Yes, but some news can be made to order” to match the menacing underlying harmony. In the d section (twenty measures) the music resumes the original tempo, starting with E major (followed by shifts to C major, G major,