West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim...

Musical theatre is a type of theatrical performance combining music, dance, acting and spoken dialogue. Written by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, ‘West Side Story’ is a classic American musical based on William Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’. The through-composed score and lyrics are used to portray different characters and their cultures, the rivalry between the Jets and Sharks, and the emotions felt as the story progresses. This essay will be exploring the music and how effective the score is in realising the world and characters of the musical. Furthermore, it will discuss how Bernstein and Sondheim relate characters’ diverse ethnicities to particular musical ideas and motifs. In the opening prologue, Bernstein quickly†¦show more content†¦Figure 2: Bitonality seen in ‘Tonight (Ensemble)’ (2000: 115) In ‘Dance at the gym’, Bernstein uses the score and choreographed dance to illustrate the tension created between the two rival gangs. The motifs from ‘The Jet Song’ can be seen in bar 32 of the blues which is typical of jazz music and elements from ‘America’ are placed into the mambo which is percussive and typical of Latin-American music. The constant use of these motifs represents each gang and their characters by using characteristics of the music from their own country. The last method Bernstein uses to create tension between the gangs is the use of asymmetrical rhythms with pauses over rests which is unnerving to the audience. This can be seen in the opening of ‘The Jet Song’ when the chords are placed in unexpected places from the start of the song. Figure 3: Asymmetrical rhythms and unexpected pauses create tension. (2000: 13) Bernstein and Sondheim use the score and lyrics to depict individual characters using traditional music and speaking styles from their individual cultures, which can clearly be seen throughout the musical. In the ‘Jet Song’, the unsteady chords from the opening of the prologue and the Jets’ leitmotif are used frequently to once again show the audience unity between the gang members. Sondheim’s lyrics contain colloquial language such as â€Å"chicks† and â€Å"dig† as seen in bar 109 to emphasise the Western gang culture and onceShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Leonard Bernsteins West Side Story839 Words   |  4 PagesLeonard Bernstein worked with Arthur Laurents, Jerome Robbins, and Stephen Sondheim to produce the 1957 Broadway musical West Side Story, a Romeo and Juliet-like love story between Polish American Tony and Puerto Rican Maria in New York’s West Side (Peyser 261; Fishko). Bernstein composed the music for the production. 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