Bernstein’s MASS on PBS May 15

[tytonius]

Posted: 5/1/20 at 2:14pm

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/paulo-szot-sings-simple-song-vy76c0/11425/

[Ravenclaw]

Posted: 5/1/20 at 3:45pm

I saw this performance last summer and absolutely adored it. I have been waiting anxiously for news of its broadcast ever since, and I am setting my DVR to record this--I can't recommend it highly enough! It was a truly spectacular night of music, and I can't wait to experience it again.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 5/1/20 at 8:01pm

I saw this at Mostly Mozart two summers ago. The production was a mess and it was obvious to my ears that Stephen Schwartz wrote a considerable amount of the score.

[stoptheworld38]

Posted: 5/1/20 at 8:30pm

Some people I know from the Young People’s Chorus of NYC performed in that at Mostly Mozart! Gloria Tibi is a bop, my choir did it several years ago.

[Ravenclaw]

Posted: 5/1/20 at 9:57pm

Dollypop said: "I saw this at Mostly Mozart two summers ago. The production was a mess and it was obvious to my ears that Stephen Schwartz wrote a considerable amount of the score."

I'm sorry that production was disappointing, but this production might very well change your mind. This production was a one-night event at the Ravinia Festival (in Highland Park, IL, just north of Chicago) in 2018 and was so well received that it was revived the following summer so another sold-out crowd and more rave reviews. The performance was conducted by Marin Alsop, who to me is the definitive conductor of Bernstein's music. 

And I've never heard anyone posit that Schwartz wrote any parts of the score. In a Q&A on his website (readable here: https://www.stephenschwartz.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Mass.pdf) Schwartz says,

"What I contributed, in addition to helping with the English lyrics, was to help structure the piece -- to devise the idea of the Celebrant, his journey to "encrustation" with the trappings of organized religion and his being weighed down by the needs and demands of his congregation, until finally he has a breakdown and it is left to the congregation to move forward as a community on its own. If there is some similarity to the structure of "Godspell" in that, it's probably not entirely coincidental."

For what it's worth, many over the years have made similar accusations that Sondheim wrote pieces of the music to West Side Story, which Sondheim has flat-out denied. Bernstein was a composer who loved to work across styles, and that was part of the whole idea of Mass--to embrace all different kinds of music. If the piece feels like it's of multiple voices, that's kind of the point, for it to be a coming together of many different voices.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 5/2/20 at 10:49am

"Simple Song" reeks of Schwartz's style and lyric construction