From: dsy@psych.toronto.edu (Desiree Sy)
Subject: Re: Original cast recording of "Follies"
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 15:56:07 GMT

Jon Alan Conrad wrote:

>Yes, in the vocal score, the number "Bolero d'Amour" is called "Vincent
>and Vanessa."

to which I asked:

>I'm probably missing something obvious here, but why would an
>instrumental number be in a vocal score?

and Jon responded:
>Desiree, we're on sufficiently friendly terms that I hope you'll allow
>me to be tacky and say "Yes, you're missing something incredibly
>obvious," ok?

:-)  Well, clearly, not *that* tacky. Okay.

>What we call the "vocal score" is a piano-vocal score; i.e., all the
>music used in the show from beginning to end, with all the voice parts,
>and orchestra reduced for piano.  It's what's used in rehearsal, and
>almost always by the conductor (full orchestral scores for musicals
>being unheard of).  So it's useless without all the music.  What did you
>think a vocal score would have in it?  (Serious question, I'm finding it
>hard to picture.)

Now that you've described it, I know exactly what you mean, and
come to think of it of *course* I remember that in full vocal
scores, underscoring and segue music is included.  However, what
I was thinking of when I thought "vocal score" are those scores
with only the vocal parts and (sometimes) the accompaniment.
This music would have those long bars with, say, "18" written
over them to indicate 18 bars of instrumental music.  Or do these
only have the vocal lines, and not the accompaniment?  Anyway,
this is what I was confusing "vocal score" with.

>>>Apparently Michael Bennett (original co-director and choreographer)
>>>insisted on this number remaining in, where Prince would have cut it.
>>>Sondheim wasn't crazy about it either, since although the theme was his,
>>>the number as a whole was an arranger's creation (he's touchy about
>>>being visibly "helped" in that way -- one reason the more recent vocal
>>>scores of his shows are based on his manuscripts rather than the
>>>finished orchestration).  
>
>>I'd never heard this about the arrangement before.  I'd read (I
>>think in Sondheim and Co.) that Sondheim never liked the number,
>>had wanted to cut it, but Bennett had felt it was necessary to
>>break up the "purple numbers".  (I remember the wording, because
>>I thought "purple" was some sort of a mood adjective -- cf.
>>purple prose -- but then later on, Bennett elaborated that he
>>meant the purple costumes that the people were wearing.)
>
>Oh, I think Bennett meant both.  The people were wearing purple clothes
>(actually they weren't -- regular tuxes and party clothes) and he felt
>that the mood was too depressing and purple.  All that that you read in
>Sondheim & Co. is true, but so, I believe, are Sondheim's private
>ambivalences about it.

This is another thing:  I don't see how the Bolero really
"lightens" the purpleness.  It's a mood *switch* (isn't this
around Ben and Sally -- "Road not taken", etc.? -- I have to
think about it), but I certainly wouldn't think of it as much of
an upper.

>>I like the number, too.  In the community version I was in, the
>>couples dancing were the older Vanessa and Vincent, the younger
>>V & V, and two other (young) couples.  I strongly disagreed with
>>the decision to put the other couples in (not that I bothered
>>saying so... 
>
>Good.  Because they'd have been able to point to the original production
>(I think there's a photo of this number in Sondheim & Co) and say that
>they'd done exactly the same thing.  You may well find it wrongheaded
>even when staged by Bennett, but he did in fact put 4 couples in the
>number: the 2 V&V's, and 2 others.

Now that's interesting.  I never thought of it this way.  In the
original prod'n, were the older Vincent and Vanessa simply
dancing as if they were at the party?  Did the other party-goers
figure in it at all, or was the stage simply cleared for the
tango?

-desiree