Skip to content

Choose a Chapter | Purchase the eBook | Podcasts | Online Listening Lab

Prelude Listening to Music Today
1 Melody: Musical Line
2 Rhythm and Meter: Musical Time
3 Harmony: Musical Space
4 The Organization of Musical Sounds
5 Musical Texture
6 Musical Form
7 Musical Expression: Tempo and Dynamics
8 Voices and Musical Instrument Families
9 Western Musical Instruments
10 Musical Ensembles
11 Style and Function of Music in Society
12 The Culture of the Middle Ages
13 Medieval Music
14 The Renaissance Spirit
15 Renaissance Sacred Music
16 Renaissance Secular Music
17 The Baroque Spirit
18 Vocal Music of the Baroque
19 Orchestral Music of the Baroque
20 Baroque Keyboard Music
21 The Classical Spirit
22 The Development of Classical Forms
23 The Classical Symphony
24 The Classical Concerto and Sonata
25 Classical Opera
26 The Spirit of Romanticism
27 The Romantic Miniature
28 Romantic Program Music
29 Romantic Opera
30 The Late Romantics
31 America's Emerging Musical Voice
32 The Impressionist Era
33 Main Currents in Early-Twentieth-Century Music
34 Early-Twentieth-Century Innovators
35 Nationalism and Music
36 Ragtime, Blues, and Jazz
37 New Directions
38 Contemporary Composers Look to World Music
39 Music for the Stage and Screen
40 The Many Voices of Rock
41 Some Current Trends

Chapter 39: Music for the Stage and Screen

Study Plan

Reduce Text Size Increase Text Size Email Print Page
"The hills are alive with the sound of music." —OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN II

Key Points

  • American musical theater has its roots in European operetta, or comic opera. Musicals feature romantic plots—some are contrived, while others are based on serious literary sources (Show Boat, My Fair Lady). George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess was the first musical to focus on African-American life in the South.
  • The great composer/lyricist teams include Lerner and Loewe (My Fair Lady) and Rodgers and Hammerstein (The Sound of Music); other well-known composers of musicals are Stephen Sondheim (Into the Woods), Andrew Lloyd Webber (Phantom of the Opera), and Claude-Michel Schonberg (Les Misérables).
  • Leonard Bernstein is a notable composer and conductor of art music, and he also wrote the score for the classic musical West Side Story.
  • Film music helps set the mood, establish characters, and create a sense of place and time.
  • The 1930s is considered the Golden Age of films and film music. French classical composers were among the first to embrace this new art form.
  • The film music of John Williams marks a return to full orchestra resources and the use of leitmotifs (recurring themes) associated with characters or situations.

Section Menu

Norton Gradebook

Instructors now have an easy way to collect students’ online quizzes with the Norton Gradebook without flooding their inboxes with e-mails.

Students can track their online quiz scores by setting up their own Student Gradebook.