The excitement in Sondheim's voice is infectious. My understanding of music theory is shallow at best, but this melody, in my opinion, is one of the most beautiful pop tunes ever written.
To call "All the things you are", a pop tune Bernard Clearly, is an insult. The song is an Great American standard. The song is a masterpiece. Music by Jerome Kern, words by Oscar Hammerstein 2nd.......
Don't get all huffy and highbrow about jazz standards, Agnes. History, etymology lesson. Taking notes? It wuz wut it wuzz. POPular. Topping the charts. Requested by audiences from New York City to Tuskegee, Alabama and Fresno, California and all hick towns in between. . Stella by Starlight was a pop tune, a Broadway hit show , big band DANCE tune. and How High the Moon and even Laura. @@imonthebox1148
03:47 A parallel from Mark Twain: “If you want me to give you a two-hour presentation, I am ready today. If you want only a five-minute speech, it will take me two weeks to prepare.”
Last month, I went down to San Diego for the opening weekend of the new Rady Shell for the San Diego Symphony. The night was 'Best of Broadway' starring Megan Hilty, Adrienne Warren, Norm Lewis, and Kelli O'Hara. Kelli and Norm sang the BEST rendition of "All The Things You Are" I've ever heard. So memorable, and I hope they record that arrangement and interpretation someday. Love this deconstruction of the song.
A four-minute 'hidden treasure' (posted to RU-vid six years ago when I wasn't looking) features one of my life-long musical heroes -- English-born jazz piano giant Marian McPartland. Her NPR radio 'Piano Jazz' series (released on CDs) included favorite shows with Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans. But I'd never heard Marian's incredible approach to my family's favorite 'show tune' - ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE. Starting around the 1:15 mark. Deepest thanks to an English Facebook friend "Nick" for sharing this. Marian McPartland, who left us at age 95, nine summers ago, has a huge Wikipedia entry. With a more recently expanded note about her “legacy”: Wikipedia note on Marian's "legacy" DownBeat honored McPartland with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994.[46] McPartland was awarded a Grammy in 2004, a Trustees' Lifetime Achievement Award, for her work as an educator, writer, and host of NPR Radio's long-running Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz. Although a master at adapting to her guest's musical styles and having a well-known affinity for beautiful and harmonically-rich ballads, she also recorded many tunes of her own. Her compositions included "Ambiance", "There'll Be Other Times", "With You in Mind", "Twilight World", and "In the Days of Our Love". Just before her 90th birthday, McPartland composed and performed a symphonic piece, A Portrait of Rachel Carson, to mark the centennial of the environmental pioneer.[47] McPartland was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 New Year Honours, "For services to jazz and to aspiring young musicians in the USA".[48] McPartland's encyclopaedic knowledge of jazz standards, highly musical ear, involvement in over 60 years of evolving jazz styles, and rich experience blending with radio guests[49] led to a musical style that was described as "flexible and complex, and almost impossible to pigeonhole."[50] She was known as a harmonically and rhythmically complex and inventive improviser. "She was never content to be in one place, and always kept improving. She has great ears and great harmonics. Because of her ear, she can go into two or three different keys in a tune and shift with no problem."[51] McPartland was also a synesthete, associating different musical keys with colours, stating that "The key of D is daffodil yellow, B major is maroon, and B flat is blue."[52] McPartland died on 20 August 2013 of natural causes in her home in Port Washington, New York. She was 95 years old.[53][54] Thanks, Broadway Classics. Celebrated elsewhere [search] " Great Melody, Great Lyric, Great Rendition, Songwriting Workshop, Harmony Central "
I just turned 65 and, in watching the films of Fred Astaire, have discovered the wonderful composers of the '30's. Kern, Berlin, Gershwin... These songs bring me to tears. It's s terrible shame that popular music has degraded so badly. Thank you for this vid.
teedlebomb1 , Ive been interested in the lives and works of America's great songwriters from the 20's 30's and 40's all my life. Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter ect. Please contact me.
The 4th bar states the tonic ...PS- Ms.McPartland plays a quick Db7#11 before approaching CMaj7, then she voice leads down to the F#m7b5 - B7b9 - EMaj7
Upon hearing this song the first time (before my teenage years (1940s)), I was immediately haunted by it and remained so. I could not say why although this concise conversation sheds some light on why.
It's such a great clip - and it's sad this craft is lost today. Heard a guy in the park playing guitar yesterday, and he played the same three chords over and over for 20 minutes!
True what you say about technique, and also that Music is first and foremost of a vocal conception, as does technique itself reside in the ear. One follows the voice. That said, melody is the liquid state of words as are words the solid state of thought. For the musician, that is a thought that goes without saying.
"Withholding the root" until the end is the secret to Mahler's Adagieto from his fifth symphony as well. And comes from Schumann, Brahms et al. creating ever more vast "suspensions" in their symphonies.
Excellent analysis. I love the closing idea that Kern would go through all the permutations in order to complete a promising phrase. I always imagined it’d be more theory-driven than that. I tend to play Lee Konitz’ variation (‘Thingin’’) which modulates from Ab to D at the 17th bar or the ‘B’ section. So the last ‘A’ section remains in D. It disrupts the AABA structure giving a sort of AABB form. The link is that Konitz ana McPartland both studied with Tristano.
explaining jerome kerns all the things you are by stephen sontheim is as good like send in the clows,i do both songs in my shows,becouse there one of the bests ever.
Does anyone know if this exact piano version of "All the things you are" (or something very similar) are written down and available in a score sheet somewhere?
Infuriating? She played it in a non-standard key, and I couldn't find a chart for that key. Am I supposed to write one myself?? The point was to show how complex the chord structure is, not to teach the song itself. Find your own chart.
It states the tonic in bar 4!! And again in bar 28. The first bars are a cadence to the tonic which repeats later in the last A... and then at 2:30 he says "its a regular AABA form." It's not regular at all, the 2nd A is modulated and it the last A has an extra 4 bars. What a clown!!
Modulating a section is extremely common in the AABA form, as is adding extra bars at the end - it's still AABA. Sondheim can be called many things, but clown is not one of them. He's a recognized genius of the American musical theatre.
hey wow. how many espressos or other stimulants did this guy have that morning? Or just a naturally REALLY wired guy, exited about composition. Really, really, really amped, wired dialed up to 9,9....wooooooo!!!
It's his love for the art of creating a new song and respect for the craft of composing. Sondheim was a dedicated, true artist and I love hearing his passionate, joyful enthusiasm.
Sondheim was very strong on theory, but his bit about “All The Things You Are” not resolving until the end is tired. Not only have pop composers and musicians talked about since forever, Sondheim himself went back to it ad infinitum and acted as though he was the first and only person to have this revelation. Mary Rogers, in her memoir, speaks of Sondheim’s tendency to mansplain basic musical concepts to women, and here’s a perfect example. You are genius, Stephen, but you’ve got nuthin’ on Marian McPartland in terms of understanding harmony. Classy as she is, she pretends it’s all new to her. 😂
@@boinx1234 I know, I'm just saying, he's so eager to talk about the music theory stuff, he doesn't really want to cede the floor to her to play tunes. And I think it's great - I'd much rather listen to him talk!
He's very animated, yes, but also rather full of himself. He doesn't let Marian McPartland, a great pianist in her own right, finish her occasional comments and he doesn't acknowledge the beautiful harmony in her solo on the tune (much less comment on it at all). I wonder if he would have treated the interviewer in the same dismissive way if it were a man.
