Music Analysis: West Side Story
West Side Story is the modern take on the well-known William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliette,where Tony and Maria replaced Romeo and Juliette and are involved in New York street gangs. On the harsh streets of the upper west side, two gangs battle for control of the turf. The situation becomes complicated when a gang member falls in love with a rival's sister.Jerome Robbins(Director and choreographer), Arthur Laurents(Author) and Leonard Bernstein(Composer) came together with the idea to write a musical based on Romeo and Juliette.The story was originally planned to be call East Side Story and was going to be about a Jewish boy and a Italian Catholic girl. Due to other priorities they only started planning again after six years had gone by and changed the name of the musical and the theme. Finally West Side Story(WSS) opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on the 26th September 1957 and it was performed over 700 times before going on tour.
The musical is historically known as being the first major musical to confront contemporary social themes …show more content…
There are three different perspectives of how the night could plan out. 1) Riff and Bernardo’s perspective. They are thinking(in terms of their own gangs) of the fight that is going to happen.2) Anita’s perspective where she is thinking about her night with Bernado after the fight.3) Tony and Maria’s perspective which is more of a romantic evening planned. The time signature is a bar of four followed by a bar of two. This could have been scored as 6/4 or 3/4. There is a bass ostinato which plays this three crochet repeated pattern. These 3 beat patterns under a duple time signatures has been found in a number of the WSS songs and dances. The music and lyrics are matched together to create the feeling of anticipation in all of the characters and the emotions that they are
The musical is historically known as being the first major musical to confront contemporary social themes …show more content…
There are three different perspectives of how the night could plan out. 1) Riff and Bernardo’s perspective. They are thinking(in terms of their own gangs) of the fight that is going to happen.2) Anita’s perspective where she is thinking about her night with Bernado after the fight.3) Tony and Maria’s perspective which is more of a romantic evening planned. The time signature is a bar of four followed by a bar of two. This could have been scored as 6/4 or 3/4. There is a bass ostinato which plays this three crochet repeated pattern. These 3 beat patterns under a duple time signatures has been found in a number of the WSS songs and dances. The music and lyrics are matched together to create the feeling of anticipation in all of the characters and the emotions that they are