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Andrew Lloyd Webber | HearLore
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber composed his first suite of six pieces at the age of nine, but the true genesis of his career lay in a toy theatre he constructed with the help of his aunt Viola. Born on the 22nd of March 1948 at Westminster Hospital, he was the elder son of William Lloyd Webber, a composer and organist, and Jean Hermione Johnstone, a violinist and pianist. His musical upbringing was absolute; he began playing the piano and violin at three years old, took up the French horn shortly after, and started composing original music by the age of six. While his brother Julian would become a world-renowned cellist, Andrew was already putting on productions with his family in a toy theatre he built at Viola's suggestion. His mother was determined that he should be a prodigy in something or other, and she ensured he was enrolled as a part-time student at the Eric Gilder School of Music in 1963. At that time, he was already working on a Genghis Khan musical called Westonia!, a project that would never see the light of day but demonstrated his early ambition. He attended Westminster School as a Queen's Scholar from 1960 to 1965, where he was an avid listener of 1960s rock and pop music. He called The Rolling Stones song Satisfaction the best record of the Sixties, and Dusty Springfield's rendition of Son of a Preacher Man the song that taught him the power of a perfect pop song. He briefly studied history at Magdalen College, Oxford, before abandoning the course in the winter of 1965 to study at the Royal College of Music in London and pursue his interest in musical theatre.
The Pop Cantata That Changed Everything
In the summer of 1967, a family friend named Alan Doggett commissioned a pop cantata for the Colet Court school choir, offering a 100-guinea advance from Novello. This request resulted in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, a retelling of the biblical story of Joseph that humorously pastiched a number of pop-music styles such as Elvis-style rock and roll, Calypso, and country music. The piece began life as a short cantata that gained some recognition on its second staging with a favourable review in The Times. For its subsequent performances, Tim Rice and Lloyd Webber revised the show and added new songs to expand it to a more substantial length. Continued expansion eventually culminated in a 1972 stage musical and then a two-hour-long production being staged in the West End in 1973 on the back of the success of Jesus Christ Superstar. Although composed in 1965, The Likes of Us, their first collaboration, was not publicly performed until 2005, when a production was staged at Lloyd Webber's Sydmonton Festival. In 2008, amateur rights were released by the National Operatic and Dramatic Association in association with the Really Useful Group. The first amateur performance was by a children's theatre group in Cornwall called Kidz R Us. Stylistically, The Likes of Us is fashioned after the Broadway musical of the 1940s and 1950s, opening with a traditional overture comprising a medley of tunes from the show, and the score reflects some of Lloyd Webber's early influences, particularly Richard Rodgers, Frederick Loewe, and Lionel Bart. In this respect, it is markedly different from the composer's later work, which tends to be either predominantly or wholly through-composed, and closer in form to opera.
Common questions
When was Andrew Lloyd Webber born and where?
Andrew Lloyd Webber was born on the 22nd of March 1948 at Westminster Hospital. He was the elder son of William Lloyd Webber and Jean Hermione Johnstone.
What is the earliest known musical work by Andrew Lloyd Webber?
Andrew Lloyd Webber composed his first suite of six pieces at the age of nine. His first publicly performed collaboration with Tim Rice was The Likes of Us, which was staged at his Sydmonton Festival in 2005.
Which Andrew Lloyd Webber musical ran the longest in the West End?
Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats ran for 21 years and 8,949 performances in London before closing. The Phantom of the Opera is the second longest-running West End musical with over 14,200 London productions.
When did Andrew Lloyd Webber win his first Grammy Award?
Andrew Lloyd Webber received a Grammy Award in 1986 for his Requiem in the category of best classical composition. The Requiem Mass was dedicated to his father William who had died in 1982.
What major awards did Andrew Lloyd Webber win in 2018?
Andrew Lloyd Webber became the thirteenth person to win an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Tony in 2018. He won an Emmy for Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert on the 9th of September 2018 alongside Tim Rice and John Legend.
How many performances did The Phantom of the Opera play on Broadway before closing?
The Broadway production of The Phantom of the Opera closed on the 16th of April 2023 after playing 13,981 performances. This total represents the most performances in Broadway history for any single production.
In 1969, Rice and Lloyd Webber wrote a song for the Eurovision Song Contest called Try It and See, which was not selected. With rewritten lyrics, it became King Herod's Song in their third musical, Jesus Christ Superstar. Debuting on Broadway in 1971, by 1980 the musical had grossed more than 100 million dollars. Running for over eight years in London between 1972 and 1980, it held the record for longest-running West End musical before it was overtaken by Cats in 1989. The planned follow-up to Jesus Christ Superstar was a musical comedy based on the Jeeves and Wooster novels by P. G. Wodehouse. Tim Rice was uncertain about this venture, partly because of his concern that he might not be able to do justice to the novels that he and Lloyd Webber so admired. Rice backed out of the project and Lloyd Webber subsequently wrote the musical Jeeves with Alan Ayckbourn, who provided the book and lyrics. Jeeves failed to make any impact at the box office and closed after a run of only 38 performances in the West End in 1975. Many years later, Lloyd Webber and Ayckbourn revisited this project, producing a thoroughly reworked and more successful version entitled By Jeeves in 1996. The song I Don't Know How to Love Him from Jesus Christ Superstar became widely recorded and successful outside its parent musical, and the musical itself was released first as a concept album in 1976 featuring Julie Covington singing the part of Eva Perón, though that was actually for Evita. The song Don't Cry for Me Argentina became a hit single and the musical was staged at the West End's Prince Edward Theatre in a production directed by Harold Prince and starring Elaine Paige in the title role. This original production was enormously successful, eventually running for nearly eight years in the West End. Evita transferred to Broadway in 1979, in a production starring Patti LuPone as Eva and Mandy Patinkin as Che; it won seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical, helped launch the careers of both LuPone and Patinkin, and ran for almost four years. Rice and Lloyd Webber parted ways soon after Evita, although they have sporadically worked together since then.
The Longest Running Show In History
Lloyd Webber embarked on his next project without a lyricist, turning instead to the poetry of T. S. Eliot. Cats in 1981 was to become the longest-running musical in London, where it ran for 21 years and 8,949 performances before closing. On Broadway, Cats ran for 18 years, a record which would ultimately be broken by another Lloyd Webber musical, The Phantom of the Opera. Elaine Paige collaborated again with Lloyd Webber, originating the role of Grizabella in Cats, and had a Top 10 UK hit with Memory. Starlight Express in 1984 was a commercial hit, but received negative reviews from the critics. It ran for 7,409 performances in London, making it the ninth longest-running West End show. It ran for less than two years on Broadway. The show has also seen two tours of the US, as well as an Australian/Japanese production, a three-year UK touring production, which transferred to New Zealand later in 2009. Starlight Express runs full-time in a custom-built theatre in Bochum, Germany, where it has been running since 1988. The German production holds the Guinness World Record for most visitors to a musical in a single theatre. Lloyd Webber wrote a Requiem Mass dedicated to his father, William, who had died in 1982. It premiered at St. Thomas Church in New York on the 24th of February 1985. Church music had been a part of the composer's upbringing and the composition was inspired by an article he had read about the plight of Cambodian orphans. Lloyd Webber had on a number of occasions written sacred music for the annual Sydmonton Festival. He received a Grammy Award in 1986 for Requiem in the category of best classical composition. Pie Jesu from Requiem achieved a high placing on the UK Singles Chart and was certified silver. Perhaps because of its large orchestration, live performances of the Requiem are rare.
The Phantom And The Queen's Birthday
In 1986, Prince Edward, the youngest son of Queen Elizabeth II, commissioned a short musical from Lloyd Webber and Rice for his mother's 60th birthday celebration. Cricket, also called Cricket Hearts and Wickets, reunited Lloyd Webber with Rice to create this short musical for the Queen's birthday, first performed at Windsor Castle. Several of the tunes were later used for Aspects of Love and Sunset Boulevard. Lloyd Webber premiered The Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theatre in the West End in 1986, inspired by the 1911 Gaston Leroux novel. He wrote the part of Christine for his then wife, Sarah Brightman, who played the role in the original London and Broadway productions alongside Michael Crawford as the Phantom. The production was directed by Harold Prince, who had also earlier directed Evita. Charles Hart wrote the lyrics for Phantom with some additional material provided by Richard Stilgoe, with whom Lloyd Webber co-wrote the book of the musical. It became a hit and is still running in the West End; in January 2006 it overtook Lloyd Webber's Cats as the longest-running show on Broadway. On the 11th of February 2012, Phantom of the Opera played its 10,000th show on Broadway. With over 14,200 London productions it is the second longest-running West End musical. The Broadway production closed on the 16th of April 2023, having played 13,981 performances, the most in Broadway history. Aspects of Love followed in 1989, a musical based on the story by David Garnett. The lyrics were by Don Black and Charles Hart and the original production was directed by Trevor Nunn. Aspects had a run of four years in London, but closed after less than a year on Broadway. It has since gone on a tour of the UK. It is famous for the song Love Changes Everything, which was performed by Michael Ball in both the West End and Broadway casts. It stayed in the UK Singles Chart for 14 weeks, peaking at number 2 and becoming Ball's signature tune.
The Most Commercially Successful Composer
Having achieved great popular success in musical theatre, Lloyd Webber was referred to by The New York Times in 2001 as the most commercially successful composer in history. In 2002 he turned producer, bringing the musical Bombay Dreams to London. With music by Indian Music composer A.R. Rahman and lyrics by Don Black, it ran for two years at the Apollo Victoria Theatre. A revised Broadway production at the Broadway Theatre two years later ran for only 284 performances. On the 16th of September 2004, his production of The Woman in White opened at the Palace Theatre in London. It ran for 19 months and 500 performances. A revised production opened on Broadway at the Marquis Theatre on the 17th of November 2005. Garnering mixed reviews from critics, due in part to the frequent absences of the show's star Maria Friedman due to breast cancer treatment, it closed only a brief three months later on the 19th of February 2006. Lloyd Webber produced a staging of The Sound of Music, which debuted in November 2006. He made the controversial decision to choose an unknown to play leading lady Maria, who was found through the BBC's reality television show How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria?, in which he was a judge. The winner of the show was Connie Fisher. A 2006 project, The Master and Margarita, was abandoned in 2007. In September 2006, Lloyd Webber was named a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors with Zubin Mehta, Dolly Parton, Steven Spielberg, and Smokey Robinson. He was recognised for his outstanding contribution to American performing arts. On the 11th of February 2007, Lloyd Webber was featured as a guest judge on the reality television show Grease: You're the One that I Want!.
The Cat That Destroyed A Score
Between April and June 2007, he appeared in BBC One's Any Dream Will Do!, which followed the same format as How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?. Its aim was to find a new Joseph for his revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Lee Mead won the contest. Viewers' telephone voting during the series raised more than 500,000 pounds for the BBC's annual Children in Need charity appeal, according to host Graham Norton on air during the final. In 2007, Lloyd Webber's cat, Otto, leaped onto his Clavinova piano and destroyed the entire score for the new Phantom in one fell swoop. The Phantom in question was The Phantom of Manhattan, a planned sequel to The Phantom of the Opera. On the 7th of July 2007, Lloyd Webber presented excerpts from his musicals as part of the Concert for Diana held at Wembley Stadium, London, an event organised to celebrate the life of Princess Diana almost 10 years after her death. In April 2008, Lloyd Webber reprised his role as judge, this time in the BBC musical talent show I'd Do Anything. The show followed a similar format to its Maria and Joseph predecessors, this time involving a search for an actress to play the role of Nancy in a West End production of Lionel Bart's Oliver!, a musical based on the Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist. The show also featured a search for three young actors to play and share the title character's role, but the show's main focus was on the search for Nancy. The role was won by Jodie Prenger despite Lloyd Webber's stated preference for one of the other contestants; the winners of the Oliver role were Harry Stott, Gwion Wyn-Jones and Laurence Jeffcoate. Also in April 2008, Lloyd Webber was featured on the U.S. talent show American Idol, acting as a mentor when the 6 finalists had to select one of his songs to perform for the judges that week. Lloyd Webber managed the UK's entry for the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest, to be held in Moscow. In early 2009 a series, called Eurovision: Your Country Needs You, was broadcast to find a performer for a song that he would compose for the competition. Jade Ewen won the right to represent Britain, winning with It's My Time, by Lloyd Webber and Diane Warren. At the contest, Lloyd Webber accompanied her on the piano during the performance. The United Kingdom finished fifth in the contest.
The Accusations And The Legacy
Among the accusations of plagiarism that Lloyd Webber has received, the Dutch composer Louis Andriessen stated that he has yet to think up a single note; in fact, the poor guy's never invented one note by himself. Lloyd Webber's biographer, John Snelson, acknowledged a similarity between the andante movement of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor and the Jesus Christ Superstar song I Don't Know How to Love Him, but wrote that Lloyd Webber did not copy it directly. An accusation of plagiarism regarded the 1971 Pink Floyd album Meddle. The sixth track of the album, Echoes, has a riff on which Lloyd Webber allegedly based the opening organ riff in The Phantom of the Opera. The two riffs share very similar notes and the order of the notes played. Pink Floyd bassist and co-lead vocalist Roger Waters pointed this out and said it was probably actionable, but stated that he did not care to take it to court. Noting similarities between Lloyd Webber's The Music of the Night and a recurring melody in Giacomo Puccini's 1910 opera, La fanciulla del West, in 1987 the Puccini estate filed a lawsuit against Lloyd Webber, accusing him of plagiarism. The case was settled out of court, but details were not released to the public. The songwriter Ray Repp claimed in a court case that Lloyd Webber had stolen a melody from his own song Till You, but the court ruled in Lloyd Webber's favour. In 2018, after Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety Special (Live), he became the thirteenth person to win an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Tony. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, is an inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors. Lloyd Webber's memoir, Unmasked, was published in 2018. On the 9th of September 2018, Lloyd Webber, along with Tim Rice and John Legend each won an Emmy for Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert. With this win, Lloyd Webber, Rice and Legend joined the list of people who have won Academy, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Awards. Lloyd Webber wrote the song Beautiful Ghosts with Taylor Swift for the film adaptation of Cats, produced by Greg Wells and released in December 2019. In an interview in August 2020, Lloyd Webber called the film ridiculous in the ways that it changed the musical: The problem with the film was that Tom Hooper decided that he didn't want anybody involved in it who was involved in the original show. He said that seeing the film caused him to get a dog.