The Music Man: Tony-Honored Orchestrator Robert Russell Bennett
On the eve of the 2008 Tony Awards, when Bennett will receive a special posthumous honor, Broadway.com breaks down the man's legacy into five easy pieces. He may have passed away in 1981, but Bennett's work still serves as inspiration for how to create a classic.
Practice-Practice-Practice
Born in 1894 in Kansas City, Missouri, Bennett displayed remarkable musical skill at an early age. His father played in a touring band and, according to Bruce Pomahac, director of music at the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, young Robert would sub for players who were sick, honing his savvy as a multi-instrumentalist and gaining insight into what a bandleader can accomplish. Though he composed classical pieces and arranged scores for film and television, Bennett's most memorable work was for the stage. Debuting on Broadway in 1924's Rose Marie, Bennett's orchestrations impressed soon-to-be collaborators such as Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, George Gershwin and Kurt Weill. But it was his mutually supportive partnership with Rodgers & Hammerstein in the 1940s that made him an integral part of Broadway's golden era. Just check out his resume: Show Boat, Oklahoma!, Annie Get Your Gun, Finian's Rainbow, The King & I, My Fair Lady, Camelot and The Sound of Music. Quips Andre Bishop, artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater, "He did more shows than you or I have had hot dinners."
Less Can Be More
If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It
Pay It Forward
Since the bulk of Bennett's work was accomplished long before leading men and women could hide a mike in their hair, his arrangements were designed to serve the performers. "They're incredibly sensitive to when a singer is singing," say South Pacific music director Ted Sperling. "He knew exactly how to support the singer yet not get in the way and overpower them. There's all this interesting color between the phrases, but they never overlap." In other words, Bennett was the musical equivalent of a lead actor who makes everyone look good by letting his co-star shine brightest. "He wasn't flashy, and he wanted his work to be as invisible as possible," says Sperling. "He wanted it to feel like he didn't do anything. And that takes the greatest amount of finesse and expertise to pull off."
Technology may have enabled composers to unleash huge symphonic sounds with the touch of a button, but Bennett thrived on testing old-school limits. "He knew how to get an enormous sound out of a relatively small orchestra," says Jonathan Tunick, Sondheim's longtime musical collaborator and a 2008 Tony nominee for orchestrating A Catered Affair. Bennett's fondness for soft touches meant he didn't have to break out the big guns when going for an impact. Says Sperling, "When he did let loose for a dance number or a sea change, he didn't have to have trumpets screaming. They could just play very naturally, very comfortably."
Arrangements on Broadway are like screenplays in Hollywood—i.e., the first thing to get rewritten. But when Sperling and director Bartlett Sher took on South Pacific, they agreed to stick as closely to Bennett's original charts as possible. "We don't even have a piano in our orchestra," marvels Sperling. "The closest thing we have to a rhythm section is a harp, which is a very expressive instrument that we don't hear enough anymore." What's more, to the relief of anyone who's sat through a Broadway show and felt like they might as well have been at CBGB, the production employs very limited amplification. "We've gotten so used to having everything blasted at us," notes Bishop, "but when an audience has to tune their ears in and work to understand what they're hearing, it can be incredibly rewarding."
"Mr. Bennett was the example for all of us of what an arranger was," Tunick says simply. "He's who we all wanted to be." Bennett was also a great mentor. While studying at Juilliard, Tunick wrote to his hero, asking if they could meet. "He invited me to come to his little office in Radio City. This was in the mid-'60s. He was working on a series of documentaries for NBC, which he would do in India ink without a piano. He'd continue to write while telling me stories about Jerome Kern." Four decades later, Tunick, winner of the first Tony Award for Best Orchestrations in 1997 for Titanic, is thrilled to salute the man who led the way. "In his time, arrangers never received Tonys," Tunick says of Bennett. "Having him receive one this year makes any Tony that we [orchestrators] win more meaningful."