A Selection of Tunes by Andrew Lloyd Webber
I have to admit I’ve never been a big fan of the numerous songs Andrew Lloyd Webber has composed for his many musical shows in London, on Broadway, and all over the world. There seemed to be a lot of melodic and chordal duplication, I wasn’t crazy about the lyrics, and so on.
But I couldn’t ignore the success of such Lloyd Webber shows as Phantom of the Opera. After debuting in 1988, Phantom had 13,981 performances over 35 years at Broadway’s Majestic Theatre before it closed last year. (It was originally directed by Hal Prince, a friend of Barbara’s and mine.) The show was seen by over 145 million people in 183 cities – 70,000 performances in 7 languages; and the Broadway show, grossed over 1.3 billion dollars.
So, to celebrate last year’s closing of Phantom, I decided to pick out my favorite Lloyd Webber tunes to play on the piano – without the words getting in the way – and here they are: two from Phantom, and one each from five other shows. And lo and behold, the results sounded pretty good to me. The songs (in the order presented) are:
All I Ask of You
I Don’t Know How to Love Him
Love Changes Everything
Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina
As If We Never Said Goodbye
Memory
Music of the Night
I hope you enjoy this 20-minute piano medley, which you can access by clicking on the play button below.
Additional information on the songs is contained in a liner notes PDF, which you can access (before, after, or while listening to the songs) by clicking on this link.