There’s another type of music that isn’t, strictly speaking, classical music, but it shares a lot in common with it. This is the musical.

Within the classical music realm we have operas, opera comique operetta. Operas are often quite dramatic, and every part is sung; there are no spoken roles. In opera comique we begin to hear spoken dialogue between musical singing, although the singing certainly takes the majority of the presentation. From opera comique, which developed primarily in France, we begin to see other composers “lighten up,” offering musical stories in a lighter vein, sometimes comical, sometmes satirical, but always considerably shorter than most operas. Among the earliest of these is Jacques Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld. Operettas that ensued from other countries continued to lighten up, paving the way for what we know as musicals.

Among the operettas that were penned, some of the most popular were Franz Lehar’s The Merry Widow and Johann Strauss Junior’s Die Fledermaus (“The Bat”) and Der Zigeunerbaron (“The Gypsy Baron”). From America, Czech-born Rudolf Friml wrote a number of operettas, among which are Rose Marie and The Vagabond King. An Irish-born American composer named Victor Herbert wrote the popular operettas Babes in Toyland, The Red Mill, Naughty Marietta and Sweethearts. Born in Hungary, Sigmond Romberg added to the list of beloved operettas: Blossom Time, The Student Prince, The Desert Song, and The New Moon. Finally, no list would be complete without including the works of Gilbert and Sullivan. Their tongue-in-cheek way of poking fun of English society were poorly disguised. Their operettas included  H.M.S. Pinafore, The Mikado, The Pirates of Penzance, but they wrote quite a few more. These were probably their best-known operettas.

What does all this have to do with music today? For one thing, although their day has passed, a number of songs from operettas became quite popular. Some of these are “Toyland” and the “March of the Wooden Soldiers” (yes, the same one used in Abbott and Costello’s movie version titled after this song) from Herbert’s Babes in Toyland. “A Kiss in the Dark,” “Kiss Me Again,” and “Every Day is Ladies’ Day with Me” are from Herbert’s The Red Mill. The song “Rose Marie (I Love You)” comes to us from Friml’s operetta Rose Marie. (Bet that was a big surprise!) From Gilbert and Sullivan we have “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General,” and “When I Was a Lad.”

Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy popularized a number of songs in some of their movies. One of these was “’Neath the Southern Moon” from Herbert’s Naughty Marietta. Perhaps you’ve heard “I’m Falling in Love with Someone,” or the “Italian Street Song,” or “Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life” from the same operetta. I remember hearing all of these on the radio as popular songs when I was a lad (with my apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan.)

The next step in large scale popular music was the musical, originally on Broadway, but many became films as well. By this time, musicals had longer plots and mostly spoken lines with songs interspersed throughout the whole. In its early days, producers preferred a classically-trained voice for the singing stars. Ezio Pinza, for example, a well known Metropolitan Opera star, was tapped to sing the songs for Rossano Brazzi as Emile de Becque. Although musicals preceded the 50s and 60s by a considerable time, these decades saw the greatest fruition of musicals  - on stage and on screen.

Here is a partial listing:
Berlin,                                  Annie Get Your Gun            
Porter                                   Anything Goes                
Loewe                                   Brigadoon                    
Loewe                                   Camelot                    
Hammerstein                      Carousel
Webber                                 Cats
Webber                                 Evita
Bock                                      Fiddler on the Roof
Gershwin                              Funny Face
Styne                                     Funny Girl
Loesser                                 Guys and Dolls
Herman                                Hello Dolly
Hammerstein                      The King and I
Porter                                   Kiss Me, Kate
Schonberg                           Les Misérables
Menken                                Little Shop of Horrors
Leigh                                    Man of La Mancha
Schonberg                           Miss Saigon       
Willson                                The Music Man
Loewe                                  My Fair Lady
Youmans                             No, No Nanette
Gershwin                            Of Thee I Sing
Hammerstein                    Oklahoma
Bernstein                            On the Town
Loewe                                  Paint Your Wagon
Webber                               The Phantom of the Opera
Gershwin                            Porgy and Bess
Larson                                 Rent
Kern                                     Show Boat        
Hammerstein                     Sound of Music
Hammerstein                     South Pacific
Bernstein                            West Side Story
   
You will note that,  in order to be a bit more streamlined and because our focus is on the music, I have listed the composers’ names, but have omitted the names of the lyricists.

I would be surprised if you couldn’t close your eyes and point at one (or more) of these and not recognize at least one song that was derived from the musical. Try it. (While not vouching for all their veracity, Wikipedia is a quick reference source that will list songs in each of these musicals. Look any of these up by title and you should see a listing of songs from that musical.)