Steven Suskin, The Sound of Broadway Music: A Book of Orchestrators and Orchestrations (Oxford, $55). Part history, part handbook, this staggeringly well-informed study of Robert Russell Bennett, Don Walker, Sid Ramin, and the other virtuoso technicians who scored the classic musicals of the pre-rock era is long overdue. If you read my posting about how The Letter was scored and want to know more about the mysterious process of turning a black-and-white piano part into a full-color orchestration, The Sound of Broadway Music will walk you through the drill with a minimum of technical obfuscation (TT).
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
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