Final Exam Student Choice: Musical
My Fair Lady is a musical based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. The story follows the life of Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from Professor Henry Higgins, a phoneticist, so that she may pass as a lady. Their social divide is shown even through their parents: Eliza Doolittle’s father, Alfred P. Doolittle, is a dustman, where as Professor Higgin’s mother, Mrs. Higgins, is natural born socialite. The reason for Professor Higgins approach to Eliza Dolittle is because he made a wager with his linguistic colleague, Colonel Pickering, that in six months he could pass off “gutter snipe”, Eliza Doolittle, as a duchess at an embassy ball. Through vigorous training, Eliza learns how to speak proper English and transforms into an elegant lady. Along the way she dazzles the young socialite, Freddy Eynsford-Hill into falling in love with her, and convinces a supposed linguistics expert that she is royalty. She later finds it difficult to go back to her old life as she has now transformed entirely and both she and Professor Higgins have grown fond of each other. She ends up leaving Professor Higgins’s home but returns back to him as the play ends and what happens next is left for the mind’s interpretation. The book and the lyrics of the play are by Alan Jay Lerner and the music is composed by Frederick Loewe.
The entrance to the musical is a long orchestral performance that is playful and energetic and triumphant. It is in the major key, has a steady rhythm and a memorable melody. Through out there is an interchange between speech and speech-like singing. The first speech-like song begins when Professor Higgins sees the poor spoken Eliza Doolittle and starts to rant about phonetics and the English language. The song follows a steady wavelike form as the tempo quickly speeds up and the expression follows a crescendo as a means to mimic his outrage at Eliza’s speech. The music that sets the scenes through out would be considered non-diegetic since there are no physical instruments within the scenes. However, the use of humming from the characters in order to create a musical melody could be considered diegetic since the creation of the melody comes from within the scene.
The orchestral score that is played between scenes exhibits a strong use of the strings, the woodwinds — most notably the clarinet, oboe, and flute — , the percussions, and the harp. This same score is also used as the non-diegetic melody for the characters speech-like singing. The tempo and expression varies and follows in tandem with the attitude and emotions of the character in song. When the character(s) is expressing sadness, the expression of the score is ritardando and piano (played softly). The melody contains a narrow range with little to no climax and typically follows a downward contour. When the character(s) is expressing rage or excitement we typically see the expression of the score as accelerando and forte. The melody follows a wide range with multiple climaxes and generally follows an upward contour. The rhythm is typically unexpected and without pattern to express a heightened and energetic mood. These elements are use in solo performances as well as the many ensembles which include love duets, duets between platonic characters, trio’s, choruses, and a single character with chorus.
Throughout the play, the ultimate test of Professor Higgins’s success is to pass Eliza Doolittle off as lady at the Embassy Ball. She succeeds with great admiration from all of the ladies and gentleman and is even asked by the Queen to dance with her son. She is even regarded to as a princess. The following scene that I will analyze occurs immediately after the Ball where Pickiering and Higgins flatter each other on their triumph. Higgins expresses his pleasure that the experiment is now over as the process was a lot of “tomfoolery”. Pickering begins the song “You did it” through speech-like song. Through praising Higgins he follows a melody with an upward contour while repeating in a triptych “he did it, he did it, he did it”. Pickering carries this repeated triptych through out the song as he continues to exalt Higgins’ accomplishment. His other regards following these triptychs take the shape of a wave-like contour as the melody first slopes up and then falls back down.
Higgins interacts playfully with Pickering through rebuttaling coyly with “Oh it was nothing. Really nothing”. As Higgins says theses words, the score in the background utilizes the sly wispiness of the high pitch string instruments and interjects it behind his statement in an quick upward to downwards sloping contour in order to produce an air of arrogance behind Higgins’s remark. This musical tone follows Higgins’ arrogant remarks as he then tells Pickering to give credit where it’s due. We expect Higgins to point at Eliza, but rather he points right back at Pickering; quite the duo. While Pickering and Higgins are not a romantic duo, the positioning of Eliza alone off to the side with a saddened face and the praising interactions between the two men, paints a pciture of true fondness between the two, almost as if they were a couple. The orchestral score amplifies this setting though the playful, wispy melody of the strings that manifests as a flourishing, budding new relationship which follows in tandem with the laughter of the two men, relishing in their triumph together.
My Fair Lady is one of the first musicals I have actually watched. I found the premise of the musical to be rather enchanting because of the class division theme. I personally am not a ginormous fan of musicals in general though because I grow tired of the switch between talking and singing and speech-like song. What I did enjoy about this musical is that there were large periods of just speech as opposed to musicals that are all song. I truly enjoyed the elegant orchestral score throughout the entirety of the musical. I think that the quality of the score can honestly make or break a musical/ film. There were a few sections however when there was no speaking at all and just the score was playing. While I greatly enjoyed the score, I also enjoy when things are happening, and for that I blame my lack of attention span. All in all, My Fair Lady is a delight and the musical elements are very well done.
