Philip J. Lang
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Philip J. Lang (17 April 1911, in New York – 22 February 1986, in Branford, Connecticut) was an American musical arranger, orchestrator and composer of band music, as well as a musical educator. He is credited for writing the orchestral arrangements (orchestrations) for over 50 Broadway theatre shows, including many landmark productions, such as Li'l Abner (1956), Hello, Dolly! (1964), Mame (1966), George M (1968), Annie (1977) and 42nd Street (1980). Together with Robert Russell Bennett, he orchestrated the record-breaking productions of Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady (1956) and Camelot (1960).[1] Russell Bennett, the dean of musical orchestrators, remarked that the original arrangements Lang had prepared for Annie Get Your Gun (1946), which utilized a modern technique of orchestral scoring, were beautifully done.[2]
In 1933 Lang graduated from Ithaca College, which later awarded him an honorary doctorate for his career. He pursued further musical studies at Columbia University and the Juilliard School. By 1934 Lang had signed with the busy theatrical orchestration department at Chappell Music run by Max Dreyfus. There he was expected to be the principal orchestral arranger (orchestrator) for about five musical shows a year being produced on Broadway and also be expected to collaborate with his colleagues on shows assigned to them as needed. During the war years, Lang along with Robert Russell Bennett, Don Walker, and Ted Royal were recognized as the busiest orchestrators on Broadway.[3]
Annie Get Your Gun Score
An early assignment was the original orchestrations for Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun, in which Lang employed the new so-called "microphone technique" where the singer would carry the melody line without much support or competition from the orchestra. He would later use this to excellent effect for Rex Harrison's speaking-singing on My Fair Lady, but belters like Ethel Merman expected full-bodied orchestral underpinnings. Producer Richard Rodgers and the musical director Jay Blackton wanted the more traditional "live theater" sound and asked Russell Bennett to redo it during the tryouts.
In his autobiography Bennett suggests that he merely adjusted Lang's work without unbalancing it; but others have claimed that Bennett rewrote practically everything and saved the show.[4] Steven Suskin has confirmed that at least Lang's version of "Anything You Can Do" survived and was used in the final show, to which many other orchestrators eventually contributed.[5] Nevertheless, Bennett apparently appreciated Lang's work and happily collaborated with him on a number of other successful scores.
