What else can you be when it comes to something like this? If LLoyd Webber was some sort of hack who had never composed anything of any merit whatsoever, you could maybe say that he wasn't credible as a composer. But as he's responsible (at least in part) for several great tunes, and, granted, a fair few that are less great, all we can really say is that your personal preference leans more towards others in his field.

I'm not a big fan of musical theatre at all, but I enjoy some Webber and Rice stuff as much as I enjoy some Rogers and Hammerstein stuff. And more than I enjoy most Gilbert and Sullivan stuff. I say that as a classically-trained musician, not as someone who has suffered a lack of 'cultural mobility'.

But – to use an analogy – I know that Keats and assorted others wrote poetry that was amongst some of the finest that this country has produced in a great overall tradition of literature. I can even understand why (at least partly). But I don't have to actually enjoy that verse or feel a need to pick it up.

So my objective and subjective analysis would not be the same – but there's no contradiction there.

It's easier with Keats with him having been dead for a couple of hundred years. Who's to say if you had encountered the works of the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber in two hundred years time, instead of encountering the works of the charmless, pug-faced Tory Andrew Lloyd Webber over the last twenty years, you wouldn't feel like you do about Keats' output: not for me, but has some artistic merit?

I'd like to think I can separate the man (or woman) from the work, though.

Wagner wasn't a particularly nice bloke (although not in the way he's been demonised in the wake of WWII), but that doesn't change the fact that he is critically regarded by experts as being one of the three composers who, single-handedly, changed the face of serious music. And I can know both those things and say that I love some of his work – not all: some of the vocal stuff is not to my (subjective) taste, whereas some of the purely orchestral stuff is.

Debussy – a bit of a sod. Doesn't mean that Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune isn't a stonkingly fabulous work and one of my own personal favourite pieces of music. But that latter point equally also doesn't mean that I think him to be in the (for want of better words) top layer of the pantheon of composers.

And I think you can apply it to living composers (or any other form of artist etc).

Personally, I'm not particularly into – say – Jimi Hendrix (yes, I know this is probably heresy). But I appreciate that that's a matter of subjective preference and not an indicator of Hendrix's importance both in terms of his place within the rock pantheon and the quality of his work within the context of rock music. There's some camp pop that is almost too much of a guilty secret to declare here (and I'm not talking about pop that could be defined, within that genre, as masterpieces of the short, air-light song) – but while they give me much personal pleasure, I'm not daft enough to pretend for one moment that they have any particular musical quality or that my liking them makes them better than, say, Hendrix.

As only a very slight aside: I watched a bit of the Bee Gees documentary the other night – god, what a bunch of pretentious, self-satisfied twocks (and they deeply remind me of Cliff Richard, which isn't particularly in their favour). But I really do like some of their records.

Just out of interest - just how many "tunes" are there in Les Miserable ?

I know I was a bit disappointed when I bought the double CD of the original cast recording only to find that most of the songs were sung to the same four or five tunes so once you'd heard the four or five of them that got played on radio then you'd basically heard the whole show.

See!!!!!

It's not just me!!!!!

That's pretty much my take on it, though I do enjoy a bit of musical theatre now and then. A junior school production of Joseph was my first break into music - I was 'spotted' and asked along to a local music school. I played in various orchestras and brass bands and toured the USA, Canada, some of Europe and much of the UK playing festivals and competitions. I still play various instruments and compose stuff for my own entertainment - from classical to heavy metal.

Webber has composed some dross, but also some absolute epics. So have most composers and musicians - every band has album fillers, every composer has a few 'lesser' numbers. To call him 'not credible' is frankly ridiculous. He has nothing to prove. He has a remarkable talent to engage audiences, move them and bring them back again and again to his productions. It may be a more 'popular' form of musical theatre but that's down to personal taste.

R&H and some of the names on this thread were indeed at the top of the field though despite their classics I can take or leave much of their work. Much of it just doesn't engage me, though I can appreciate its quality and how it works with the wider production. If I'm honest some of it seems to belong to a bygone era and hasn't aged well. That's just down to my own taste, with my roots firmly entrenched elsewhere.

On a serious note, I'd happily travel back in time and shoot them both for The Sound of Music.

Someone posted 'there's a light at the end of the tunnel' on the 'good management' thread. The first thing popped into my head was a song from Starlight Express and I've only seen that once, around 1986.

Nah, I'd let them live simply for letting Sinatra record "This nearly was mine" from South Pacific, a wonderfully under-played, subdued, recording in which music and vocal are seemingly sung to different tempos but merge together sublimely - have a listen on Spotify, but pick Sinatra/Nelson Riddle's version.

We must be back to snobbery then!



Seriously, can you say in musical terms why Don't Cry For Me Argentina is inferior to, say, You'll Never Walk Alone? Or how Music Of The Night is poorer than Younger Than Springtime?

Again, that's a criticism that might be levelled at any number of musicians or composers. Having played a few Mozart piano sonatas in my time, it's staggering how many times he reuses certain devices in different pieces. And, in more contemporary genres, can anyone truly say that Oasis' stuff doesn't all sound a bit 'samey'?