Leslie Stuart: Composer of Florodora (Forgotten Stars of the Musical Theatre) Review

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(More customer reviews)This book presents a cradle-to-grave biography of this most interesting musical composer's life. Leslie Stuart output falls into a category of composers of an almost lost generation of musical theatre - Edwardian Musical Comedy. Up until Andrew Lamb's opus, the biographical information on Stuart and his times was scant and highly innacurate. Thanks to Lamb, we have an interesting view of Stuart as a talented musician, impresario and composer - rather than the short shriff given him which usually covers only bankruptcy and Florodora.
Stuart's career spanned 40 years during which he met, encouraged, and even promoted some of the most famous artists of his time. He had a remarkable sense of good music and musical talent. Starting in Manchester and moving to London, he was generous, flambouant and had an almost unerring eye to presenting entertaining the public.
His flambouance ran him eventually into trouble, but not before he campaigned for musical copyrights, launched many musical careers and wrote some of the most memorable songs of the period.
His status and reknown in his day was something like that of Andrew Lloyd Weber today - yet remarkably his achievments, until this book, were largely, as the title implies, forgotten.
Andrew Lamb presents his biographical information with incredible detail including letters, documents, news articles and cast lists from all over the world. My favorite item is a photo showing Stuart in New York at a concert with all of the other once-and-future great compoers of the day including Herbert, Kern, Sousa, Friml, etc.

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Leslie Stuart (1864-1928) was a British songwriter best remembered as the composer of the hit show, Florodora. He began writing popular songs as a teenager, first for blackface and vaudeville performers, and eventually for more "legitimate" shows and revues.Florodora (1899), written in collaboration with London's most fashionable librettist, Owen Hall, was a musical-comedy sensation. Its combination of the traditional slow love ballads and waltzes with more rhythmic and long-lined numbers made it a worldwide success.He continued to compose through the first decade of the 20th century, laying the groundwork for the coming innovations in British and American musical theater.