The Ballad of Sweeney Todd

The first sung piece of Sweeney Todd is the Ballad. It seems to be detached from the dramatic progression. The Ballad is heard several times throughout the show. I'll now concentrate on the first Ballad which forms the opening of the show.

The whole song is constructed as retrospective, although it cannot be said to be an exact account of all the events. It is more like a set of hints, describing in rather vague terms the things that happened.

Describing the structure of the verbal communication structure of this number is at times problematic. The one obvious aspect of this Ballad is that it has a phatic function. Its main use is to draw the attention of the audience, or to put in other words: its main use is to create a channel of communication between the singers and the audience.

Is the verbal communication structure employed in this ballad an example of an epic communication structure? There are arguments to support such a statement, the main one being the detachment of the dramatic progression. On the other, the choir is not detached, because they are at the funeral of Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett. They must have known Todd and Mrs. Lovett at one time or another.

The solution to this problem I think, is that the whole Ballad, at least the first one, is a retrospective(In that aspect it differs from all the renderings of the Ballad that are to come.) So the Ballad is detached chronologically, but not dramatically. Therefore I think we cannot really describe the Ballad as an epic communication structure, as it is not detached dramatically from the rest of the action. The Ballads that are to come are based on the conventions of an epic communication structure because they are detached from the dramatic progression. Furthermore there is the fact that first and last Ballad are very much alike. This gives Sweeney Todd its closed structure.

However, when look at the lyrics, one is tempted to think that the Ballad is an epic communication structure. Take for instance the first few lines:

Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd
His skin was pale and his eye was odd
He shaved the faces of gentlemen
Who never thereafter were heard of again
He trod a path that few have trod
Did Sweeney Todd
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Apparently this lines could be sung by a balladeer, a singer of ballads. It is only the dramatic situation that makes it into an eulogy. This piece has its parallel in the Ballad of Booth or the Ballad of Czolgoz from Assassins, the main difference is that the dramatic situation in Assassins turns these ballads into elements of an epic communication structures, while in this ballad the dramatic situation prevents the creation of such a structure.

To say that the Ballad is totally non-epic would be a misrepresentation of facts. For instance, at the end of the Ballad Todd appears from the grave, asking the audience to stay and listen to his tale:

Figure 6.1: The Ballad of Sweeney Todd

TODD	CHORUS
Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd
	Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd
He served a dark and a vengeful God
	He served a dark and a vengeful God
What happened then, well that's the play
And he wouldn't want us to give it away
Not Sweeney
Not Sweeney Todd	Not Sweeney Todd
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street	The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Here a strange thing happens. The singer, playing Todd, suddenly is not Todd anymore, but himself. He represents himself as an acquaintance of Todd, but he is not Todd anymore. It is here that the communication structure becomes really epic.

How does the music fit into all this? First of all, because it is the first vocal piece in the show, it attracts the attention of the audience. The melody seems to be built to attract and hold this attention. If we look at the first two notes, we see a leap of a 4th, an interval which has a signaling function. Many hymns and national anthems start with an ascending 4th.

There is more, however. The Ballad begins with a solo-part sung by a baritone or bass, a low voice-type, which helps to build and retain the illusion of an eulogy. After that the melody is repeated, with different words, by a tenor:

He kept a shop in London Town
Of fancy clients and good renown
And what if none of their souls were saved
They went to their maker, impeccably shaved
By Sweeney
By Sweeney Todd
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

The eulogy is continued. After that something happens, which would probably not happen on a ''normal'' funeral: the choir begins to sing fortissimo subito. The theme is the Dies Iræ transposed up a third. Once could think that, since the Dies Iræ-sequence is part of the Missa pro defunctis, this could be considered part of the funeral service. The lyrics are very Brechtian:

Swing your razor, high Sweeney
Hold it to the skies
Freely flows the blood of those who moralize

Still the f$\sharp$ is sounding as an organ-point both in the bass as in one of the middle voices, from m.59 to m.70, after that there is a strange dissonance. In the accompaniment we find the f$\sharp$-minor accompaniment, we found in the beginning of this ballad. And yet, in the vocal lines, we see a g$\sharp$-c$\sharp$ consonant. Below the f$\sharp$ a c$\sharp$ has been added. I am inclined to think that the chord from m.71 to m.74 is a c$\sharp$ chord, or at least a dominant function for f$\sharp$. The fact that the accompaniment differs so little from the accompaniment we saw in the beginning, does nothing to emphasize this function. The differing harmonic functions are not really made clear in this piece. This makes the piece sound like one stream of sound, really like a narrative, or better yet, as one long phrase. Cadences are not accentuated much in this piece. And yet the absence of clear harmonic functions lends this piece an esoteric sound.

The most obvious question is: why would they sing at the funeral of a murderer? Why would anyone come to the funeral of a murderer? The answer to that question, in my opinion is, is that Sondheim wanted to create sympathy for Sweeney. He, as an author, has a clear preference for Sweeney. What Sondheim seems to say here is: it is bad what Sweeney has done, but it is justifiable from his viewpoint. This section really sums up the essence of the show. It is like a motto. It is no coincidence that Sondheim used the Dies Iræ-motive here, which is the basic motive of the whole show^6.1. Both the musical and the lyrical motto are brought together in this section.

The structure of verbal communication in this section is quite clear, I think. The choir has one addressee, namely the audience in the theater. But, as I said, even because there is a choir, there is no epic communication structure, it is all dramatic communication, because all of the prologue forms one section of dramatic progress. The structure of the verbal communication lacks the detachment of an epic communication structure.

After that there seems to develop some sort of conversation between the funeral-goers:

TOBIAS: His needs were few, his room was bare
3RD MAN (BARITONE): A lavabo and a fancy chair
4TH MAN (BASS): A mug of suds and a leather strop
An apron, a towel, and a mop
2 WOMEN (MEZZOS): For neatness he deserves a nod,
Does Sweeney Todd
ALL: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

The music is almost the same as the previous section, but with some differences. In the upper voice there is a melody sounding, but instead of just one note, there are several. If we look at the note-constellations we see that although there are at time only two note, that the most probable functions of this note groups is either dominant, or sub-dominant. This makes the harmonic scheme in the upper voices relatively easy to follow. The ostinato-pattern partly follows this. There is one difference with the ostinato-pattern in m.1. In the bass a c$\sharp$ is added, and so one would expect a ${\rm I}^6_4$ chord. But the function of the ornamental and chord notes seems to have switched. The g$\sharp$ which had an ornamental function in the f$\sharp$-chord in m.1 now becomes a chord-note while the a, a chord note in m.1, now merely becomes a prolongation of the c$\sharp$. So instead of being build on I, this section up to m.97 is built on V. In m.98 the V resolves to I making the first audible cadence in the piece.

In the upper-voice Dies Iræ-like motives are sounding, which are now harmonized. In many cases there is a V-I progression. But in many cases there is no such progression. In m.88 there are even parallel 5ths, which are not permitted, in almost all the textbooks on voiceleading and harmony. Is that what Sondheim is trying to do here? Maybe, the undermining of tonality, and the doing of ''illegal'' things, really are a characterization of Sweeney, who undermines the established society, and to achieve that goal does highly illegal things. Many of the sounds are dissonant and in my view that is another pointer in that direction. If we take the upper notes as the melody notes in the upper voice, we notice that the Dies Iræ is sounding through in all of these ''melodies''.

It is not certain that these statements are addressed at the audience. It might well be that it is meant as kind of gossip at the grave. However, as I stated in the previous chapter, the audience is always receiver of a verbal utterance, even when it is not directly addressed. I think that this section depicts some kind of gossiping and can be called a polylogue. This impression is intensified by the following section:

WOMEN: Inconspicuous Sweeney was
Quick and clean 'e was
Back of his smile
Under his word
Sweeney heard music that nobody heard
Sweeney pondered and Sweeney planned
Like a perfect machine 'e did

I can understand that in many productions this section the singers turn towards the audience. But I think that it is perfectly defendable that this section and the next section are seen as the gossiping of the inhabitants of the neighborhood. It would also be in support of my claim that this is no example of an epic communication structure. The next section is an even stronger evidence that this is gossiping amongst funeral-goers:

Soprano	Alto	Tenor	Baritone	Bass
		Sweeney was smooth	Sweeney was smooth	Sweeney was smooth
		Sweeney was subtle	Sweeney was subtle	Sweeney was subtle
		Sweeney would blink	Sweeney would blink	Sweeney would blink
		and rats would scuttle	and rats would scuttle	and rats would scuttle
		Inconspicuous	Sweeney was smooth	Inconspicuous
		Sweeney was	Sweeney was subtle	Sweeney was
		Quick and quiet and	Sweeney would blink and	Quick and quiet and
		like a perfect ma-	rats would scuttle	clean 'e was
	Sweeney was smooth	chine 'e was was	Inconspicuous	Sweeney!
	Sweeney was subtle	Sweeney!	Sweeney was	Clean 'e was was
Sweeney was smooth	Sweeney would blink and	Clean'e was was	Quick and quiet and	Sweeney!
Sweeney was subtle	rats would scuttle	Sweeney!	like perfect ma-	Keen 'e was was
Sweeney would blink and	Sweeney!	Sweeney!	chine 'e was was	Sweeney!
rats would scuttle	Sweeney!	Sweeney!	Sweeney!	Sweeney!
Sweeney!	Sweeney!	Sweeney!	Sweeney!	Sweeney!
Sweeney!	Sweeney!	Sweeney!	Sweeney!	Sweeney!
Sweeney!	Sweeney!	Sweeney!	Sweeney!	Sweeney!

TODD	CHORUS
Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd
	Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd
He served a dark and a vengeful God
	He served a dark and a vengeful God
What happened then, well that's the play
And he wouldn't want us to give it away
Not Sweeney
Not Sweeney Todd	Not Sweeney Todd
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street	The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

In the first four measures(m.114-m.117) we hear an unison male choir, with an ostinato-accompaniment, which is, as in the ballad an embellished f$\sharp$ minor chord. From m.118 the contrapuntal texture begins to unfold itself. The accompaniment stays basically the same: an embellished f$\sharp$ minor chord. This whole section bears some some resemblance to a canon in the unison (or the octave). In the next four measures as the contralto begins to sing, a new tone is added to accompaniment, namely an e, as the sound becomes more cluster-like. In the voices we see a new tone namely the g$\natural$, a very sharp dissonance to the f$\sharp$. The f$\sharp$ is used as a leading note towards the g$\natural$. But since the g$\sharp$ is a dissonant in the whole of the chord structure, it is not heard as being the tonic, but merely as a strange dissonance. The next few measures, the accompaniment figure more or less stays the same, with exception of the a which ascends to a b. Thereby the chord thought of as I becomes a V$^{\rm ael}$ in b-minor it seems. In m.128 en m.129 the cluster becomes more complicated with the return of the a. While the f$\sharp$ fixedly remains the organ point, the whole cluster moves up one semi-tone. And m.129 the was, but then in m.130, the cluster resolves at least in the vocal parts to the long-awaited f$\sharp$ chord. In the accompaniment, there is also a f$\sharp$ chord, but there is also a e-minor chord, as a kind of prolongation. And in m.132 the vocal parts become a half-diminished chord of c$\sharp$ while the oscillation f$\sharp$-e chords, still continues. In the bass we see a pattern c$\natural$-g$\natural$-c$\sharp$-c$\natural$, and this could be seen as a permutation of the Johanna-theme by the Judge(see p. ).

As a conclusion we can state that the communication structure of this piece is peculiar. It seems to be a mixture of elements of dramatic and epic communication structures. I think however that the dramatic communication structure prevails over the epic communication structure. The use of a choir could be construed as an element of an epic communication structure. I think it is this mixture of elements of both communication structures that gives this piece its special place amongst all the numbers in Sweeney Todd.