I believe that the truly great composers have all understood this. The brilliance of the musicals of composers like George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Frederick Loewe, Frank Loesser, Cole Porter, Meredith Willson, Cy Coleman, Jerry Herman, Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Stephen Schwartz, Alan Menken, Elton John, Jason Robert Brown, Jeff Marx, Marc Shaiman is that their music seems to serve the stories—and not the other way around.
