Danny Troob: orchestrating Beauty and the Beast

About Danny Troob

Daniel Troob was born on 28 February 1949 in Forest Hills, Queens, and studied composition at Harvard, graduating with honours in 1970. He was writing for orchestra as a child: at twelve he made his Carnegie Hall debut with an orchestral work he had orchestrated himself, conducted by Leopold Stokowski. His Broadway work began in the mid-1970s, with dance music for Pacific Overtures in 1976, and he went on to orchestrate Big River, which brought him a Drama Desk Award in 1985.

Beauty and the Beast is the centre of his film and theatre reputation. He orchestrated Alan Menken's score for the 1991 animated film and arranged its songs, then orchestrated the stage musical, which opened at the Palace Theatre on 18 April 1994 and ran for 5,461 performances. His other Disney credits include Aladdin, Pocahontas, Hercules and Enchanted, and he was nominated for Tony Awards for The Pajama Game and Shrek the Musical; a second Drama Desk Award came for Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella in 2013.

The 39 entries reflect the licensed stage material rather than the film soundtrack. Dance and underscore cues sit beside the songs, which is why titles such as #2A Belle Playoff, #4B Gaston's Crossover and #17B Fight On The Tower appear at all. The whole set runs to about 155 minutes, roughly an evening in the theatre, and the note count is low for that running time; the catalogue does not record the scoring of each file.

Listening and playing notes

Troob's orchestrations are for the theatre orchestra rather than the concert hall: strings carry the melody, brass and reeds answer it, and percussion marks the scene changes. Notice how little the accompaniment does under the voices in Belle and No Matter What, and how much of the drama is left to a single woodwind line. The reprises are shorter and more lightly scored than the numbers they repeat, so they work as transitions rather than set pieces. If you are preparing a part, count the rests, because several cues are mostly accompaniment and the entries are easy to miss.

Selected scores

1. Belle (Reprise)

   The most-viewed entry: Belle's short reprise, in which she sings of wanting more than the provincial life around her.

2. Gaston

   The tavern number for Gaston and Lefou, written by Menken and Ashman for the 1991 film and carried into the stage score.

3. Be Our Guest

   Lumiere's invitation number, re-staged for the theatre with a dance break for Belle and the enchanted objects.

4. Something There

   The duet in which Belle and the Beast begin to warm to each other, placed after the library scene.

5. Transformation / Finale Ultimo

   The closing sequence of the show, ending with the Beast restored and the company reunited for the final number.

6. The Mob Song

   Gaston leads the villagers to the castle; in the stage score the number runs into the fight music at #17B.

7. No Matter What

   A Menken-Rice addition for Broadway: a father-and-daughter ballad for Maurice and Belle.

8. Overture

   The opening orchestral cue, and the first of the numbered stage entries.

9. Maison des Lunes

   Gaston, Lefou and Monsieur D'Arque plot to have Maurice committed; the number was dropped from the licensed version in 2021.

10. Beast Lets Belle Go

    A short scene cue in which the Beast frees Belle to go to her father.