I will keep this essay short. Yeston’s scores and librettos are so crisp and clean and beautiful. Honestly I listened to this album 3 times in a row before writing this essay, and I’m mostly lost for words in it’s beauty.

With his pit pit patter of raindrops sounding first few measures of the album leading into this quiet trumpet(?) drawing you into the first vocal line “In the middle of your life.” This is classic Yeston. It’s quite apparent that Yeston writes both the score and libretto. The two blend together in a way that makes each character’s voice feel like another piece in the “Yeston Soaring and Heavenly Melodies” orchestra. This is similar in taste to his Titanic score, and in the best way possible, 14 years later. What a joy!

Like a good book, Yeston’s scores are a great example of a”page turning” style of songwriting, where each track/scene is so musically intruiging that it’s hard not to get excited to hear what comes next. Each song in Death Takes a Holiday transitions seemingly seemlessly smoothly to the next. Even though there are dialog transitions, and obvious silence between scenes, the album still feels like one long beautiful song. This style, if executed well “correctly”, works well with critics and audiences as we saw with Yeston’s Titanic, Sondheim’s Passion, ALW’s Aspects of Love.

Yeston doesn’t strench his lyrics too thin or two broadly. The connections between syllable structure and musicality/time signitures rhythm is really smooth and pleasing to the ears. You know when it feels like the lyricist tries to fit 10 syllables into half a measure? This score/libretto has none of that. There is no bumpiness or clunckiness to the words being said, and the dialog transitions seemlessly into the orchestra as new song begins.

In short, Death Takes a Holiday’s score is nothing short of gorgeous. Listen to it.