"Les Miserables" or "The Phantom of The Opera"? - Part One: Music

The first category in this discussion is music. The music to both is
very well done, and quite beautiful in many places. I personally love
the music to both. But is there more than meets the eye? What is
the philosophical background here? Let's look at the composers first:


Claude-Michel Schönberg:


Here's the link to a short biography in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude-Michel_Sch%C3%B6nberg

It doesn't tell us much about his philosophical background, but one
thing that jumps out at me is his work on a rock musical. If you ask
me, much of Les Miserables' music also has a rock influence. It
would appear that Schönberg has more of a rock influence than a
classical one, or maybe even more than a Broadway influence.
However, I haven't heard the rest of his work, so this is merely my
hypothesis.


Andrew Lloyd Weber:


Here's what Wikipedia has to say about him:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Loyd_Webber

Well it certainly looks as though he has a lot of classical influence,
and he is definitely much more prestigious and accomplished than
Schönberg. Unfortunately, though, I don't know as much about
Schönberg as I do Weber, and neither does Wikipedia. So that
doesn't leave us with much except that Weber appears to have
musical roots in classical music and Schönberg seems to be
a rock songwriter (please post a comment if you know anything
else about either of them). So let's move on to some of the major
numbers. I'll put these in a separate post.