Stephen Sondheim: A life in music

Stephen Sondheim in his apartment. Photograph: Piotr Redlinski/New York Times/Redux/eyevine When Stephen Sondheim was in his 30s, he would get approached, occasionally, by out-of-town entertainment companies, struggling with a production. He was a hot brand new thing, a lyricist of West Side Story as great as Gypsy as great as in direct as a fool around doctor, so off he went. He laughs during a memory. "Every single a single of them was a failure. we didn't help them during all!" In a entrance years, he found his voice essay "musicals which startled people", as great as his appeal changed. "I have not," he says drily, "been asked out of town, or for advice, for 40 years."

Finishing a Hat: The Collected Lyrics of Stephen Sondheim (Volume 1) with attendant comments, principles, heresies, grudges, whines as great as anecdotes

byStephen Sondheim

Buy it from a Guardian bookshop

Search a Guardian bookshop Sondheim turned 80 this year, an age when "a sure volume of venerability is available", as great as he has spent many of a year in attendance galas as great as reverence evenings. He is glad to return to his Manhattan townhouse of 50 years Katharine Hepburn used to live subsequent door where, upon a frozen New York night, he sits upon a lounge in a warm pool of light, fussed during by two black poodles. When he speaks, he rubs his eyes furiously as if to aid concentration.His brand new book, Finishing a Hat: The Collected Lyrics of Stephen Sondheim, with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines as great as Anecdotes, sounds similar to a nerdy practice usually Sondheim fanatics! compete nce go for, an exposition of his work from 1954 (Saturday Night) to '81 (Merrily We Roll Along). A second volume, starting from Sunday in a Park with George to a present, is due during a end of 2011. The success of a book has surprised him; it is in a fifth imprint as great as has been widely praised, not just by a specialists. It functions along a same lines as his songwriting, which he boils down in a opening pages to 3 principles: reduction is more, content dictates form, as great as God is in a details. "It's regularly fun," he says, "to read anybody who is expounding a craft, as long as they do it in item as great as they're ardent about it. It could be an oyster farm; we know? we wish to know just how we raise oysters."There have been some-more gossipy joys in a pages, too. Much attention has been since in a coverage to Sondheim's assessment of a little of his peers. Hammerstein's lyrics, he writes, could be verbose as great as nonsensical; Lorenz Hart was "mediocre", Irving Berlin's worldview "banal" as great as Nol Coward "posturing". He is toughest of all upon himself: nearly 50 years upon he is still mortified by his rhyming of "woman" with "human" in a strain which got yanked from Anyone Can Whistle.The value of Sondheim's subject have a difference over which of a oyster farmer, of course, is a frisson of celebrity. "He didn't wish soppy," he says of Leonard Bernstein, with whom he argued over a lyrics of West Side Story. "He just longed for to be important. He longed for to be Poetic with a capital P. That's my suspicion of wrong. It was a self-consciousness. He was so endangered which a work be a Great Work capital G, capital W as great as he suspicion which was a way to get it." Sondheim smiles and, with what competence be called a crack of a tail, adds: "Lenny suffered from something Madonna, when we worked with her, called Important-itis."The joy of collaborating is a company, says Sondheim. He grew up a usually child of a wealthy Manhattan couple who divorced when he was 10. Both relat! ives wor ked in a conform industry; in after years he pronounced which operative in a entertainment was an knowledge of family he longed for out upon as a child. His visit collaborators Arthur Laurents, Jerome Robbins, Hal Prince, as great as his leading ladies, Elaine Stritch, Bernadette Peters, Angela Lansbury shaped a stable, critical sourroundings in which he could aspire to his aims.The biggest misapprehension about Sondheim which he puts intellect above feeling, as if a two aren't continuous rests, as he sees it, upon a wrong-headed understanding of art; which it is driven by something close as great as mystical, rather than hard, quick rules. "I have by inlet an analytical mind," he says, which is not to contend he isn't emotional. At a age of 15, he was taken to a opening night of Carousel, Rodgers as great as Hammerstein's second collaboration. The Hammersteins, friends of his parents, had some-more or reduction adopted him, as great as which night during a entertainment he was utterly transported. "I'm a great audience," he says. "I cry really easily. we suspend dishonesty in two seconds." He cried so hard, he after told a New York Times, which he stained Dorothy Hammerstein's fur stole.Sondheim's background is mostly used as supporting evidence for his reputation as "the prototypical restricted intellectual", as he puts it himself with amiable irritation. After his relatives divorced, he was enrolled for a reduced time in military academy, where he responded definitely to a manners as great as regulations. His father, he says, was regularly distant. "He never praised me to my face. But we knew from things he told his friends which he was proud of me, so it didn't bother me during all. He was not a ebullient guy. Even when we hugged it's not which we felt him withdrawing, though . . . we consider he was many some-more physically ebullient with his friends than he was with me. The indicate was, we knew he was proud of me."His mother, upon a alternative hand, "was usually interested in success as gre! at as fa me. So, she liked what we did when it got great reviews, as great as not when it didn't. She was wholly a creature of public opinion." That she should have produced a bard such as Sondheim is, perhaps, criticism enough upon what he suspicion of her values.Initially a maths student during Williams College in Massachusetts, a young Sondheim took an elective march in strain with no intention of posterior it. During a initial lecture, a students were played Debussy's La Mer, as great as a techer asked: "what does it receptive to advice similar to to you? Does it receptive to advice similar to a sea? Doesn't receptive to advice similar to it to me." Something in Sondheim rose up as great as responded, both to a down-to-earth approach as great as to a understanding which "music has which conspicuous quality of suggesting things though being specific. It's an epitome art as great as nonetheless it's an romantic one, as great as that's what creates it so remarkable." The strain clergyman in subject altered his life. "He was really spit-spot Mary Poppins he took all a intrigue out of strain as great as which appealed to me. we hold in it. we hold that, far from demystifying it, it creates things clearer and, in a sense, adds to a mystery of creation. Because a desire to have form out of chaos is why we write."The some-more precise, as great as concise, a lyric, a some-more likely it is to acquit a ideas during a behind of it. "I consider a some-more restrictive, a freer it is. It's regularly been true. If you're sealed in a room, we try all a corners." Of course, he says, "Tolstoy competence disagree. There have been people who similar to to over-write, as great as who have been in effect during over-writing. Particularly a Russians." He points to Hammerstein's lyrics, which during their many appropriate illustrate how something typical upon a page can be remade in performance. "'Oh what a beautiful sunrise / oh what a beautiful day.' Nothing could be some-more banal," Sondheim says. "But which strain altered a! history of low-pitched theatre." And it did so by simplicity, distinctness as great as repetition.These were a little of a wrangles he had with Bernstein whilst essay West Side Story, a pursuit he won, during a age of 27, after a successful audition. Sondheim was upon a side of prosaic, character-consistent lyrics in a face of a composer's some-more full of excellent words approach. He still regrets a line, from a strain "Maria", "say it shrill as great as there's strain personification / contend it soothing as great as it's roughly similar to praying". It contributes to a regrettable "wetness", he writes, which persists "throughout all a romantic lyrics in a show", though which, he admits, "may really great have contributed to a score's popularity". (He would have similar issues with Hammerstein, who he thinks lost his conduct in a lyrics of South Pacific. What to have of Nellie Forbush, who a single notation sings dippily of a sky being a "bright canary yellow" as great as then, says Sondheim, "also uses a word 'bromidic', a word which nobody has ever used. So let's talk about consistency.")After West Side Story, he was in line to write a strain for Gypsy, though Ethel Merman suspicion him as great green, as great as it went to Jule Styne. He wrote a lyrics instead, in an unusual creative pour out over a march of 4 months. It is his "coming-of-age" musical, though it wasn't until A Funny Thing Happened upon a Way to a Forum which Sondheim had a chance to write both strain as great as lyrics, as great as proceed his career proper.Forum was a success, nonetheless his pride was harm when it swept a 1962 Tonys in roughly each category solely Best Score. His subsequent musical, Anyone Can Whistle, was deemed as great clever for a own good, an indictment which would follow him around as great as which, in this case, has a little legitimacy. In a book, he writes, "Arthur [Laurents] as great as we had created as if we were a two smartest kids in a class (in a behind row, of course)."At a time of writing, he says, he ! is never unwavering of being problematic or inaccessible. "When we do a show even something similar to Pacific Overtures we usually consider of a things which will have it palatable as great as renouned as great as acceptable as great as entertaining for everyone. Yes, we know it's in Japan as great as is about gunboat diplomacy. But there'll be charming costumes, as great as I've got a lot of stroke starting in a strain as great as there have been funny scenes. we was dead surprised when everyone said: what is this?"Half a time, he says, we have no suspicion what will take off. He was tickled, once, whilst upon foot by Greenwich Village, to see "a man came along a street wearing a flesh T-shirt, really tight. And upon a front it said, "off to a gym, afterwards to a fitting". It is a line from "The Ladies Who Lunch", from Company, which "became a arrange of catchphrase among show queens". His many appropriate lyrics have been those which engage an mocking reversal or plunge from a single register to another; "The Ladies Who Lunch", an ostensibly whimsical piece, turns with a sharp, dim spin in to a lady calling time upon her own usefulness. The point, he says, is which we can't second guess what will be popular. "I've never suspicion for a single minute, oh this line, oh this cacophony is starting to spin this assembly off. I'd improved change it. Not once. That's a fool's game. To try to prejudge whilst you're essay is a waste of time."Sondheim has mostly pronounced which his career has been an practice in figuring out what went wrong with a second half of Allegro, a Rodgers as great as Hammerstein wave which confounded audiences, in a center of their run of outrageous successes. It comes down to this, he says: "making transparent to an assembly why you've created what you've written, as great as what it's about. Then if they similar to it, great. If they do not similar to it, fine. But if they do not similar to it because they do not assimilate it, that's bad. That is a writer's fault. If we write it as grea! t as it' s transparent as great as they do not similar to it, that's not your fault. That's what art is about."There is an arrogance which Sondheim has clinging himself monk-like to art, though that's not true, he says. He supposes he worked 12-hour days upon Gypsy, though usually rarely has he felt as great exhausted by work. He writes lying down, upon a couch, naps reduction right away than he did when he was younger, as great as wonders if he'd have been some-more prolific if he'd worked during a desk. Anyway, work isn't everything. From a age of 61 he cohabited for a little years with Peter Jones, a dramatist. He must've been a nightmare, by then, we imagine. Sondheim raises his eyebrows. "I'm really easy to live with that's why people similar to collaborating with me. we was not a calamity during all. Why would we consider we would be?"Well, not having lived with anyone to which indicate hadn't he turn resistant in his habits?"Oh no, no. If anything we was as great flexible. Because we was unused to it. we didn't know what a final competence be. So, we was a naif. This associate had lived with somebody before as great as he knew some-more about it than we did. If anything, we was a kid."Did which annoy him?"It didn't annoy me, though it was formidable during times. we went by what everybody goes by in their initial critical relationship, which many people do in their late teenagers or 20s, as great as which we didn't until we was 60. So it was formidable for me to learn; though it was also joyful."He is not a great a single for deliberation hypotheticals. "Oh, we have no idea," he says, upon a subject of whether his hold up would have been significantly opposite if he had come of age in a some-more gay-tolerant era. Then he reconsiders. "Wait a minute; approbation we do. It certainly would have been easier. Among alternative things, nobody in my era ever adopted children if we were in a gay relationship. we would adore to have had children; as great as if I'd b! een a si ngle era later, we would have."In many respects Sondheim has finished precisely what he wanted, which is a great partial of his appeal; professionally, it gives rise toanintegrity we don't get from focus-grouped, market-tested Broadway musicals which "draw in congregation mostly upon a drift of spectacle". He hates modern cocktail songs for their messy rhyme schemes. He has listened to a little rap, as great as nonetheless "the rhythmic fad gets me", he isn't interested in what rappers have to say. "Approximate rhymes have been critical to swat artists, so things receptive to advice alike, as if they're festive as great as brilliant. But those of us who sweat over what we call undiluted rhymes: it's not impressive." As for opera: "I've rarely seen an show which we didn't consider could be shorter."Concentration is all. "Finishing a Hat" is a pretension of a strain from Sunday in a Park with George, a usually song, writes Sondheim, "which is an evident countenance of a personal inner experience," a moment of his, as great as a impression George Seurat's, creation. "It's basic to everything," he says. "In a case of Seurat, a whole suspicion is which thoroughness gets in a way of his personal life. He is regularly concentrating upon this fucking painting. Simple as that. Two years' worth of thoroughness as great as if you're his girlfriend, that's not so good. You're sitting during dinner, a residence is upon fire, yes, dear, approbation dear, because partial of your thoughts is, what do we do with a hat? What do we do with a hat?!"
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