A Brief Musical Tribute To Stephen Sondheim

Filed in National by on November 26, 2021

My musical sensibilities have been shaped by Sondheim far more than by any other artist.  I’m certain that I’ve listened to his music far more than anybody else’s.

His death today has made it impossible for me to think of anything else.

So many songs run through my head. But when it came time to choose just two to share,  I gravitated to these:

This song from ‘Merrily We Roll Along’ isn’t just gorgeous on its own. But its poignancy is increased geometrically because it heightens the unspoiled idealism of the three friends meeting for the first time on a rooftop while looking to catch a glimpse of Sputnik.  Since the play takes place in reverse chronological order, we have seen how these lives have been filled with disappointment, cynicism and defeat, plus ‘success’ that’s not really success.  Here, at the end of the show, we hear them at the start of their journey, when the sky, featuring Sputnik, was still the limit:

Some people consider this one of Sondheim’s most autobiographical songs, but I think that Sondheim had something deeper in mind.  It’s a song about how an artist’s obsession with perfectionism leaves little in their life for anything else.  But, at the end, the creation of the ‘hat’ is a joyous accomplishment.  I saw ‘Sunday In The Park with George’ twice.  First, with the original cast on Broadway featuring Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters.  The second time was at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, just a stone’s throw from the Chicago Institute Of Art, where I had viewed ‘Sunday Afternoon On The Isle Of La Grande Jatte’, Seurat’s masterwork, earlier the same day:

 

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  1. Nathan, other Sondheim fans, if you have faves, just post ’em here, and I’ll seek out the best performances I can find.

    I’d been doing these stealth Sondheims because, at 91, I just didn’t know how much longer he’d be with us.

  2. Mike Dinsmore says:

    Sondheim was a production assistant on Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Allegro.” The musical ran for a year on Broadway (1947-48), and has rarely been staged since. Sondheim reportedly spent most of his subsequent years trying to re-do the second act.

    It’s a great pity that he will no longer be around to fulfill that ambition, as “Allegro” is one of the best R&H musicals, with a great plot and memorable songs.

    • You no doubt know that Hammerstein became Sondheim’s mentor when Sondheim was at George School in Newtown, PA. My youngest daughter graduated from there. Sondheim reportedly hated it there.

      But he wrote his first musical ‘By George’ there, which Hammerstein used to teach Sondheim how to go from ‘terrible’, as he labeled the show, to the unchallenged musical master of the late 20th century.

  3. nathan arizona says:

    Since you asked, here are two of my favorites. The first is one of his most popular, the second is one of his earliest. Sondheim is in mellow mode. Also, a double shot of Bernadette Peters, his go-to female singer.

    https://youtu.be/Gey1PtXYwLI

    https://youtu.be/w1IgOImvHoM

    • Yep, Bernadette Peters, along with Elaine Stritch and Angela Lansbury, are probably Sondheim’s most beloved performers. I can’t choose between them.

      I had never seen that version of Bernadette singing ‘Anyone Can Whistle’. That was–transcendent.

      Also, don’t forget that Lee Remick (who sang the song in the original Broadway show) offered to marry Sondheim and to be his ‘beard’. I, for one, would have said ‘yes’ at the time.

  4. nathan arizona says:

    OK, one more. “Sunday in the Park with George,” Act 1 finale. The figures in Seurat’s famous painting take their places. That’s Brent Spiner in the top hat, in his pre-Data career.

    https://youtu.be/YsHflVxyGKQ

  5. Hop-Frog says:

    I can’t think of a musical with a more bravura opening number than “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd.” (Do any of you know why the original Broadway production was filmed with Len Cariou’s replacement, George Hearn, but with Angela Lansbury, the original Mrs. Lovett, when Dorothy Loudon replaced her on stage the same day Hearn stepped in for Cariou?)

    Also from “Sweeney Todd,” how about “A Little Priest” — Sondheim at his most wickedly playful in both words and sensibility.

    And I defy anyone with half a heart not to feel a tear come to their eye during “Children Will Listen,” from “Into the Woods.”

    I could go on, but your headline says “brief.”

    RIP Mr. Sondheim, you enriched all our lives.

  6. Hop-Frog says:

    OK, one more, which i had forgotten until I read Peter Marks’ appreciation in WaPo: the exquisite “Every Day a Little Death” from “A Little Night Music.”

    (Don’t forget your promise to post recordings.)