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Who2 Biography:

Stephen Sondheim

, Composer

  • Born: 22 March 1930
  • Birthplace: New York, New York
  • Best Known As: West Side Story lyricist and superstar Broadway composer

Stephen Sondheim wrote music or lyrics for West Side Story, Company, A Little Night Music and nearly a dozen other hit Broadway musicals of the late 20th century. His break came in the early 1940's when he and his divorced mother moved from New York City to rural Doylestown, Pa. They lived near the summer residence of Oscar Hammerstein II, who became the boy's mentor and taught him the craft of composing musical plays. Sondheim wrote lyrics to Leonard Bernstein's music for the huge hit West Side Story (1957). He went on to compose music, lyrics or both for hits of his own, including Gypsy (1959), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), Company (1970), Follies (1971), Sweeney Todd (1979), Sunday in the Park with George (1984) and Into the Woods (1987). His theatrical influence lay not only in his skill as a composer but also in his innovative story-telling and musical styles and unexpected subject matter. Examples include controversial discussions of relationships through non-linear vignettes in Company, the blending of contemporary theater with classical Japanese poetry and music in Pacific Overtures (1976), and Sweeney Todd's operatic, dark portrayal of 19th-century England.

Sondheim majored in music at Williams College in Massachusetts and studied composition at Princeton University... A Little Night Music (1973) included his first commercial hit song, "Send in the Clowns"... Side by Side by Sondheim (1976), a hit in London, New York and regional theaters, is a narrated revue of songs with Sondheim's lyrics and other composers' music... His Broadway work repeatedly won Tony, Drama Desk, and New York Drama Critic Circle awards for best musical, best music and best lyrics... He composed scores or songs for the films Stavisky (1974), Reds (1981) and Dick Tracy (1990). The latter won an Academy Award for best song, "Sooner or Later."

 
 
American Theater Guide: Stephen [Joshua] Sondheim

Sondheim, Stephen [Joshua] (b. 1930), composer and lyricist. The most daring and often demanding theatre songwriter of his era, he was born in New York and given his precollege education at the George School in Newtown, Pennsylvania. There he met James Hammerstein and befriended his father, Oscar Hammerstein II, who became a sort of mentor to Sondheim. After majoring in music at Williams College, Sondheim continued his studies with Milton Babbitt. His first score (music and lyrics) was written for Saturday Night, a Broadway‐bound musical that was aborted on the death of its producer; the show would not be performed until forty years later. Sondheim's lyrics were first heard on Broadway in West Side Story (1957), followed by his lyrics for Gypsy (1959). The popular A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962) marked his Broadway debut as both a composer and a lyricist, followed by the unsuccessful cult favorite Anyone Can Whistle (1964). After providing lyrics only for Do I Hear a Waltz? (1965), Sondheim hit his stride with a series of musicals in the 1970s that were not always commercially successful but never less than fascinating: Company (1970), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), Pacific Overtures (1973), and Sweeney Todd (1979). In 1981 his Merrily We Roll Along was harshly received and had a brief run but in later years was produced frequently. Sunday in the Park with George (1984) won a Pulitzer Prize and his Into the Woods (1987) enjoyed a long run. Assassins (1991) was highly praised during its limited run and has found life in regional and college theatres, while Passion (1994) was more awarded than it was popular. He also contributed lyrics to the revised Candide (1973) and songs for the Yale production of The Frogs (1974) which was revised and revived on Broadway in 2004. Compilation shows based on his songs include Side by Side by Sondheim (1977), Marry Me a Little (1980), and Putting It Together (1993 and 1999). His most recent new project is the autobiographical musical Bounce (2003). Although many of Sondheim's songs have become favorites among theatregoers, only “Send in the Clowns” has en‐joyed the kind of wide‐ranging celebrity possible in the days of Rodgers and Hammerstein. Nevertheless, he is one of the most musicianly of contemporary composers and he is tirelessly experimental in the many forms theatre music can take. His forte, however, is his brilliant lyric writing, and only the most elegant, decorous work of Alan Jay Lerner equals it among contemporaries. Sondheim is an exceedingly clever rhymer and a superb, if misanthropic, wit. This wit and misanthropy have combined with his musicianship to make his musical comedies unique, while they have given his operet‐tas a style and tone closer to the comic opera masterpieces of Gilbert and Sullivan than anything since the heyday of the Savoyard works. Biography: Stephen Sondheim: A Life, Meryle Secrest, 1998.

 
Artist: Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim

Born:
Mar 22, 1930 in New York City

Representative Albums:

Sondheim: A Musical Tribute, Side by Side by Sondheim, A Stephen Sondheim Evening

Similar Artists:

Cole Porter, Oscar Hammerstein II, Frank Loesser, George Gershwin

Influences:

Jule Styne, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Leonard Bernstein

Followers:

  • Genre: Soundtrack
  • Active: '70s - 2000s
  • Instrument: Piano, Vocals, Arranger

Biography

According to most critics and theater historians, Stephen Sondheim (born 1930) stands among Broadway show composers and lyricists not only as the greatest of his generation but as the only great one of his generation. There may be many reasons why Broadway failed to produce consistently great writers to follow the Rodgers & Hammersteins and Lerner & Loewes of the '40s and '50s, but the fact remains that though he operates without serious competition, Sondheim clearly ranks with such masters, as well as with the Jerome Kerns and Irving Berlins of an even earlier generation.

Sondheim became a protégé of Hammerstein's after befriending the lyricist's son in school, but he got his first big break when he was hired to write lyrics to Leonard Bernstein's score for West Side Story (1957), which turned out to be one of the biggest hits and most memorable works of its time. This led to a lot of lyric-writing work, though Sondheim always wanted to write music as well. Nevertheless, he worked with Jule Styne on Gypsy (1959), another enormous hit, and would later agree to do the same with Richard Rodgers for the unsuccessful Do I Hear a Waltz? (1965).

Before that, however, Sondheim scored his first success as composer and lyricist with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962). It was his last hit until Company (1970), a show about contemporary life and mores that did much to revolutionize the Broadway musical and, as Hammerstein's '50s shows had, move it more toward serious and exotic subjects. Since that time, Sondheim's shows have been amazingly daring in terms of subject matter, with unusual musical ideas and stunningly original lyrics. But they have not always been big hits and have marked a time in theater when Broadway show music became a marginalized art form in terms of popular culture.

Nevertheless, Sondheim's shows of the '70s and '80s are benchmarks of the genre: Follies (1971) brought together aging follies girls for a look at middle-aged American life; A Little Night Music (1973) is based on Ingmar Bergman's film Smiles of a Summer Night and contains Sondheim's sole hit song, "Send in the Clowns"; Pacific Overtures (1976) ambitiously took on the subject of Japanese-American relations; Sweeney Todd (1979) was an operetta based on the British grand guignol tale of a murderous barber; Sunday in the Park with George (1984) was a biography of impressionist painter Georges Seurat; and Into the Woods (1987) wove together children's fairy tales with the theories of psychologist Bruno Bettelheim. In 1991, Sondheim wrote his first off-Broadway musical, Assassins, a short piece about presidential killers. He also turned more to films (he had written a score for Stavisky in the '70s), writing songs for Madonna in Dick Tracy in 1990 and working on an original movie musical. But his next work to appear was a Broadway musical, Passion, in 1994. He was occupied in the 1990s teaching and overseeing various productions of his existing work, but he also prepared a new musical, which, after many delays and title changes, was scheduled to be staged in 2003 under the name Bounce. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
 
Actor:

Stephen Sondheim

  • Born: Mar 22, 1930 in New York City, New York
  • Occupation: Actor, Writer
  • Active: '70s-2000s
  • Major Genres: Musical, Theater
  • Career Highlights: Sunday in the Park with George, The Last of Sheila, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
  • First Major Screen Credit: West Side Story (1961)

Biography

Over the course of his distinguished career, lyricist Stephen Sondheim has penned some of Broadway and Hollywood's most memorable song lyrics known for their sophistication and intelligence. Having won almost every major American entertainment industry award available, he is responsible for changing the course of the American musical from pure froth to something that is as substantial as it is entertaining. Some of his best-known musicals include West Side Story and Gypsy. He also penned movie soundtracks. During the '60s, Sondheim played a key role in making British crossword puzzles popular in the U.S. His fascination with language puzzles resulted in his co-writing the screenplay for the unique The Last of Sheila with Anthony Perkins. The film is a mystery patterned after a British crossword and is filled with enough puzzles and movie-making in-jokes to please both film buffs and crossword lovers. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

 
Music Encyclopedia: Stephen (Joshua) Sondheim

(b New York, 22 March 1930). American composer and lyricist. His early interest in the musical was encouraged by Oscar Hammerstein II, a family friend. He studied composition with Milton Babbitt. It was as a lyricist that he first attained success, in Bernstein's West Side Story (1957) and Styne's Gypsy (1959). He went on to write words and music for a succession of Broadway musicals, beginning with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), and including A Little Night Music (1972), Pacific Overtures (1976), Sweeney Todd (1979), Sunday in the Park with George (1984) and Assassins (1991). He is acknowledged as the finest theatre lyricist of his time and, by many, as the finest composer of musical plays; his work has brought new coherence and depth to the musical.



 
Biography: Stephen Sondheim

Active in major Broadway productions of American musical theater beginning in 1957, composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim (born 1930) redefined the Broadway musical form with his innovative and award winning productions. He continued to be a major force in the shaping of this genre into the 1980s.

American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim is mainly known for his stage works, which included A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962); Anyone Can Whistle (1964); Company (1970); Follies (1971); and A Little Night Music (1973). He is known for his collaborations with Leonard Bernstein as lyricist for West Side Story (1957) and Candide (1974), and with Richard Rogers on Do I Hear a Waltz (1965). Sondheim's partnership with the director/producer Hal Prince resulted in Tony Awards for Best Musical Scores for three consecutive years (1971-1973), and Pacific Overtures (1976) was hailed as a landmark in American musical theater because of its masterful use of traditional Japanese theater elements. In 1984, Sondheim paired himself with James Lapine to put together Sunday in the Park with George, a musical inspired by a Georges Seurat painting.

Sondheim was born into a prosperous business family on March 22, 1930. He studied piano for two years while very young and continued his interest in the musical stage throughout his education. Sondheim's parents divorced in 1942 and his mother took up residence in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, close to the summertime residence of Oscar Hammerstein II. As a friend of Hammerstein's son, Sondheim was able to ask the famous librettist for an evaluation of his first stage work, a high school production produced at the age of 15. Hammerstein's critical evaluation of By George initiated a four-year relationship that was decisive in formulating the young artist's style. As Hammerstein's personal assistant, Sondheim gained entry into the world of professional theater.

While attending Williams College he performed duties in the preparation and rehearsals of the Rogers and Hammerstein productions of South Pacific and The King and I. Upon graduation he won the Hutchinson Prize, which enabled him to study composition at Princeton University with Milton Babbitt.

Sondheim began his professional career in television by writing scripts for the Topper and The Last Word series and incidental music for the Broadway musical Girls of Summer. Shortly thereafter he made the acquaintance of Arthur Laurents, who introduced him to Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein as the possible lyricist for West Side Story, which was produced in 1957. The young songwriter found himself involved in one of the most successful shows ever produced on Broadway. Sondheim followed this success by collaborating on the Broadway production of Gypsy in 1959, distinguishing himself as one of the great young talents in American musical theater.

Intent on broadening his talents, Sondheim sought productions where he could use his musical as well as lyrical expertise. He produced A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in 1962 … a bawdy farce based on the plays of Plautus. The show had an impressive run of almost 1,000 performances, won the Tony Award for Best Musical, and was made into a successful film in 1966.

Sondheim followed with two less successful ventures: Anyone Can Whistle (1964) and Do I Hear a Waltz (1965). Although both failed commercially, Sondheim contributed songs of high quality.

In 1970 Sondheim produced Company, which once again won him unanimous praise from the critics. The production was awarded the Drama Critics and Tony Awards for Best Musical of the season, and Sondheim received awards for the best composer and best lyricist. One critic commented that Company "is absolutely first rate … the freshest … in years … This is a wonderful musical score, the one that Broadway has long needed…." The following year Sondheim produced Follies, a retrospective of the Ziegfield Follies, in which the composer blended the nostalgia of popular songs of the past with his own style of sentimental ballad. He was awarded both the Drama Critics and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Musical of 1971.

In A Little Night Music (1973) Sondheim exposed his strong background in classical music. It was described by critics as reminiscent of Mahler, Strauss, Ravel, Liszt, and Rachmaninoff. Another Tony Award winner, A Little Night Music also included his first commercial hit song, "Send in the Clowns."

Noteworthy as a relentless innovator, Sondheim collaborated with Hal Prince on Pacific Overtures (1976). In an attempt to relate the westernization of Japan with the commercialized present, Sondheim fused the unlikely elements of Haiku poetry, Japanese pentatonic scales, and Kabuki theater with contemporary stage techniques in a production that was hailed as a successful Broadway hit. He followed this with Sweeney Todd (1979), the melodramatic story of the demon barber of Fleet Street who conspired with the neighborhood baker to supply her with sufficient barber-shop victims for her meat pies. Less funny than tragic, Sweeney Todd explored the dark side of the 19th-century English social system.

Sondheim's talent derived from his ability to cross genres of music and theater to offer Broadway audiences works of remarkable craft on unexpected subjects that challenged and tested the form of the American musical. Sondheim explored issues of contemporary life; marriage and relationships in Company; madness and the human condition in Anyone Can Whistle; nostalgia and sentiment in Follies; Western imperialism in Pacific Overtures; and injustice and revenge in Sweeney Todd.

Sondheim avoided filler in his lyrics and concentrated on direct impact through verbal interplay. His lyrics were witty without his ever sacrificing integrity for superficially clever rhyme. Similarly, he maintained his musical individuality even while operating in the adopted Eastern musical style of Pacific Overtures. Sondheim's consistent ability to merge words and music that hint at the deeper personality beneath the prototype character distinguished him as a composer of rare ingenuity and talent.

Side by Side by Sondheim, a musical tribute to the artist, was successfully produced in 1976. Sondheim's later works included the film score for Reds (1981) and Sunday in the Park with George (1984), which won a 1985 Pulitzer Prize. Into the Woods was another musical hit on Broadway in 1987.

Sondheim participated on the council of the Dramatists Guild and served as its president from 1973 to 1981. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1983. He won the 1990 Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)" from the movie Dick Tracy.

Sondheim composed the music for the ABC television presentation Time Warner Presents the Earth Day Special (1990). In 1992, he declined a National Medal of Arts Award, from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Further Reading

The reader should consult the excellent biography Sondheim and Company (1974) by Craig Zadan; David Ewen's Popular American Composers (1st Supplement, 1972); The World of Musical Comedy (1980) by Stanley Green; and "The Words and Music of Stephen Sondheim" by Samuel G. Freedman, which appeared in the New York Times Magazine on April 1, 1984.

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Stephen Joshua Sondheim

(born March 22, 1930, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. composer and lyricist. He studied piano and organ and at age 15 wrote his first musical under the tutelage of the musical comedy author Oscar Hammerstein II, a family friend. After studies with composer Milton Babbitt, he made his first mark on Broadway as lyricist for West Side Story (1957) and later Gypsy (1959). He wrote both music and lyrics for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962, Tony Award), A Little Night Music (1973, Tony Award), Sweeney Todd (1979, Tony Award), Sunday in the Park with George (1984, Pulitzer Prize), and Into the Woods (1987), among other works. His stage works are known for their intellectuality, musical complexity, and frequently dark tone.

For more information on Stephen Joshua Sondheim, visit Britannica.com.

 
Spotlight: Stephen Sondheim

From our Archives: Today's Highlights, March 21, 2005

Broadway is ablaze with stars tonight, as it celebrates Stephen Sondheim's 75th birthday one day early with a gala benefit concert at the New Amsterdam Theatre. Among the performers expected to appear are Bernadette Peters, Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, and Patti LuPone. The evening -- a benefit for Young Playwrights Inc., which Sondheim helped found in 1981 -- is called "Children and Art," the title of a song from Sondheim's "Sunday in the Park With George."
 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Sondheim, Stephen Joshua,
1930–, American composer and lyricist, b. New York City. As a young man, he studied lyric writing with Oscar Hammerstein 2d, and early in his career he wrote lyrics for Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story (1957) and collaborated with Jule Styne in the writing of Gypsy (1959). Later he composed his own music and lyrics for such musicals as A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), Company (1970), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), Pacific Overtures (1976), Sweeney Todd (1979), and Merrily We Roll Along (1981). His later works include Sunday in the Park with George (1984; Pulitzer Prize), Into the Woods (1987), Passion (1994), Assassins (1999), and Bounce (2003). Widely regarded as the most important figure in the American musical theater of the late 20th cent., Sondheim has expanded the boundaries of lyric writing and subject matter, introduced complex characters and situations, brought a mordant wit and sophisticated lyricism to his words and music, and in the process reinvented the Broadway musical.

Bibliography

See biographies by G. Martin (1993) and M. Secrest (1998); studies by J. Gordon (1990, 1997).

 
Works: Works by Stephen Sondheim

1970Company. Sondheim's musical shows a young bachelor celebrating his birthday as his married friends reveal their discontents. The musical employs songs not to advance the plot but "in a Brechtian way, as comment and counterpoint." It wins the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and the Tony Award for best musical.
1971Follies. This innovative musical, suggested by the demolition of the Ziegfeld Theatre, features the reunion of former performers of a Ziegfeld-like revue whose past is juxtaposed with their present. It wins the New York Drama Critics Circle Award.
1973A Little Night Music. Sondheim creates a musical adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's film Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), the story of a romantic tangle set in turn-of-the-century Sweden. Winning the New York Drama Critics Circle and a Tony Award, the musical features Sondheim's signature song "Send in the Clowns."
1976Pacific Overtures. Sondheim's innovative musical dramatizes the opening of Japan to the West. Performed by an all-Asian cast, this highly stylized production, employing Japanese stage elements borrowed from Kabuki and Noh dramas, fails with audiences but wins the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for best musical.
1979Sweeney Todd. Sondheim's controversial musical, derived from an 1847 melodrama about a London barber who kills his customers and converts them into pie ingredients, divides critics because of its sordid and violent subject matter. However, it wins the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and several Tony Awards; it would subsequently enter the opera repertoire.
1984Sunday in the Park with George. This musical, based on the life of painter Georges Seurat, is an elaborate and playful reconstruction of the process by which he constructed his great painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.
1987Into the Woods. In Sondheim's inventive musical, Cinderella, Jack (and the Beanstalk), Little Red Riding Hood, and other fairy tale figures encounter one another on the same day in the forest. This delightful fantasy pokes fun at the self-enclosed world of fairy tales and makes their characters not only react to one another but to the consequences of their actions.
1991Assassins. Sondheim's challenging musical treats the lives of assassins and would-be assassins of U.S. presidents, such as John Wilkes Booth and Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme. Despite its dark tone, its entire limited run at New York's Playwrights Horizons sells out.
1994Passion. Although critics are divided over the merits of what one calls a "chamber opera," others declare it a work of great distinction. Passion explores the nature of love--both its transcendent power and its destructiveness--as an army officer is ordered out of town and has to leave his lover. Even as he writes letters to her, sustaining their love, he is stalked by Fosca, a revolting, self-pitying woman who has fallen in love with him.

 
Quotes By: Stephen Sondheim

Quotes:

"Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten."

"The concerts you enjoy together neighbors you annoy together children you destroy together that make marriage a joy"

"The fact is popular art dates. It grows quaint. How many people feel strongly about Gilbert and Sullivan today compared to those who felt strongly in 1890?"

 
Wikipedia: Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim
Birth name Stephen Joshua Sondheim
Born March 22 1930 (1930--) (age 77)
New York City, NY, U.S.
Genre(s) Musical theatre
Occupation(s) Composer, lyricist
Years active 1954  – Present

Stephen Joshua Sondheim (b. March 22 1930) is an American stage musical and film composer and lyricist, one of the few people to win an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards (seven, more than any other composer), multiple Grammy Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize. He has been described by Frank Rich in the The New York Times as "the greatest and perhaps best-known artist in the American musical theater." [1] His most famous scores include (as composer/lyricist) A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, and Assassins, as well as the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy. He was president of the Dramatists Guild from 1973 to 1981.

Early life

Stephen Sondheim was born to Herbert and Janet ("Foxy") Sondheim, in New York City, New York, and grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and later on a farm in Pennsylvania. Herbert was a dress manufacturer and Foxy designed the dresses. While his mother had grown up in an Orthodox Jewish family, Sondheim had no formal religious education or association, did not have a Bar Mitzvah, and reportedly did not set foot in a synagogue until he was nineteen. An only child of well-to-do parents living in a high-rise apartment on Central Park West, Sondheim's childhood has been portrayed as isolated and emotionally neglected in Meryl Secrest's biography, .

Sondheim traces his interest in theater to Very Warm for May, a Broadway musical he saw at the age of nine. "The curtain went up and revealed a piano," Sondheim recalled. "A butler took a duster and brushed it up, tinkling the keys. I thought that was thrilling."[2]

When Stephen was ten years old, his father Herbert, a distant figure in Stephen's life, abandoned him and his mother. Under the laws of the day, Sondheim's mother retained full custody. Unfortunately for young Stephen, he saw his mother "Foxy Sondheim" as narcissistic, emotionally abusive, and a hypochondriac.[citation needed] Stephen "famously despised" Foxy;[1] he once wrote a thank-you note to close friend Mary Rodgers that read, "Dear Mary and Hank, Thanks for the plate, but where was my mother's head? Love, Steve."[2] When Foxy died in September 15, 1993, Sondheim refused to attend her funeral.

Career

Mentorship under Oscar Hammerstein II

At about the age of ten, around the time of his parents' divorce, Sondheim became friends with Jimmy Hammerstein, son of the well-known lyricist and playwright Oscar Hammerstein II. The elder Hammerstein became a surrogate father to Sondheim, as the young man attempted to stay away from home as much as possible. Hammerstein had a profound influence on the young Sondheim, especially in his development of love for musical theater. Indeed, it was at the opening of Hammerstein's hit show South Pacific that Sondheim met Harold Prince, who would later direct many of Sondheim's most famous shows. During high school, Sondheim attended George School, a private Quaker preparatory school in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He had the chance to write a comic musical based on the goings-on of his school, entitled By George. It was a major success among his peers, and it inflated the young songwriter's ego considerably; he took it to Hammerstein, and asked him to evaluate it as though he had no knowledge of its author. Hammerstein hated it. "But if you want to know why it's terrible," Hammerstein consoled the young man, "I'll tell you." The rest of the day was spent going over the musical, and Sondheim would later say that "in that afternoon I learned more about songwriting and the musical theater than most people learn in a lifetime." [3]

Thus began one of the most famous apprenticeships in the musical theatre, as Hammerstein designed a kind of course for Sondheim to take on the construction of a musical. This training centered around four assignments, which Sondheim was to write. These were:

None of these "assignment" musicals was ever produced professionally. High Tor and Mary Poppins have never been produced at all, because the rights holders for the original works refused to grant permission for a musical to be made.

In 1950, Sondheim graduated magna cum laude from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he was a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He went on to study composition with the composer Milton Babbitt. In Mark Eden Horowitz's Sondheim on Music, Sondheim says that when he asked Babbitt if he could study atonality, Babbitt replied "No, I don't think you've exhausted your tonal resources yet." Sondheim agreed, and despite frequent dissonance and a highly chromatic style, his music remains resolutely tonal.

Move to Broadway and work as lyricist

"A few painful years of struggle" followed for Sondheim, during which he conditionally auditioned songs and lived in his father's dining room to save money. He also spent some time in Hollywood writing for the television series Topper.[2] Though, to date, Sondheim has only dabbled in movie musicals, he devoured the film of the forties and fifties and has called cinema his "basic language."[1] In the fifties, his knowledge of film got him through The $64,000 Question contestant tryouts. Though his favorite movies include classics like Citizen Kane, The Grapes of Wrath, and Stairway to Heaven, Sondheim says he dislikes movie musicals. He added that "studio directors like Michael Curtiz and Raoul Walsh....were heroes of mine. They went from movie to movie to movie, and every third movie was good and every fifth movie was great. There wasn't any cultural pressure to make art."[4]

In 1954, Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics for Saturday Night, which was never produced on Broadway and was shelved until a 1997 production at London's Bridewell Theatre. In 1998 Saturday Night received a professional recording, followed by an Off-Broadway run at Second Stage Theatre in 2000.

Sondheim's big break came when he wrote the lyrics to West Side Story, accompanying Leonard Bernstein's music and Arthur Laurents's book. The 1957 show, directed by Jerome Robbins, ran for 732 performances. While this may be the best-known show Sondheim ever worked on, he has expressed some dissatisfaction with his lyrics, stating they don't always fit the characters and are sometimes too consciously poetic.

In 1959, he wrote the lyrics for another hit musical, Gypsy. Sondheim would have liked to write the music as well, but Ethel Merman, the star, insisted on a composer with a track record - thus Jule Styne was hired. [5] Sondheim questioned if he should write only the lyrics for yet another show, but his mentor Oscar Hammerstein told him it would be valuable experience to write for a star. Sondheim worked closely with book writer Arthur Laurents to create the show. It ran 702 performances.

Finally, Sondheim participated in a musical for which he wrote both the music and lyrics, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. It opened in 1962 and ran 964 performances. The book, based on the farces of Plautus, was by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart. Sondheim's score was not especially well-received at the time - the show won several Tony Awards, including best musical, but Sondheim did not even receive a nomination. In addition, some critics felt the songs were not properly integrated into the farcical action.

At this point, Sondheim had participated in three straight hits - he'd yet to taste failure on Broadway. His next show ended the streak. Anyone Can Whistle (1964) was a 9-performance flop, although it introduced Angela Lansbury to musical theatre and has developed a cult following.

In 1965 he donned his lyricist-for-hire hat for one last show, Do I Hear a Waltz?, with music by Richard Rodgers - the one project he has since openly regretted working on. [1] In 1966, he semi-anonymously provided the lyric for The Boy From..., a parody of The Girl from Ipanema that was a highlight of the off-Broadway revue The Mad Show. (The official songwriting credit went to the linguistically-minded pseudonym "Esteban Rio Nido," which translates from the Spanish to "Stephen River Nest." In the show's Playbill, the lyric was credited to "Nom De Plume").

Maturity as composer/lyricist in the 70s

Since then Sondheim has devoted himself to both composing and writing lyrics for a series of varied and adventuresome musicals, beginning with the innovative "concept musical" Company in 1970.

Sondheim's work is notable for his use of complex polyphony in the vocal parts, such as the chorus of five minor characters who function as a sort of Greek chorus in 1973's A Little Night Music. He also displays a penchant for angular harmonies and intricate melodies reminiscent of Bach (Sondheim has claimed that he "loves Bach" but his favorite period is Brahms to Stravinsky).[6] To aficionados, Sondheim's musical sophistication is considered to be greater than that of many of his musical theater peers, and his lyrics are likewise renowned for their ambiguity, wit, and urbanity.

Sondheim collaborated with producer/director Harold Prince on six distinctive musicals between 1970 and 1981. Company (1970) was a "concept musical", a show centered around a set of characters and themes rather than a straightforward plot. Follies (1971) was a similarly-structured show filled with pastiche songs echoing styles of composers from earlier decades. A Little Night Music (1973), a more traditionally plotted show based on an Ingmar Bergman film, was one of his greatest successes, with Time magazine calling it "Sondheim's most brilliant accomplishment to date."[7] Notably, the score was mostly composed in waltz time (either ¾ time, or multiples thereof.) Further success was accorded to A Little Night Music when "Send in the Clowns" became a hit for Judy Collins. Although it was Sondheim's only Top 40 hit, his songs are frequently performed and recorded by cabaret artists and theatre singers in their solo careers.

Pacific Overtures (1976) was the most non-traditional of the Sondheim-Prince collaborations, an intellectual exploration of the westernization of Japan. Sweeney Todd (1979), Sondheim's most operatic score (and his only show to find a definite foothold in opera houses), once again explores an unlikely topic, this time murderous revenge and cannibalism. The libretto, by Hugh Wheeler, is based on Christopher Bond's 1973 stage version of the Victorian original.

Later work

Merrily We Roll Along (1981), with a book by Furth, is one of Sondheim's more "traditional" scores and was thought to hold potential to generate some hit songs (Frank Sinatra and Carly Simon each recorded a different song from the show). Sondheim's music director, Paul Gemignani, said, “Part of Steve’s ability is this extraordinary versatility.” Merrily, however, was a 16-performance flop. "Merrily did not succeed, but its score endures thanks to subsequent productions and recordings. According to Martin Gottfried, "Sondheim had set out to write traditional songs… But [despite] that there is nothing ordinary about the music." [8] Sondheim and Furth have extensively revised the show since its initial opening.

The failure of Merrily greatly affected Sondheim; he was ready to quit theater and do movies or create video games or write mysteries. He was later quoted as saying, "I wanted to find something to satisfy myself that does not involve Broadway and dealing with all those people who hate me and hate Hal." [9] The collaboration between Sondheim and Prince would largely end after Merrily.

Instead of quitting the theater following the failure of Merrily, however, Sondheim decided "that there are better places to start a show", and found a new collaborator in the "artsy" James Lapine. Lapine has a taste "for the avant-garde and for visually oriented theater in particular." Sunday in the Park with George (1984), their first collaboration, was very much the avant-garde, but they had blended it together with the professionalism of the commercial theater to make a different kind of musical. Sondheim again was able to show his versatility and his adaptability. His music took on the style of the artist Georges Seurat's painting techniques. In doing so, Sondheim was able to bring his work to another level. "Sondheim’s work has such reach, there is so much emotional resonance, that many observers take it personally and become as fascinated with the artist as with the art; they see him in his work."[citation needed]

In 1985, he and Lapine won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for Sunday in the Park with George. It is one of the only seven musicals that have taken this prestigious award. The Sondheim-Lapine collaboration also produced the popular fairy-tale show Into the Woods (1987) and the rhapsodic Passion (1994).

Despite a popularity among musical theater insiders that continues to grow, it was noted in 2002 that "Sondheim has never quite escaped the ghetto of cult enthusiasm....[he] has always been an acquired taste. He's never achieved the sort of popularity of Andrew Lloyd Webber or had a megahit on the order of a Cats."[10]

In the late nineties, Sondheim reunited with Hal Prince for Wise Guys, a long-in-the-works musical comedy about Addison and Wilson Mizner. Though a Broadway production starring Nathan Lane and Victor Garber and directed by Sam Mendes was announced for Spring 2000,[11] the New York debut of the musical was delayed. Rechristened Bounce in 2003, the show was mounted at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.. Bounce received disappointing reviews and never reached Broadway. Sondheim has continued to work on Bounce.

Regarding whether he had any interest in writing new work, Sondheim was quoted in a 2006 Time Out London interview as saying:


No... It’s age. It’s a diminution of energy and the worry that there are no new ideas. It’s also an increasing lack of confidence. I’m not the only one. I’ve checked with other people. People expect more of you and you’re aware of it and you shouldn’t be.[12]

Work away from Broadway

Sondheim's mature career has been varied, encompassing much beyond composition of musicals.

An avid fan of games, in 1968 and 1969 Sondheim published a series of word puzzles in New York magazine. (In 1987, Time referred to his love of puzzlemaking as "legendary in theater circles," adding that the central character in Anthony Shaffer's hit play Sleuth was inspired by Sondheim, and the show was even given the working title Who's Afraid of Stephen Sondheim?)[2] He parlayed this talent into a film script, written with longtime friend Anthony Perkins, called The Last of Sheila. The 1973 film, directed by Herbert Ross, starred Dyan Cannon, Raquel Welch, Richard Benjamin, and others.

He tried his hand at writing one more time - in 1996 he collaborated on a play called Getting Away with Murder. It was not a success, and opened and closed in a few days on Broadway.

His compositional efforts have included a number of film scores, notably a set of songs written for Warren Beatty's 1990 film version of Dick Tracy; one song, "Sooner or Later", won Sondheim an Academy Award.

Major works

Unless otherwise noted, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.