Sondheim, Stephen

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STEPHEN SONDHEIM

Born: New York, New York, 22 March 1930

Genre: Musical Theater

Best-selling album since 1990: Passion (1994)

Getting his start as a lyricist in the late 1950s, Stephen Sondheim had by the 1970s become the most influential Broadway theater composer of his generation, changing the way in which the musical as an art form is understood and appreciated. Sondheim is the sole modern Broadway composer whose work withstands comparison to that of theatrical tunesmiths and lyricists of the past such as Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Beyond the complexity and richness of his music, Sondheim's greatness lies in his daring pursuit of subject matter previously considered off-limits for Broadway musicals. Exploring themes of obsession, evil, the fragility of human relationships, and the dissociation and cynicism of modern life, Sondheim has pushed the musical form in new, startling directions. Yet his work evinces respect for Broadway's long tradition of escapism and fun; far from depressing, Sondheim's musicals often display a darkly humorous edge. Always more popular with critics than with mainstream audiences, who have tended to prefer more accessible, pop-oriented composers such as Andrew Lloyd Webber, Sondheim has remained active in the 1990s and 2000s, creating challenging new musicals, contributing to Hollywood film soundtracks, and influencing a new generation of theater composers.

Early Life and Success

Born to a wealthy New York manufacturing family of German-Jewish descent, Sondheim endured an unhappy childhood after his father left to live with a girlfriend. The scars from that experience—coming when Sondheim was only ten—along with the influence of a dominating mother, later found voice in his best-known work, particularly through themes of alienation and isolation. In his early teens Sondheim's life changed after his mother moved to Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Soon Sondheim had fallen under the creative influence of his new neighbor Hammerstein, then working on a show, Oklahoma! (1943), that proved to be a landmark of American musical theater. After graduating from Williams College, where he won the Hutchinson Prize for Music Composition, Sondheim studied with the renowned modern classical composer Milton Babbitt before getting hired to write lyrics for the Broadway musical West Side Story (1957). As a result of the show's great success, Sondheim was also recruited as a lyricist for Gypsy (1959). Based on the memoirs of famed stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, the musical was a commercial hit and an artistic triumph, paving the way for Sondheim's first success as both a composer and lyricist, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962). The show's lyrical intelligence and racy sense of humor proved that a successful Broadway musical could be both entertaining and challenging.

Peak Artistic Years

Working with the Broadway director Harold Prince, Sondheim embarked upon his greatest artistic period in the early 1970s, composing a series of groundbreaking musicals: Company (1970), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973) and Sweeney Todd (1979). While Company, a modern look at love and relationships through the eyes of a thirty-five-year-old bachelor, brought a new degree of wit and sophistication to the Broadway stage, Sweeney Todd saw Sondheim's humor take on a dark, macabre edge—the musical told the story of a revenge-seeking barber who kills his customers. A Little Night Music contains one of Sondheim's best-known songs, "Send in the Clowns," a wistful distillation of romantic confusion that became a pop and jazz standard. During the 1980s Sondheim continued experimenting with form and structure: Merrily We Roll Along (1981), for example, moves backward in time, tracing the life of a composer from adulthood to youth. Unfortunately, such experiments did not endear Sondheim to the Broadway theatergoing public: Merrily We Roll Along ran for only sixteen performances

After presenting two highly regarded Broadway musicals, Sunday in the Park with George (1984) and Into the Woods (1987), Sondheim turned to the lower profile world of off-Broadway for Assassins (1990), one of his darkest, most compelling works. Produced by the noted New York theater company Playwrights Horizons, the musical surveys American assassinations through the ages. It features historical characters such as Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth, and John Hinckley, who in 1981 tried to kill President Ronald Reagan. In a deliberately perverse move, Sondheim presents "Unworthy of Your Love," a duet between Hinckley and President Gerald Ford's attempted assassin, Squeaky Fromme, as a cheerful, Top-40 style love ballad. Beyond its unusual subject matter, Assassins challenges audiences through its rejection of a linear plot; instead, its scenes are arranged according to thematic references. The famous Presidential march, "Hail to the Chief," is used throughout the musical as a means of linking characters and scenes; in Sondheim's typically ironic fashion, music familiarly associated with reverence becomes a commentary on political insecurity and death.

Challenging Audiences in the 1990s

Sondheim turned to high-profile film work in the 1990s, contributing songs for the Hollywood movies Dick Tracy (1990) and The Birdcage (1996). Nevertheless, he continued to explore anxious, dark themes with the Broadway musical, Passion (1994). The story of a sickly, unattractive woman obsessively in love with an Army soldier—himself involved with a married woman—Passion is a compelling study of desire and transformation. A modest hit that ran for six months, Passion was perhaps too challenging musically and thematically to achieve widespread success. During the remainder of the 1990s and early 2000s Sondheim largely focused on teaching, although his earlier work was celebrated in several Broadway revivals, including a 2002 production of Into the Woods that starred the pop singer and actress Vanessa Williams. After many delays and title changes, Sondheim's new musical, Bounce, was scheduled to open at Chicago's Goodman Theatre in the summer of 2003. Bounce, which reunites Sondheim with director Prince, is the story of Addison and Wilson Mizner, two brothers who led picaresque lives as con artists, entrepreneurs, and celebrities during the early twentieth century.

By the turn of the millennium, Sondheim was widely acknowledged as the most important living artist in musical theater, his work influencing younger composers such as Michael John LaChiusa, Adam Guettel, and Jason Robert Brown. Hailed for his daring, complex use of theme and structure, Sondheim raised the musical form to a new level of artistic ambition and achievement, stimulating audiences with his invention, humor, and intelligence.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

Original Broadway and off-Broadway cast recordings: West Side Story (Columbia, 1957); Gypsy (Columbia, 1959); A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Angel, 1962); Anyone Can Whistle (Columbia, 1964); Company (Columbia, 1970); Follies (Angel, 1971); A Little Night Music (Columbia, 1973); Sweeney Todd (RCA Victor, 1979); Sunday in the Park with George (RCA Victor, 1984); Into the Woods (RCA Victor, 1987); Assassins (RCA Victor, 1991); Passion (Angel, 1994). Film soundtracks : Music from and Inspired by the Film Dick Tracy (Sire, 1990); The Birdcage (Edeltone, 1996).