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#The guy who didn't like musicals series
"Company" (1970) documented the dissatisfaction of a bachelor and his married friends 1971’s "Follies" and 1973’s "A Little Night Music" traced a series of relationships whose quirks and contradictions could seem achingly familiar.Īs time passed, Sondheim tackled broader and more diverse themes, drawing on ever-more eclectic subjects and source material. Working with the director Hal Prince and forward-thinking librettists such as Hugh Wheeler, George Furth and John Weidman, he offered musical audiences a more contemporary and intricate, and often darker look at the search for human connection and identity. It was in the 1970s that Sondheim truly made his mark both as a composer and a conceptualist. "Do I Hear A Waltz" (1965) paired Sondheim with Hammerstein’s old partner Richard Rodgers. He found success, if not unanimous critical approval, as a composer with 1962’s "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum." The 1964 cult classic "Anyone Can Whistle" produced a number of enduring songs, including the title track, but closed after nine performances. Sondheim rose to fame in the 1950s as a wunderkind wordsmith, writing lyrics for "West Side Story" and "Gypsy" before he turned 30. And if they tell us it’s a thing we’ll outgrow/They’re jealous as they can be/That with so many people in the world/You love me.” In "So Many People," from the musical "Saturday Night," young lovers tell each other that no one else will “know love like my love for you. “You said you loved me, or were you just being kind?” a character asks in "Losing My Mind," from "Follies." Has any lyric summed up romantic self-doubt more succinctly or witheringly?Īnd while Sondheim’s songs could be bitingly funny, he had a vast capacity for tenderness. Two of his most memorable ballads, "Not While I’m Around" from "Sweeney Todd" and "No One Is Alone" from 1987’s "Into the Woods," were sung by or to children in the shows, and his accounts of the most vexing adult dilemmas could be shatteringly plain and direct. A protégé of Oscar Hammerstein II, whom he described as a surrogate father, he never sacrificed feeling for cerebral flash and always let his characters dictate the manner and substance of expression. But while it was a running joke that Sondheim didn't write tunes you could hum, his music was actually tonal and sumptuously melodic.Īs a lyricist, Sondheim earned attention for his cleverness and erudition, but it was his emotional acuity that most astonished and lingered. In Sondheim’s case, those songs could be daunting for the musicians who played and sang them, marked as they were by winding chromatic paths and dissonant edges that reinforced the rich, often stark drama of his shows. View Gallery: Stephen Sondheim: His life in musicals With groundbreaking musicals such as "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," "Company," "Follies" and "Sunday in the Park with George," Sondheim redefined the American art form without ever losing sight of the fundamentals that made it great: compelling stories driven by unforgettable songs. Sondheim was one of the most imitated and inimitable musical theater artists of his generation, a one-man bridge between Broadway’s golden age and the best of what followed. Richard Pappas told The New York Times. The day before, Sondheim had celebrated Thanksgiving with a dinner with friends in Roxbury. Sondheim's death was sudden, his lawyer and friend F. Rick Miramontez, a publicist for the current Broadway production of Sondheim’s musical “Company," confirmed the news to USA TODAY. The composer and lyricist died Friday at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut, at age 91.
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No one instilled words and music with more wit, wisdom and warmth than Stephen Sondheim. Watch Video: Broadway legend Stephen Sondheim dies at 91