Lecture 12 Sondheim
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Western University**We aren't endorsed by this school
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MUSIC 2701A
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Arts & Humanities
Date
Jan 7, 2025
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7
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STEPHEN SONDHEIM●American composer and lyricst for stage and film ●Known for innovation ●Considered opposite of Lloyd Webber ●Described as “the greatest and perhaps best known artist in the American musical theatre”●Winner of an Academy Award, nine Tony awards, including the Special Tony for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre (2008), multiple Grammys, and the Pulitzer prize for dramaAs Composer/Lyricist●A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum●Company ●A Little Night Music●Into the Woods●AssassinsAs Lyricist only●West side story ●Gypsy Stephen Joshua Sondheim’s Life●Born in 1930 in New York (passed away at age 91 on November 26, 2021) ●Parents were wealthy socialites – father was a dress manufacturer; mom was one of his designers●Their unhappy relationship ended in a bitter divorce, fighting for custody of Stephen ●Biographers have described his childhood as isolated and emotionally neglected●Famously had a terrible relationship with his mother, but was not allowed to live with his father. His father’s new wife and family did not want him there either Education●After the divorce, mother and Stephen left Manhattan●Attended prep school in Pennsylvania after parent’s divorce; fortuitous friendship made there with Jimmy Hammerstein, son of Oscar Hammerstein II. The Hammerstein home became his place of security and family●Sondheim wrote a show called “By George!” for his prep school (The George School); Hammerstein criticized it heavily but invited him home with Jimmy for the weekend told him what was wrong and how to fix it ●Sondheim said: “In that afternoon I learned more about songwriting and the musical theater than most people learn in a lifetime”
Hammerstein’s Mentorship●Hammerstein offered to take him on as a student and gave Sondheim tasks designed to teach him about the construction of musicals ○A musical based on a play he admired ○A musical based on a play he thought was flawed ○A musical based on an existing novel or short story not previously dramatized (which was Mary Poppins before Disney did it) ○An original musical ●None of these ‘assignments’ were ever produced professionally, although Mary Poppins was done recently by a music college●These assignments took Sondheim about six years to work through Higher Education●After high school did not study at an Ivy League school, despite having the grades, and connections to do so ●Started college studying math and history, but took some music electives classes and ended up very inspired by his composition teacher that he decided that's what he wanted to do ●Graduated from Williams College, then went on to study composition with Milton Babbitt - famous American modern composer - at Columbia university ●Sondheim wanted to study avant-garde atonal music, but Babbit felt that Sondheim hadn’t fully exhausted tonality ○Tonality: moves towards a tonic (home chord) and always has our brains want us ending on that final chord ○Atonality is the opposite of that, doesn’t give importance to any specific chords and doesn’t draw us back to a tonic (kind of uncentered because we don’t know where the music is going to go) – tends to be used more for contemporary music, wasn’t really an option until about 100 years ago ●Throughout his B.A. and M.A. degrees, he interned with Rodgers and Hammerstein, during the height of their fame – originally fetching coffee, etc… and eventually moving towards helping at auditions, writing instrumental parts, jobs with higher responsibilityCollaborated numerous times with director Harold Prince Between 1970 and 1981●Both Prince and Sondheim were committed to expanding the parameters of the musical theatre○Sondheim didn’t want to work with big stars like Ethel Merman and decided to do things on his own, that’s when he met Prince ○Sondheim was attracted to Prince’s thinking and creativity ●Company: a “concept musical” based on characters and themes, not straightforward plot ●Follies: pastiche of song styles imitating past composers and vaudeville-style songs → his first really big hit ●A Little Night Music: whole score is a waltz; in 3/4 time or triple meters
●Pacific Overtures: score built on pentatonic scale, staged like traditional Japanese Kabuki style theatre Sweeney Todd●Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics●Probably biggest Sondheim-Prince show (other than Company) ●Book by Hugh Wheeler ●Orchestration by Jonathan Tunick (long-time orchestrator) ●Directed by Hal Prince●Opened 1979 (557 performances); major revivals in 1989 and 2005; also some notable London productions Musical or Opera?●Sondheim calls it an operetta●Considered Sondheim’s most operatic work: strength of voices (w large range), the lush, romantic score, needs a large powerful chorus and full orchestra ●Often performed by opera companies●However, a recent revival was performed by a small ensemble with actors playing instruments when not singing Story●Based on a 1973 play Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street by Christopher Bond ●Bond’s play based on a character popular in Victorian melodramas and ‘penny dreadful’ series ○Penny dreadfuls: cost a penny and you would have to keep buying them week by week to continue the story ●Picture to the left is the program from the 1842 version of the story **picture**●Evidence oft he myth of the murderous barber goes back centuries Actual story●A barber has been sent to Australia on false charges by a corrupt judge who lusts after the barber’s wife ●With a new name, Sweeney Todd returns to London after 15 years transportation ●Learns that his wife poisoned herself after being raped by the judge; vows revenge●Story is said to be about numerous things: Harold Prince mentioned following themes: lust, corruption, a comment on
capitalism, an allegory on the dehumanizing effects of the Industrial Revolution (ruination of rural areas) ●Sondheim felt it was about the all-consuming obsession of revenge Musical Inspirations●Frequent use of counterpoint - Sondheim admired Bach ●Compositional style compared to Maurice Ravel, Sergei Prokofiev, and horror film score composed Bernard Hermann ●Heavy reliance on leitmotif or motives: over 20 distinct ones can be identified in the score ●Seen as descending from operas such as Berg’s Wozzeck or Britten’s Peter Grimes ○Tortured outsiders, people who were obsessed with getting revenge, sort of ruined because society cast them out ●Perhaps inspired later “bloody”/horror musicals like Evil Dead the Musical Dies Irae●Frequent motivic used of the Dies irae melody ●From thirteenth century Roman Catholic Requiem Mass (Mass for the Dead) ●Dies ira (Latin) translates as “Day of Wrath” – the day that souls will be judged and determined if they go to heaven or hell (like a kind of prayer) ●First four notes of “Swing your razor wide, Sweeney”●Positions Sweeney himself as a god-like character who decides people’s fates Prelude/Ballad of Sweeney Todd ●Sung by whole cast ●Breaks the fourth wall - cast sings it not yet in character ●Use of Dies irae musical motive ●Organ start – both an ecclesiastical instrument and one played in horror films ●Loud whistle at the end – reminiscent of prison and workhouse, pervasive sense of dehumanizing effect of Industrial Revolution (read up on what a workhouse is, how the phrase paying one’s debt to society originated) ○Workhouse: big institution where people lived and worked ■The people who worked there were mostly those who had debts, or other criminal acts that wouldn’t put them in jail ■Notoriously terrible conditions – a lot of people would die of diseases before they could ever leave ■Entire families would be sent to the workhouse (husbands, wives, children, etc…)
■Loud whistle is from the workhouse and would send people into PTSD if they had gotten out of a workhouse and heard it No Place Like London ●Sung by Anthony Hope and Sweeney Todd●Introduces basic character difference between innocent Anthony and cynical Sweeney ●Anthony’s name a tribute to Victorian stories where characters are given names that describe them Worst Pies in London●Sung by Mrs. Lovett●Gives sense of Mrs. Lovett’s openly opportunistic personality and frenetic energy ●Watch the 1982 video of the original tour cast starring Angela Lansbury, available on Youtube Johanna (3 songs with the same name but we’re only looking at 2) ●Anthony’s version ○Classics young hero song: melodious, use of triumphant instruments (brass) ○Innocent, no mention of physical desire○Talks about wanting to be a hero and steal her from her unhappy existence ○Simple lyrics and syntax○Music: brass instruments very dominant, masculine and heroic○The lyrics tell us that Anthony is very simple and very pure ●Judge Turpin’s version ○Minor key – sounds dark and oppressive○“Muddy” sounding low strings○Deeply conflicted man who thinks he can flog the lustful thoughts out of himself, practice of “mortification of the flesh” ○Latin language: sign of a sophisticated and educated man ○This song was cut early in the original Broadway run, but fortunately exists on the cast recording ○Motive with basses and cellos sounds dark and unclean ○Praying in Latin, more sophisticated than Anthony A Little Priest ●Sung by Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett ●Starts out as a joke ●Becomes clear that they are getting caught up in the idea that many people should be killed – no one is innocent ●Speaks of a “moral cannibalism”
Sondheim did “Merrily we Roll Along” and it was a massive flop. He stopped writing for a couple of years and then he met Lapine and … they wrote Into the Woods together and Sunday in the Park with George Sunday in the Park with George●Music and lyrics by Sondheim ●Book by James Lapine ●Directed by James Lapine ●Inspired by the painting by Georges Seurat: Sunday Afternoon on the island of La Grande Jatte now in the Chicago Institute of Art Themes●Creating art: could be about any art●Obsession of an artist for his work; exclusion/difficulty of human relationships ●Sondheim called it a story of connections or connectedness ●Binary relationships/tensions between these pairs: George and Dot; George and his work; the modern American George and his past Criticisms●Too technical, seen as an “exercise” - Sondheim’s penchant for innovation was criticized●Too complex structurally (no regular song forms) and harmonically ●According to some, Sondheim and Lapine only write good first acts: Sunday in the Park and Into the Woods○Too much revisioning of history and traditional story in their second acts○Why can’t they let a story end happily or resolved as these shows do at the end of the first act? → People were saying that they should just end it at the first act Sunday in the Park with George●First song in the show: George describes his artistic process and his aesthetic●Dot talks about her attraction to George●Listen for the brilliant use of “colour” in the orchestra: Sondheim and Tunick use instruments of all kinds – more evident/audible in CD than DVD●Piano, bells and other percussion, strings, winds, notable use of french horn (horn easier to hear in the recording), celesta (twinkly bell instrument) ●Both the original broadway version (Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters) and the 2017 revival (Jake Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford) are on Youtube. Recommendation: watch Mandy and Bernadette Colour and Light ●George is working on his painting while Dot prepares for an evening ot with him at the Follies ●Song depicts Geroge’s artistic focus and Dot’s desire for luxury and romance
●George accepts that his temperament excludes him from society; Dot doesn’t fully understand the obsession●Musical depiction of pointillismPointillism●A style of impressionistic painting●Small distinct dots of colour create the impression of a wide selection of other colours and blending ●Can refer to style of 20th century music, by such composers as Anton Webern●Small “dots” of notes creating a wash of sound●Short, detached notes depicting George’s quick, fine brushstrokes Finishing the Hat●Sung by George after he knows he let Dot down by not taking her to the Follies; she has taken up with a new man ●Near the end of their relationship●We realize that George cares deeply for her, but cannot devote himself to her in the way she needs●Near-continuous ostinato pattern in piano; other instruments pick up fragments of the ostinato○Ostinato: a motive which repeats persistently; a succession of equal sounds ○Bubbles along very evenly throughout and depicts the idea of persistence and obsession ●When Dot goes to see him when she is dating Louie to tell George that they are moving to America, she is clearly pregnant (probably George’s child)