Sondheim on Music: Minor Details and Major Decisions

by Mark Eden Horowitz

Sondheim on Music compiles a series of interviews the author conducted with Stephen Sondheim as they pored over Sondheim's manuscripts and sketches and discussed the creative process. Focusing primarily on six shows, Passion , Assassins , Into the Woods , Sunday in the Park with George , Sweeney Todd , and Pacific Overtures , Sondheim talks about his approaches to musicalizing characters and dramatic moments; how motifs and thematic material are created and used; how musical components like harmony, melody, and rhythm reflect character; the structuring of a score; the use of pastiche; and the practical aspects of collaboration.

In addition, the book includes Sondheim's list of "Songs I wish I'd Written," his reasons behind some of those choices, and the messages he received from composers and lyricists whose songs were included on the list. An exhaustive Songlisting and a Discography follow, cataloging commercial recordings of Sondheim songs, vocal ranges, and publishing information for his songs and scores.

Genres: Music, Theatre, Nonfiction, Biography, Poetry, Drama, Musicals

416 pages, Hardcover

First published November 25, 2002

Reviews

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply invaluable. And I miss Steve very much.

[Bruce · Rating 3 out of 5]

As part of the Library of Congress' accession of Stephen Sondheim manuscripts, LOC Director of Music Mark Horowitz conducted several interviews with the great show writer in hopes of better capturing the thought processes that lay beneath Sondheim's work. Mostly this entailed asking Sondheim to decipher the cryptic notes, letters, superscripts, arrows, and roman numerals pencilled throughout his various musical sketches, although there are also a few times that Horowitz asks Sondheim to chart the evolution of a number that underwent serial changes.

This book represents the transcription of those conversations, the majority of which took place in and around the period 1998-2000, when Sondheim had just completed his arioso piece Passion and was deep into collaboration with librettist John Weidman in resurrecting and via endless workshops transforming a vaudeville-influenced Wise Guys into an episodic Bounce. The second edition adds a pair of chapters by resuming the interview half a decade later, around the time that Bounce was itself transforming into the equally disappointing Road Show. This makes the interviews contemporaneous with Sondheim's own brilliant retrospective on his work as a lyricist Finishing the Hat and Look I Made a Hat, each of which are comprehensive, thoughtful, and thus well worth your time.

Is this one? I didn't expect to have so little to say about a book on musical theater, but suffice it to say that this one felt alien to me, geared so heavily as it is toward music theorists and those capable of appreciating formal harmonic analysis. I should note that it's not a particularly heavy lift. Although the book clocks in at 568 pages, the interviews themselves end at page 244. There follows three pages of 70th birthday blurbs from his contemporaries (which are... cute) and a biiiiiig index. That's right, the lion's share of this book is pretty much an alphabetical collection of every song Sondheim is known to have written and every (any) recording of each known to Horowitz as of the Second Edition's publication in 2010.

The entry for a song like "Send in the Clowns" will run you 21 pages, and a typical (short) example (at page 351) looks like this:

"Little Dream" from the film The Birdcage (1996)
SSFTS c-eb2
The Birdcage (Nathan Lane), see BIRDCAGE
Sondheim at the Movies (Susan Egan), see SONDATTHEM1
Music from The Birdcage, HSE Records, HTCD 33/34-2, 1996

The index is not something you read, but then it's not a complete waste of paper. Horowitz's fastidious research, self-acknowledged by the author to be out of date as of publication at least lays the groundwork for living references online such as The Stephen Sondheim Reference Guide, which manages to be far easier to browse, if perhaps not quite as complete.

Ah, well. I guess I should go back to the interviews. As I alluded, their contents are mostly mundane arcana despite being replete with musical examples printed from the published scores and Sondheim's unpublished sketches. Because Sondheim's primary musical concerns lay in harmony and structure, he began writing his more complex numbers working out something he called "longline." In essence, longline was a shorthand notation scheme designating chord changes through a piece using whole notes and half notes to assign particular keys their respective quantity of measures, dots and lines occasionally embellished by a Roman numeral or the figured bass notation he learned from studying with Milton Babbitt. Horowitz's introduction goes a long way toward explaining what figured bass notation is and how it gets deciphered, but unless you are deeply steeped in the tradition or capable of spotting a snippet of music you already know, you're unlikely to hear any of this play out across the page. In fact, I suspect that most of this book will be lost on the lay reader.

Take this excerpt from page 59 about example 2.1 in the book, in which Sondheim is explaining his longline pages for Assassins' "Booth Ballad":

As I remember it, the "Ballad" itself is in B-flat…. The problem with this number, or the task I set myself, was that I wanted to combine two entirely different songs and yet make them feel… that they should somehow be related….. I notice... that there's a great deal of interplay between the fifth note of the scale and the sixth note of the scale, and I see that's both in the harmony and in the melody. And I see that it's reflected in the bass line in G major -- the D-E-D-E -- so, it looks like I was hovering around the relationship between five and six.

I'm skeptical that many future music directors and performers will glean much from such detail. I think it more likely that they will derive actionable advice from the various recordings show licensing agent MTI made of Sondheim explaining his score from the piano bench. There's only an occasional nugget someone like me might use here, such as Sondheim's suggestion that songwriters keep the vocal range of the average number within an octave and six notes, the average tessitura of most singers, if they want their works to be heard.

Notwithstanding that Sondheim on Music is something of a specialists' book, the composer remains a charming pedant to learn from, and there are tidbits here and there that casual music buffs may yet enjoy. We read that Sondheim typically began his songs by working out compelling accompaniments when not working out the harmonic implications intrinsic to his longlines. He was most interested in surprising the listener if he could do so without "cheating" by throwing in arbitrary "wrong" notes and was least interested in melody, which he felt would emerge organically within his harmonic structure from the natural rhythms and intonations of language. This attitude might seem surprising considering how tuneful most of his work is (Harold Arlen being a major influence), until we are reminded that Sondheim was an extremely careful and deliberate lyricist. Further cherce nuggets lurk beneath the surface, such as his favorite composers to steal from (Ravel and Rachmaninoff); Sondheim's experiments to evoke the pointillism of Seurat, Japanese idioms in Pacific Overtures, and variations in a "three feel" other than a Straussian OOM-pah-pah in A Little Night Music; and the man's views on the relationship between art and audience.

In spite of how opaque I find most of these transcripts, Sondheim's thoughtfulness, intentionality, and humor still emerge. Probably my favorite of these emerges early on in the book and in so doing helps to set the tone for the entire interview session. It's a lengthy section, so I'll paraphrase their dialogue. Horowitz is investigating Sondheim's longlines for his newly-completed score Passion, specifically Fosca's entrance piece "I Read" ("I do not read to think… I read to dream"). As the librarian probes Sondheim's musical choices for the number, Sondheim waxes on about the importance in a given passage of going from a B-flat to a B-minor-natural to a B-flat down to a G, talking about the line's inevitability, and power, and the relation of those notes and chords to Puccini, and to the revelation of Fosca's character, etc. And Horowitz is confused, and he says, "But it could have been a D."

A 'D'?!? Sondheim rejects this completely, and goes off again on another extended monologue of "No, this," and "No that," "No, because B minor and B-flat major so you must go to a G," etc., and there are circles and arrows all over the place. Horowitz listens, takes this all in, looks back down at the table where the score lies before them, and insists, "But if it's B minor and B-flat major, they share the same D?"

This question coincidentally ends the page, and as I turn it over to see how Sondheim's going to react, I can imagine the maestro musing, rolling the possibility around, really considering the matter. "Oh, I see," Sondheim relents. "Sure, I see what you're saying. I suppose you could make a case for that," he says.

Sondheim ruminates some more on Horowitz's observation. This is an issue of a profound significance.

"Yeah, I dunno, I guess I just liked the sound of the G better."

Genius.

[Nichola · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was not really that interesting for a general audience, it focused intensely on his original scores and notes and was formatted as him being asked questions about little marks he made on them. Although I have done lots of work to understand general musical theater history, concepts, and personalities, this has such an intensity about the bones of the music. I tried and focused my reading on just the two shows of his I had seen but and skimmed the other four to see if I could get gain a feeling for what was being revealed, really don't think I got much out of it at all.

[Rae V · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating look into Sondheim’s mind about some of his most popular musicals. As someone who went through a music degree, I got slight ptsd as to the theory discussions, but it was all in fun since I didn’t have an assignment due (this time).

Overall I enjoyed the way he talked about his music and the ideas behind them, I think MH did a great job leading SS to different topics about his music and creations. There were many things I either related to or appreciate the way SS thinks about it.

3⭐️ enjoyed it, might read again
Happy reading ♥️📚

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

You never hear Sondheim talk about music this in-depth. It’s always about the lyrics or more text-based storytelling, never the nuts and bolts of how to make the music in musical theater. As such, I thoroughly enjoyed these transcribed and illustrated conversations, got a ton of recommendations, and started thinking about composing in a new way. Definitely keeping around for future reference. Oh and he’s right - “Silverware” is like the coolest showtune ever.

[Sam Maloney · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is really good, but you have to know what you're getting. This is an interview book and it demands an amount of music theory to get the full amount out of it, but if you have that then Sondheim's knowledge really comes through!

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enormous fun.

[Kate O'Hanlon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of technical detail, one for the pros and the the super fans,

[kit fearney · Rating 2 out of 5]

he talks but doesnt say anything

[Tess · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good!

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of the music theory here is slightly above my head, but all of it is fascinating.

[Sammy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant stuff! There are a few books out there that chart the history of Sondheim's career, and the creation of his shows. None of these are all-encompassing or breathtaking, but each of them is a worthy read to learn about the characters both on and off-stage who made Sondheim's career what it is.

This book, instead, focusses on the creative process within Sondheim's own head, entirely through interviews with the composer. Sondheim is always enjoyable to listen to, and that's no different here: savour the surprises as you learn just how much detail and examination it takes to produce his works. There's so much more going on beneath the surface.

The only problem is - particularly with more than a decade having past - every fan is bound to have their own questions and queries, be they on an entire score or just one note. Any book that gets you thinking like that (especially about such a fine subject) is my kind of book!

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very cool insight into one of Broadway's greatest composers. I read the "Less is More Edition," which I felt was a good length to get all the important parts in. I do wish that the book had included more dialogue and analysis on some of his bigger shows, like Company and Follies, but perhaps this is included in the other edition.

Four stars because there were a surprising amount of typos and repeated interview questions. Also a little too much focus on specific note changes and sketches (I liked the analysis, but we don't need pages to talk about him deciding to pick a D instead of a D-flat).

[Steve Carroll · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really fascinating. I wouldn't recommend this book to people without some fundamentals in music theory as it is fairly technical... they should stick with the lyric books. The book is half index of songs and recordings and half transcript of several days of interviews with Sondheim that bounce from show to show and analyze his manuscripts. A perfect version of this book would be a bit more focused on overview and less of just Q&A, but Sondheim states in the text that he considers himself bad at that kind of analysis. I felt like I learned a lot about how he approaches composition.

[Wendell Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only for the Sondheimaholic musician. I am not a musician but enjoy singing Sondheim so some of the technical musicology was above my head. But I found myself singing or humming underneath each time a phrase or title was mentioned, which was continuously throughout the book. Especially enjoyed the interviews with SS. Felt as if this was part III of the trilogy begun with "Finishing the Hat" and "Look I Made a Hat" by SS. Last part, listings of all songs, singers and recordings was tedious and took some time to get through!

[beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

what fun it is to take a glimpse into the mind of a genius! but this book of interviews gives you more than just a hint at what the man was thinking. grab onto the stem of one of sondheim's admittedly onerous chords, and take a ride through the staff of story-telling.

[Blanche · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful series of interviews with Sondheim, providing invaluable insights into the work of the greatest musical theatre composer of the 20th century. A must-read for anyone who has ever cared about Sondheim.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating; I couldn't put it down. Only complaint is that there's so much space spent on Horowitz asking Sondheim to decipher his drafts... which only sometimes leads to something interesting. Plus, I don't know that I'm ever going to make use of the extensive song listing in the back.

[Cory Howell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really fascinating glimpse into the composing process (and the mind) of one of musical theatre's greatest composers and lyricists. Great stuff!

[Carolyn Broquet · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the true Sondheim fan and the student of music theory. It is fascinating to see how his mind works
and I am in awe of his genius. Not for people who don't know who he is

[Michael McLean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Any student of musical theatre should be required to read it. Composers, writers, actors, singers, dancers, critics, or audience members.