I have a friend who hates Sondheim...- Page 2

[ClapYo'Hands]

Posted: 1/6/11 at 2:24am

'Good thing Going' from Merrily We Roll Along.

[B3TA07]

Posted: 1/6/11 at 2:53am

"The closest thing I can think of to atonality in Sondheim is the Letter scene in Sweeney. Even then, there is somewhat of a "tonic" established at the beginning and end of the song."

I am fascinated with the Letter! To me it's always been like an art song, which is an interesting interpretation since most art songs are musical settings of existing texts, so it's as if Sweeney wrote the letter and Sondheim set it to music and included it in the show. Plus the stagings I've seen have been just as abstract/vague.

I love that "Sondheim for Beginners" playlist. I'm probably going to add it to my iPhone just for myself, haha!

[After Eight]

Posted: 1/6/11 at 3:01am

From qolbinau:

"she doesn't know what she is missing out on."

On the contrary, she knows exactly what she is missing out on----- something she dislikes. Avoiding that seems perfectly reasonable to me, and it's not for you or anyone else to to tell her what she should like or not.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 1/6/11 at 3:09am

^I think the issue isn't so much that she doesn't like it, but that she wrongfully qualified his music as atonal. She's allowed to dislike Sondheim's music if it is not appealing to her, of course, that's her opinion and preference, but she can't claim it's because his music is atonal since that is factually false.

[binau]

Posted: 1/6/11 at 3:10am

How can she know what she is 'missing out on' if she hasn't even experienced it? (I mean, clearly if the OP is looking for 'starter songs' she hasn't...I mean if she has heard the 'starter songs', or if she has actually seen several of his shows then yes, she would know).

The thread doesn't really appear to be describing someone with much 'experience'.

[After Eight]

Posted: 1/6/11 at 3:39am

To orange skittles:

I really don't think it's her misuse of the worse "atonal" that is the issue here. It doesn't matter whether she used atonal, discordant, unmelodic, or just plain ugly to describe her reaction, we all know exactly what her objection is.

The issue is truly whether she has the right to find this music unappealing. Though people pay lip service to anyone's right to like or dislike what they want, the denigration of this person here, or others elsewhere, is really about more than just the misuse of a word.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 1/6/11 at 4:03am

I'm with the camp that says leave her alone. You can't force someone else to agree with your preferences -- and she should be allowed hers.

She doesn't like Sondheim - so what. The world will still revolve. I can't stand Adam Sandler. Trust me, if your were to force me to watch his "best" movies -- I'd not only STILL hate him, but probably add you to the list.

"Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig"

[chewy5000]

Posted: 1/6/11 at 5:06am

I much prefer the music of Schoenberg.

See what I did there?!!?!

[Mark_E]

Posted: 1/6/11 at 5:59am

This is the same as my mother, she absolutely HATES listening to Sondheim music. She despised the Sweeney Todd film, saying the music was the worst part. Whenever I put a CD on it always gets a "I don't like this music" mention. I'll admit, it is a difficult listen sometime, and I am not keen on everything he has written, but have started to like it more and more as I actually see the productions on stage (saw Passion, Into the Woods, Night Music and Assassins last year).

[dragonlp86]

Posted: 1/6/11 at 6:34am

Sometimes disliking something could just be the result of not being 'properly' exposed to it. For example, I'm with the minority of people who absolutely HATES 'West Side Story'. I don't like the show and I can't stand the music. If that had been my only exposure to Sondheim (and for a while, it was), I might also assume that all of his music was like that and thus claim to not like any of it. As the case was, I found other shows by him, and absolutely adore them ('Assassins' is a favourite of mine).

All you can do is gently expose her to other things done by him. You can't force her to change her mind. And don't try, since that would only make her dislike it more.

[chewy5000]

Posted: 1/6/11 at 7:52am

I have a friend who hates spiders. I'm going to start putting them in her bed to ease her into accepting their natural beauty.

[Q]

Posted: 1/6/11 at 8:03am

I've agreed with every word After Eight wrote in this thread.

And this statement made me wince: "She is a dancer, not a musical person."

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/6/11 at 10:21am

Barbra Streisand and Leonard Bernstein: I HATE MUSIC:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-YfB9ToBxM

Posted: 1/6/11 at 10:41am

To say "I hate Sondheim because he's atonal" is akin to saying "I hate cotton candy because it tastes like Bleu Cheese."

And yes, Into the Woods is the gateway drug. It worked for my Boyfriend.

[newintown]

Posted: 1/6/11 at 10:55am

This argument, "allow her to have her opinion" is not really valid.

As with any art - let's choose Picasso - to say "I hate Picasso, I don't want to look at Picasso, I don't want to learn about Picasso, because I hate his work," is an example of cherishing ignorance. And what's value has ignorance of any kind?

The more you examine any work of art, the more you can appreciate it (if not actually like it).

The death of musical education in this country is a personal bete noir; so few people actually know anything about music, and yet everyone feels that they can discuss it intelligently. It's like discussing an untranslated novel in German without knowing the German language.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 1/6/11 at 10:56am

ITW was my portal, as well. But I was also like 13.

[StageManager2]

Posted: 1/6/11 at 11:02am

Incidentally, Joe, your cat loathes Carol Channing? Would you lock the poor thing in a room with the stereo blaring until s/he learned to love her?

[Q]

Posted: 1/6/11 at 11:07am

For what it's worth, I am a trained musician, and fully appreciate and respect his work on an intellectual level. On a purely experiential level, listening to his work generally gives me a headache - just not what resonates with me at all.

And I, again, agree with AfterEight that focussing on the use of the term 'atonal' is somewhat missing the point. The friend seems to have heard some things, and found it unpleasant. That doesn't necessarily have anything to do with training or knowledge.

As for me, no amount of study is going to increase my appreciation of what he achieves - but, niether is it going to keep me from developing a headache when I try to listen (and I do mean that literally - I've had to turn many recordings off because of it.)

[HistoryBoy2]

Posted: 1/6/11 at 11:12am

Taking someone who hates salmon mousse and tying them to a chair, holding their mouth open with some kind of jack and piping litre after litre of pink, glistening puree into their face isn't going to make them later turn round and say, "Hey, now I love mashed fish!"

Wise up.

[StageManager2]

Posted: 1/6/11 at 11:20am

"Who's to say that 'I feel charming/Oh so charming/It's alarming how charming I feel' is outside the range of a pretty working class Puerto Rican girl living in the West '60s in 1957?"

A girl freshly arrived from Puerto Rico wouldn't use flowery terms like "charming" and "alarming." If anything her English would be broken. I find it amusing that Maria speaks such perfect English. Take away the accent and she might as well be a typical American girl. My older sister, who was 15 when we came to this country (around Maria's age), still has trouble understanding the English language. She knows enough to get by, but vocabulary words and idioms are her downfall. Heck, she has trouble following English-speaking movies and is always asking us what is going on. Also, she's surrounded by Spanish-speakers (as Maria would naturally be). She married into a Puerto Rican family and their specialty is Spanglish, with the emphasis on Spanish.

Anyhoo, "I feel charming / Oh so charming / It's alarming how charming I feel" might be typical of a pretty American girl in the 1950s, but not a Puerto Rican girl who's only been in the US one month and grew up speaking Spanish.

[newintown]

Posted: 1/6/11 at 11:25am

Salmon mousse is not art. There may be foodies who like to identify cooking with art, but cuisine is not art.

[Q]

Posted: 1/6/11 at 11:28am

So, newintown, am I understanding your point to be that, where 'art' is concerned (as defined by whom, one has to ask...) a person can be trained to alter their purely aesthetic experience - outside of just understanding and appreciating the technique/construct/whatever of the work?

[newintown]

Posted: 1/6/11 at 11:30am

This "I feel Pretty" argument gives me a headache - it betrays an utter lack of imagination.

It's a musical. All theatre has conventions - it's not real life. Many plays and movies feature scenes in which characters speak in their native languages, yet we hear the dialogue (or lyrics) in our own.

Why not just imagine that Maria and her co-workers are singing in Spanish, and we're hearing the translation? Why be so leadenly literal when approaching a musical? They aren't talking, they're singing - it's already stylized, not real.

Posted: 1/6/11 at 1:14pm

If my cat knew nothing of Carol Channing and hated her, then there might be a corollary. But my cat decided he hated Carol Channing after listening to her repeatedly on Sirius Broadway.

[newintown]

Posted: 1/6/11 at 1:25pm

What I said above, Q, is "The more you examine any work of art, the more you can appreciate it (if not actually like it)."

I do believe that, with knowledge/study of any work of art comes greater appreciation (define that word how you will). Many people, however, are content with forming a firm Lady Bracknell-esque opinion upon only cursory examination (if any) of a work or oeuvre.

To dismiss the music of Sondheim as any one thing ("atonal," "dissonant," "cold," whatever) betrays a lack of attention to the work. Sondheim has written songs using dissonnance, he has written songs with a frigid feel, true. He has also written grand, romantic, sweeping music, he's written comic vaudeville numbers, he's written pop-influenced ditties. The work has far too many facets to be dismissed with one poorly-chosen adjective.