In your opinion, what is Sondheim's most overrated musical score?

Inspiration!

Not your least favorite, but the one you feel receives and/or has received acclaim most at odds with your own response to it.

Lest it become a pi$3ing contest.

While we're at it, let's have your most underrated Sondheim score, as well.




For me, the Most Overrated: SWEENEY TODD

An unpopular opinion, yes... and I do like it quite a lot. But it does comparatively little for me, viscerally, in that it seems to telegraph its twists and turns. It doesn't consistently raise me out of my seat and surprise me the way PASSION and SUNDAY IN THE PARK do. It's a score I appreciate at arm's length, like a museum piece, but it's never completely swept me away.

The Most Underrated: PACIFIC OVERTURES

Also his most underrated show, in general, I feel. It's got limited commercial appeal and is an enormous sylistic challenge for actors and designers, but no matter which recording I listen to or how frequently in a stretch, I always want to disappear right into it. It took me a very long time to accept "Next" as truly fraternal to the whole, but now I feel it functions exactly as it was intended to function.



NOW YOU GO.

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Updated On: 8/26/11 at 06:30 PM

This reminds me of the quotation I've heard attributed to Woody Allen (I can't find a source or vouch for its veracity) to the effect that the worst sex he'd ever had was pretty good.

I'd say A Little Night Music is the least interesting of his heavily praised scores, though I like the show and indeed the score.

Most underrated, at least by audiences: Passion.

Updated On: 8/26/11 at 06:47 PM

I was going to say Sweeney Todd as well, and thought nobody would agree. Don't get me wrong, it's a gorgeous, thrilling score. But so often I hear it just taken for granted as his masterpiece, and, perhaps due to its subject matter, I know many people who worship it and seem to have little time for any other Sondheim--so, yeah, it's overated for me.

underated would be Pacific Overtures with Passion next. PO actually took me a while to get into, maybe the longest of any of his works (aside from Bounce/Road Show), but I just find everything about it so absolutely breath taking now--and thank God we got a decent film document of the original production, although parts of it work even more for me on CD. (Justifying it being underated all the more, it's the ONLY one of Sondheim's original cast albums from the pre CD age that has yet to be remastered-- sigh).

OVERTURES took me the longest to get into as well, but as far as ROAD SHOW goes I've come to the conclusion that I just don't like that show. There really isn't anything in the score that I enjoy.

I am sitting here wondering if i think the premise is flawed. If indeed context is king - and if indeed, "content dictates form" i am then forced to ask myself, "is an objective survey of the totality a fundamental misunderstand of the the intentions with any given score?"

that said, for me the most underrated score is by far and away pacific overtures.
the most overrated is sweeney - but not because i think it's a bad score, but because it really does seem to be the most - i don't know, analyzed, talked about, accessible. I love love love the score, but i don't find it superior to his other scores, just different, with a different agenda - different goals to accomplish.

i don't know, it was a better formed thought in my head lol.

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I like SWEENEY TODD, don't get me wrong, but it isn't the second coming. I think it's quite an accomplishment, but I think SUNDAY... and FOLLIES are MORE of an accomplishment.

I think everything of his is brilliant but I'd say my least favorite (personally) is Pacific Overtures, Frogs, and Road Show. (though each one has some wonderful moments, and I know Someone in a Tree is his personal favorite).

Mos underrated? Definitely Passion. So stunningly beautiful. The score to Anyone Can Whistle is also a hidden gem - more in the style of Forum and some of the Follies numbers, but still a great, hit-packed score.

(and I KNOW this is not really answering the question...)

While I love SWEENEY TODD, it's probably not the score that I love so much as the characters and the ride it takes you on.

Of my Sondheim favorites, I think I love the score to 'Night Music the most.

But I've sadly never been able to get into 'Pacific Overtures'. Maybe I'll try that again before the power blows.

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I agree with the previous poster. All overrated. Every time I work at a theater doing a Sondheim show, you'd think it was the Second Coming! I enjoy Into the Woods and Assassins but nothing is ever worth the hype.

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Sunday...





That said, I still love it.

The most underrated (or, perhaps, NON-rated) would have to be the twenty songs young Steve Sondheim wrote for the very first original musical ever produced at William College, a show called Phinney's Rainbow," which revolved around the activities of a fraternity whose motto was "Strength Through Sex."

It included some fine examples of his early work:

* "Phinney's Rainbow" (the title song, sung by a line of chorus girls all played by members of the Williams football team in skirts and sweaters with tennis balls in their brassieres)

* "Still Got My Heart"

* "The Q-Ladies Waltz" (about the maids who cleaned up after the undergraduate boys)

* "How Do I Know" (written in one hour to cover an uncomfortably long scene change, it was Sondheim's first time writing a second-act number that would make the show).

The clever lyrics to "How Do I Know" made it the song everyone remembered:

You said goodbye
When I said hello,
And I asked you when
And you said I would know,
When I know
That you said "no"?
I just don't know.

This is truly a show that Diane Paulus should revive.

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Updated On: 8/27/11 at 11:21 PM

Overrated: Into The Woods. I don't know what it is about this show but it does almost nothing for me. Every time I've seen it my reaction has been a big fat "eh". I don't really like any of the songs and though the book is kind of funny at times mostly it just comes off as sort of cluttered and aimless.

Underrated: I don't know if any Sondheim is really "underrated" but usually when I talk to someone who has some knowledge of Sondheim they're totally unaware of Pacific Overtures and Merrily We Roll Along. I'll have to give this one to Overtures, though, because Merrily is usually lauded just for its score whereas Overtures is too often ignore completely. It's certainly not his most accessible work but it's incredibly brilliant and beautiful nonetheless. Just thinking about the quiet, delicate, and sad underscoring to "There Is No Other Way" gives me chills. The book isn't A+, not quite. The two main characters have an interesting story and I love the historical scenes but they never quite link the two in a satisfying way (though I understand the connection). But it's still really good. Anyways, it's definitely overlooked, as far as his major canon goes. I even like "Welcome To Kanagawa", if just because the humor's so dark.

Not-really-overrated: Sweeney Todd. It's amazing and deserves every bit of love and acclaim that it gets. It's a little overexposed and some people like it for relatively shallow reasons (a serial killer barber whose victims are made into meat pies is just titillating enough to grab the attention of those who like that sort of thing) but the whole show works together so flawlessly it impresses me every time I return.

I love Sondheim. And I get what Sunday is doing and the reasons why it's brilliant. But it's never been able to really pull me hard internally.