Sondheim really doesn't publicly criticize other living composers and lyricists. He certainly has criticized some dead lyricists, notably Lorenz Hart and Ira Gershwin. I haven't read much of him criticizing dead composers, although he's admitted to not liking Kurt Weill much. And he's said that Irving Berlin was a great lyricist but he doesn't think his music was all that special.
But when it comes to the living, he's generally pretty quiet when it comes to criticism. The closest I can recall him coming to criticizing specific writers is when he said something to the effect that a lot of through-composed or nearly through-composed musicals weren't really operas because the level of musical development wasn't high enough.
And back in late 1975, when pressed by a writer from the New York Times to say that
A Chorus Line was the greatest thing since sliced bread, he said that he didn't think much of the text, that the show was made by its staging. And then, in a rare instance of saying that he particularly liked a show that was currently running, he cited
The Wiz, because it captured joy, an emotion that he has trouble writing believably. And he's praised Adam Guettel, of course. But he tries not to comment publicly on living writers.
What he says privately, of course, might be quite different.
Of course, there was that time when he referred to the dead Oscar Hammerstein, rather nicely, as "a man of limited talent but infinite soul," and then, when asked about the alive Richard Rogers, called him "a man of infinite talent but limited soul." Rodgers wasn't too happy about this.
Which may be why he no longer says much publicly about other living writers.
Updated On: 4/19/06 at 03:39 PM
