Variety Article: Critics Hate Sondheim — Page 3

This is just like the 17th century & 18th century debates between the "Rubenists" (art lovers who preferred Peter Paul Rubens) vs. the "Poussinistes" (those who prefered Nicholas Poussin).

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"And the reason he would have such a hard time doing so is because he is marching two steps ahead of them."

Applause for Priest!

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Except that Priest forgets that Sondheim wouldn't exist without his antecedents and even Stephen forthrighly asserts that the lyrics for PORGY AND BESS are the greatest ever written for the musical stage.

BlueWizard, the old-fashioned format you disparage R&H for working within is the one they invented for the musical form. The "unconventional forms" you attribute to Sondheim are the work of his librettist/collaborators--they propose, Sondheim disposes.
In the end, both life philosophies are authentic viewpoints of the authors (unlike the many R&H and Sondheim wanna-bes who have followed in their wake).

But I certainly don't disparage R&H for using what is now an antequated form -- it was the form they themselves invented, and it suited their purposes nicely! In fact, I give them all the credit they are due for moulding the musical theatre to what it is today.

What I am saying, however, is that Sondheim took the form that they created and ran with it -- challenging it and moulding it to suit the needs of the show, which I appreciate and find more fulfilling.

To me, R&H are like the early Italian Renaissance poets who created the sonnet form, a tightly structured poetic structure with a narrow focus. Sondheim is like the English Renaissance poets (Spenser or Shakespeare) who took the unwielding sonnet form and changed it so that a wider range of subjects could be approached from different directions.

I think both R&H and Sondheim are brilliant and represent the best of musical theatre. Also, without R&H there would be no Sondheim. However, I think Sondheim's songwriting, his wordplay and ability to encompass character, thematic hue and the finer nuances of emotion, is more accomplished than R&H.

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Updated On: 12/21/04 at 09:43 PM

BlueWizard, that's like saying Stravinsky is more accomplished than Mozart because Igor's music was denser, more complex, complicated, "modern" or what have you. Each man was of his time and spoke for his time. Personally, I feel Sondheim's place in musical theatre history will be analogous to Wagner's in opera--a polemicist who argued for the seriousness of his craft. And like Wagner, I think he will remembered as sui generis--- influential, yes, but an anomaly in his field.
As I said earlier, I think Sondheim's viewpoint is authentic--for him. But it doesn't hold true for me, nor, I suspect, a lot of other people. I simply do not subscribe to the notion that life is a charnel house (SWEENEY TODD) or that love equals death (PASSION), to name the two projects of which Sondheim is progenitor. The former strikes me as a facile 20th-century cliche and the latter as adolescent claptrap. But, that said, I can still appreciate the craft the man brings to his work and am thankful for the decades of enjoyment he has given me. I most certainly put him in the pantheon of the greats but hardly grant him the final word on the "human condition."

MusicMan, I'm not very familiar with classical composers, so I'm gonna leave that analogy alone. I certainly agree that "each man was of his time and spoke for his time." But I still believe that R&H never strayed from the musical form they fashioned for themselves; Sondheim's work, IMO, has been much more adventurous and various, which make his musicals much more satisfying, to me anyway.

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Updated On: 12/22/04 at 12:48 AM

I think one's tastes often has to do with one's personality. For example, since I'm a kind of "dark" individual, and somewhat cyncial, Sondheim is right up my alley. But for more sunny, optimistic folk who are upbeat and like to keep things that way, I can see why they'd prefer Rodgers and Hammerstein or Gershwin.