Home » Stephen Sondheim, a composer in the Broadway empyrean

Stephen Sondheim, a composer in the Broadway empyrean

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A few days ago he had seen the first of two of his musicals in new rearrangements on Broadway, Assassins and Company. Stephen Sondheim, one of the greatest composers of musicals of the last fifty years, passed away on Friday at the age of 91.

On 7 December in Los Angeles (and 16 in Italy) the musical film West Side Story, directed by Steven Spielberg, based on the famous musical composed by Leonard Bernstein, full of songs that have become very famous, will be released. Who had written the verses of those songs? A twenty-six year old from Manhattan, Stephen Sondheim, in fact.

A composer

He considered himself primarily a composer, he had studied with Robert Barrow at Milton Babbitt; but he was also raised in the school of musical songwriters like Oscar Hammerstein II (South Pacific, Oklahoma !, All Together Passionately, Show Boat). This had taught him to “build” the songs around the characters, to make them into authentic “unique acts.” then in 1962 his first musical – music and words – A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum won the Tony Award (the Oscar of the American Theater), two years of reruns.

His greatest hits in the 70s and 80s

The 70s and 80s saw his greatest successes. Five see the collaboration – very important – with director Harold Prince, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures and Sweeney Todd: all innovative, the product of two extremely talented artists. whose visions complemented each other. Sondheim developed the lesson of Hammerstein II – the songs as the foundation of the show – not simply by integrating the words with the music but by imbuing the songs with dramaturgical developments, namely by providing the singers with the material to deepen their interpretation of the character. they won the Tony Award; one won the Pulitzer Prize. Sondheim also received the Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement, while Obama honored him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s foremost honor. In 2010 on Broadway they renamed a theater in his honor.

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