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How Sondheim Found His Sound
"The research is voluminous, as is the artistry and perceptiveness. Swayne has lived richly within the world of Sondheim's music."
---Richard Crawford, author of America's Musical A History
"Sondheim's career and music have never been so skillfully dissected, examined, and put in context. With its focus on his work as composer, this book is surprising and welcome."
---Theodore S. Chapin, President and Executive Director, The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization
"What a fascinating book, full of insights large and small. An impressive analysis and summary of Sondheim's many sources of inspiration. All fans of the composer and lovers of Broadway in general will treasure and frequently refer to Swayne's work."
---Tom Riis, Joseph Negler Professor of Musicology and Director of the American Music Research Center, University of Colorado
Stephen Sondheim has made it clear that he considers himself a "playwright in song." How he arrived at this unique appellation is the subject of How Sondheim Found His Sound ---an absorbing study of the multitudinous influences on Sondheim's work.
Taking Sondheim's own comments and music as a starting point, author Steve Swayne offers a biography of the artist's style, pulling aside the curtain on Sondheim's creative universe to reveal the many influences---from classical music to theater to film---that have established Sondheim as one of the greatest dramatic composers of the twentieth century.
Sondheim has spoken often and freely about the music, theater, and films he likes, and on occasion has made explicit references to how past works crop up in his own work. He has also freely acknowledged his eclecticism, seeing in it neither a curse nor a blessing but a fact of his creative life.
Among the many forces influencing his work, Sondheim has readily pointed to a wide classical music from 1850 to 1950; the songs of Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, and Hollywood; the theatrical innovations of Oscar Hammerstein II and his collaborators; the cinematic elements found in certain film schools; and the melodramatic style of particular plays and films. Ultimately, Sondheim found his sound by amalgamating these seemingly disparate components into his unique patois.
How Sondheim Found His Sound is the first book to provide an overview of his style and one of only a few to account for these various components, how they appear in Sondheim's work, and how they affect his musical and dramatic choices.
---Richard Crawford, author of America's Musical A History
"Sondheim's career and music have never been so skillfully dissected, examined, and put in context. With its focus on his work as composer, this book is surprising and welcome."
---Theodore S. Chapin, President and Executive Director, The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization
"What a fascinating book, full of insights large and small. An impressive analysis and summary of Sondheim's many sources of inspiration. All fans of the composer and lovers of Broadway in general will treasure and frequently refer to Swayne's work."
---Tom Riis, Joseph Negler Professor of Musicology and Director of the American Music Research Center, University of Colorado
Stephen Sondheim has made it clear that he considers himself a "playwright in song." How he arrived at this unique appellation is the subject of How Sondheim Found His Sound ---an absorbing study of the multitudinous influences on Sondheim's work.
Taking Sondheim's own comments and music as a starting point, author Steve Swayne offers a biography of the artist's style, pulling aside the curtain on Sondheim's creative universe to reveal the many influences---from classical music to theater to film---that have established Sondheim as one of the greatest dramatic composers of the twentieth century.
Sondheim has spoken often and freely about the music, theater, and films he likes, and on occasion has made explicit references to how past works crop up in his own work. He has also freely acknowledged his eclecticism, seeing in it neither a curse nor a blessing but a fact of his creative life.
Among the many forces influencing his work, Sondheim has readily pointed to a wide classical music from 1850 to 1950; the songs of Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, and Hollywood; the theatrical innovations of Oscar Hammerstein II and his collaborators; the cinematic elements found in certain film schools; and the melodramatic style of particular plays and films. Ultimately, Sondheim found his sound by amalgamating these seemingly disparate components into his unique patois.
How Sondheim Found His Sound is the first book to provide an overview of his style and one of only a few to account for these various components, how they appear in Sondheim's work, and how they affect his musical and dramatic choices.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published August 8, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 27, 2010
To really enjoy this book, you have to have three ingredients 1. you need to be a rabid Stephen Sondheim fan (or at least have a HUGE knowledge of his work). 2. You have to have master’s level degrees in music composition, theatre, and movie critique. 3. Finally, you have to love in-depth and detailed works written by great experts for the edification of other great experts. Put aside your heart, because this is Broadway musical history run through a careful and cold dissection, poked and prodded to death, replete with anatomical drawings.
I do love Sondheim. He’s the Broadway composer who started out as a lyricist for Gypsy and West Side Story. He went on to write some of the greatest, most complex musicals Broadway has ever seen, including A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, A Little Might Music, Follies, Pacific Overtures, Sweeney Todd, Merrily We Roll Along, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, Passion, and Assassins.
Sondheim’s musical composition is often intricate; he regularly suffers the strange complaint that his songs aren’t hummable. His tunes are integral to the plot, making them virtually impossible to be pulled out and turned into pop songs. Often songs are sung dialogue, replete with carefully constructed and clever rhymes and witty sayings. His technical ability has people accusing Sondheim of writing shows that are too complicated and emotionally cold. And yet over 60 years in the theatre has proven that he is a creative force to be reckoned with. Sondheim is the man who successfully stirs the hearts and uncorks the emotions of theater-going intellectuals.
The technical side is all present in Steve Swayne’s book. And since Sondheim does inspire such rabid intellectual debate, perhaps Swayne was writing with the thought in mind that he’d have to answer to Sondheim’s nitpicky fans. This is a book for experts by an expert. It’s accurate and thoroughly researched. But as entertainment, it’s also a rather gray, lifeless read.
Perhaps it’s because I only have one college-level class of music composition, so I found the detailed descriptions of musical keys and chords tiring after 20 pages. I kept having to look up the classical music that Swayne refers to, and I often still didn’t quite get the point after listening to it. I would google Swayne’s references to plays and movies I hadn’t seen (about half of the ones mentioned).
From the pages and pages of dissertation-level language, we can tell Swayne has done his research. But really, at the core, the author’s basic premise to the average reader is quite simple. Sondheim is a product of what he was exposed to. He’s very learned, WASP born and bred, and IVY League educated (with personal help by brilliant lyricist Oscar Hammerstein). Sondheim is a classicist by nature. Also, Sondheim is a man whose high interest in detailed drama, intricate structure, and challenging puzzles and games informs all of his works. Sondheim writes to specific style, as with Sweeney Todd where he mixed Grand Guignol—dark, Victorian, operatic—with the film noir scores of Bernard Hermann (Psycho).
This is a book for researchers and people digging into the delicacies of parts, pieces, and moments—the viscera. Swayne is obviously obsessed with Sondheim, and the author is a workhorse of a researcher. Also, Swayne’s not afraid to share an opinion. However, this high-aiming book has an extraordinarily limited audience. Until I read it, I thought I was in that elite group.
Sondheim is often criticized for his intellectual detail, complexity and coldness. Yet, his music—when properly and fairly explored—has a true depth of emotion and human-borne conflict. Swayne’s book has the intellect, construction, and coldness down. Sadly, it also assumes Sondheim’s artistic heart is a mere product of academic dissection. This book is all parts of the bodies of Sondheim’s work carefully autopsied in a lab-like experiment, as if these very lively and human creations were past the hope of breathing any new spark into.
I do love Sondheim. He’s the Broadway composer who started out as a lyricist for Gypsy and West Side Story. He went on to write some of the greatest, most complex musicals Broadway has ever seen, including A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, A Little Might Music, Follies, Pacific Overtures, Sweeney Todd, Merrily We Roll Along, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, Passion, and Assassins.
Sondheim’s musical composition is often intricate; he regularly suffers the strange complaint that his songs aren’t hummable. His tunes are integral to the plot, making them virtually impossible to be pulled out and turned into pop songs. Often songs are sung dialogue, replete with carefully constructed and clever rhymes and witty sayings. His technical ability has people accusing Sondheim of writing shows that are too complicated and emotionally cold. And yet over 60 years in the theatre has proven that he is a creative force to be reckoned with. Sondheim is the man who successfully stirs the hearts and uncorks the emotions of theater-going intellectuals.
The technical side is all present in Steve Swayne’s book. And since Sondheim does inspire such rabid intellectual debate, perhaps Swayne was writing with the thought in mind that he’d have to answer to Sondheim’s nitpicky fans. This is a book for experts by an expert. It’s accurate and thoroughly researched. But as entertainment, it’s also a rather gray, lifeless read.
Perhaps it’s because I only have one college-level class of music composition, so I found the detailed descriptions of musical keys and chords tiring after 20 pages. I kept having to look up the classical music that Swayne refers to, and I often still didn’t quite get the point after listening to it. I would google Swayne’s references to plays and movies I hadn’t seen (about half of the ones mentioned).
From the pages and pages of dissertation-level language, we can tell Swayne has done his research. But really, at the core, the author’s basic premise to the average reader is quite simple. Sondheim is a product of what he was exposed to. He’s very learned, WASP born and bred, and IVY League educated (with personal help by brilliant lyricist Oscar Hammerstein). Sondheim is a classicist by nature. Also, Sondheim is a man whose high interest in detailed drama, intricate structure, and challenging puzzles and games informs all of his works. Sondheim writes to specific style, as with Sweeney Todd where he mixed Grand Guignol—dark, Victorian, operatic—with the film noir scores of Bernard Hermann (Psycho).
This is a book for researchers and people digging into the delicacies of parts, pieces, and moments—the viscera. Swayne is obviously obsessed with Sondheim, and the author is a workhorse of a researcher. Also, Swayne’s not afraid to share an opinion. However, this high-aiming book has an extraordinarily limited audience. Until I read it, I thought I was in that elite group.
Sondheim is often criticized for his intellectual detail, complexity and coldness. Yet, his music—when properly and fairly explored—has a true depth of emotion and human-borne conflict. Swayne’s book has the intellect, construction, and coldness down. Sadly, it also assumes Sondheim’s artistic heart is a mere product of academic dissection. This book is all parts of the bodies of Sondheim’s work carefully autopsied in a lab-like experiment, as if these very lively and human creations were past the hope of breathing any new spark into.
March 17, 2014
Excellent content. Decent analysis. Badly written.
February 7, 2017
Any book about Sondheim should get a good vote from me. 'How he found his sound' deals with many things including influence of types of cinema, but the most interesting parts for me where his 'musical' influences, which is detailed and fascinating
January 17, 2009
Again, very insightful for anyone who needs to study Sondheim.
August 25, 2012
I'd much rather listen to Sondheim talk about music and words than listen to his actual music and words.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews