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images. He always has to have a concept first. Anyhow he hit on that old photograph of Gloria Swanson standing in the rubble of the Roxy Theatre. That got us going. That image of glamour and ghost in the midst of all that rubble....We ended up seeing the show as a kind of Chekhovian musical where nothing seems to happen but a lot happens underneath. [[Image-photo from the production of Leonard Bernstein's Candide ]] I started getting ideas for all the twenties and thirties numbers like Broadway Baby and You're Gonna Love Tomorrow. I imitated people like Kern and Arlen but I couldn't keep myself out. I had to comment on their styles."
    Sondheim's own musical style cannot be copied. He is capable of composing any kind of melody and making it his own be it bossa nova, rock or ballad. And when  it comes to dazzling word patterns he is without peers. In Follies his lyrics run the gamut from the patter song: "Lucy is the juicy/ but terribly drab/ Jessie is dressy/ but cold as a slab" to gorgeously torchy "the sun comes up/ I think about you/ the coffee cup/ I think about you/ I want you so/ it's like I'm losing my mind."
     Sondheim has been fascinated by words for as long as he can remember. For inspiration he reads Beckett, Pinter, Joyce. "Anyone who dares with words. That's why rock doesn't interest me. No surprises. Rock lyrics with the exception of Laura Nyro and the Beatles tend to be sloppy, with no texture or resonance."
     By the time he was fifteen he knew he wanted to write musical comedy. His parents divorced; he and his mother were living in Bucks County on a farm next to the Oscar Hammersteins. 
     "I got friendly with Jimmy, Oscar's youngest son and Oscar took an interest in my music. I'd been studying piano for five years...in a way Oscar was like a surrogate father. It seemed natural that when I wrote a musical entitled By George (Sondheim was then attending the George Prep School in Newton Pa.)I should bring it to Oscar for approval. "I remember saying to him, 'I want you to forget you know me. Just tell me what you think as a producer.'"
     Sondheim went home with visions of being "the first fifteen-year-old with a musical on Broadway. The next day Oscar said to me, 'You really want me to speak to you as a producer?' I nodded. 'In that case,' he said, 'it's the worst thing I've ever read.' My face must have turned ashen because he went on. "I told you it was terrible-not untalented.' He then proceeded to show me exactly what was wrong. He explained character, scene structure, what a song was and what is wasn't. When that afternoon was over I probably had a better musical education than most song writers get in a lifetime."
     Next Hammerstein outlined a musical comedy course for him. "First he told me to turn a good play into a musical. I adapted Beggar on Horseback. When that was completed he said take a not too good play. I labored over High Tor. After that I tried adapting a novel-Mary Poppins. Miserable failure.


All of this took several years; and while he was doing it he was also hanging around backstage at The King and I and South Pacific. By the time he graduated from Williams College where he majored in music Sondheim felt he was ready for professional work.
     At twenty-three he wrote the words and music for Night Music. Unfortunately its producer Lem Ayers died before the musical could receive a Broadway production. Two years later at a party Sondheim ran into Arthur Larents who told him he was

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finishing the book for a new musical called West Side Story with Leonard Bernstein. Comden and Green were supposed to do the lyrics but they couldn't get out of a movie commitment. "So Arthur asked me if I'd be interested. But I thought of myself primarily a composer. I met Lenny who liked my work and wanted me to write the lyrics but I just wasn't sure I let Oscar decide. He said 'go ahead. It'll be a great experience.' It was, of course. Although I was so anxious to show off-to demonstrate I could rhyme anything that I still wince over some of the lyrics. Maria would just not say 'I feel pretty/ I feel charming/ it's alarming/ how charming I feel.'"
     After West Side came the enormous success of Gypsy (he wrote the lyrics to Jule Styne's music). And Do I Hear a Waltz?, which he worked on with Richard Rodgers. Firmly established as a lyricist Sondheim says he started feeling schizoid-"because I still though myself a composer."
     To prove to himself that he could do both he wrote the words and music to the hilarious A Funny Thing Happened to on the Way to the Forum. His tunes were described as "thumpingly singable" according to one reviewer.
     Next he wrote the words and music for Anyone Can Whistle, which flopped in 1964 but in which he believes he broke new ground. "The songs in that show commented on the action, instead of advancing it. In Forum I'd already experimented with songs that were respites from the action."
     As far as he's concerned Company proved even more adventurous. "The score turned out to be like nothing I'd ever done before. It's eclectic-everything from bossa nova to rock to folk songs to vaudeville. The songs are almost entirely subtext-they comment on whats going on in the show and the characters often sing for the most unconventional reasons."
     Sondheim particularly likes the title

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Transcription Notes:
Could someone please double check the production photo on the top left? I think I am right in saying its Candide but not 100% sure.