Stephen Sondheim

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 30:08

The programme was originally broadcast in the year two thousand, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My Castaway this week is a composer and lyricist. He learned his craft from a master, Oscar Hammerstein, and showed how good a pupil he'd been with his first professional success, The Lyrics for Westside Story. Soon he was adding music to his words, and in a series of often controversial works established himself as the modern heir to a great tradition. A funny thing happened on the way to the forum, company, follies, a little night music, and Sweeney Todd showed how a serious artist could triumph in a frothy world, even if deep appreciation rather than popular acclaim is the ultimate reward. Their author has appeared to be content with this. I'm essentially a cult figure, he once said. My kind of work is caviar to the general. He is Stephen Sondheim. Sophisticated stuff for sophisticated people, Stephen. Are you content that that's how your appeal goes?

Stephen Sondheim1:22

Content is an odd word. I um I'm not discontent, I I suppose.

Stephen Sondheim1:28

I think the major joy of writing songs is that as many people as possible should hear them, and therefore I'm content in that more and more people hear the songs as the years go by and see the shows.

Presenter1:43

But what is important to you to to get from the audience i i in order of merit, as it were? Do you like their respect?

Stephen Sondheim1:49

Do you

Presenter1:51

before you want their kind of warm enjoyment.

Stephen Sondheim1:54

No, no, it's enjoyment. It's a b it's a ba it's enjoyment. It's it's watching an audience have a good time.

Presenter1:58

But as I understand it, you don't particularly care if they don't go away humming your tunes.

Stephen Sondheim2:04

Oh, but you know that whole thing about hummability is...

Stephen Sondheim2:08

It's vastly exaggerated. First of all,

Stephen Sondheim2:10

When an audience leaves a theater humming a tune, it's because they were humming it when they came in.

Stephen Sondheim2:15

They had heard it before.

Presenter2:16

It's a cliché.

Stephen Sondheim2:17

Yeah. Or or a s a tune that has been exposed. Uh I think uh sometimes also in and particularly in the old days tunes are reprised many times during the course of the evening so that uh

Presenter2:28

I can't avoid hammockers.

Stephen Sondheim2:29

Exactly, man. I you know, I I I remember at the at the end of the first act of uh A Little Night Music, there's a song called Weekend in the Country, which has uh six or seven choruses.

Stephen Sondheim2:39

And sure enough, the audience you know, supposedly I write unhummable music, they were all humming it at the interval because it had just been drummed into them.

Presenter2:47

You mentioned a little night music, and of course famously there is the one everybody knows, your unvarnished hit single Send Him the Clowns.

Stephen Sondheim2:50

This is the one.

Stephen Sondheim2:53

Uh

Speaker 12:53

Please

Stephen Sondheim2:53

Anyway. But

Presenter2:55

It's interesting, isn't it? Because that although it was very much part of the action, it also stood alone. Is that why it was a hit? Is that why it's not a problem?

Stephen Sondheim3:04

No, but uh Send in the Clowns was not a hit for two years. Nobody nobody sang it for two years while the show was running. And then it was picked up by Judy Collins and then picked up by Frank Sinatra and then it was a hit. But for two years the only person who sang it was Bobby Short, a a a cabaret entertainer.

Presenter3:21

Great song, though. Lost Love. What might have been Not planning to take any of that kind of stuff to your desert island as I look down your list. Tell me about the first one you're going to take.

Stephen Sondheim3:23

Ha ha ha.

Stephen Sondheim3:29

Well, the first one I would I would like to have is um Porgy Invest because I think it's the the finest American musical. I always find Porgy moving and I always find it surprising and inventive and I'm always jealous of it. I always wish that I'd written it.

Speaker 13:50

I just never said

Speaker 14:04

It's worth it.

Presenter4:09

Wyllard White as Porgy, Barbara Conrad as Maria, and Florence Queivar as Serena singing Oh Bess, so where's my best? from Gershwin's Porgy and Best with the Cleveland Orchestra, conducted by Lauren Marzell. Of course Porgy and Bess is now classed as an opera. It's very much in the opera repertoire.

Presenter4:24

What you do is called musical theatre. Some of your pieces, like Sweeney Todd, have been called operetta. Do you care about these? No, I know.

Stephen Sondheim4:30

No, no. Those are for critics and scholars. No, I no.

Presenter4:35

Yet, but you specifically chose musical theatre. You specifically chose Broadway, didn't you? Not theatre.

Stephen Sondheim4:40

Well, I was yes, but Oscar Hammerstein was my mentor, and he came from Broadway, and I w I was I wanted to be what he was, so that's sure. I I sus I suspect if he had been an opera composer, I might have become an opera composer. I've often said that if he were a geologist, I would have been a geologist. So, you know, that's probably not true, but but but it's

Presenter4:56

But but people say that that you wanted to bring the opera to Broadway, that that is is that is that

Stephen Sondheim5:02

Whoever said that is foolish. No, I've not. It wouldn't occur to me.

Presenter5:03

Not true?

Presenter5:05

No, no, but it's interesting where you placed yourself. And and again people say, you know, that you you chose Broadway, but you wilfully ignored the old Broadway wisdom, no girls, no gags, no chance.

Stephen Sondheim5:15

Well, that's what Oscar did with the opening of Oklahoma.

Presenter5:19

Because we should remind people that he did revolutionize the music.

Stephen Sondheim5:22

Yes, and he did it and he did it with this particular he first he did it with Showboat, which was an attempt to meld European operetta and Broadway musical comedy. Then he did it with Oklahoma, which was an attempt

Stephen Sondheim5:35

To develop a story and character through song inst instead of around song.

Presenter5:41

So when the curtain goes up, you don't have the dancing girls which you can do.

Stephen Sondheim5:43

No, no, Oklahoma's famous because the opening did not involve the chorus. You got this man singing off the stage. Just a man and singing offstage.

Presenter5:49

You've got this man singing off the stage. Jeff Man and singing offstage. Yes. And then coming on.

Stephen Sondheim5:53

And then coming on. And I think that's been vastly exaggerated because that's not what was revolutionary about it. What is revolutionary about it is Oscar was using music to establish tone rather than merely to entertain. That is to say, the moment called for just that kind of song, so they did it. Instead of what other composers would have done, which is found a way.

Stephen Sondheim6:16

To open the show. They'd say, well, it it opens on a misty morning, but we'll have all the townspeople come in and they all sing a chorus first, and then the mist will rise and on will come Curly. That's what others would might have done. But what Oscar did was say, No, okay, let's just start with Curly. Let's start with an empty stage and a woman churning butter and a voice coming off stage and let's see what happens. And everybody, I'm sure, said, Oh, but the the audience won't feel her at a musical.

Presenter6:40

Hmm.

Stephen Sondheim6:40

But they did.

Presenter6:41

And that's the tradition that you picked up from.

Stephen Sondheim6:43

Absolutely.

Presenter6:44

Because of him.

Stephen Sondheim6:45

Absolutely.

Presenter6:45

I want to talk to you more about him, but let l tell me about your second record.

Stephen Sondheim6:49

I decided to

Stephen Sondheim6:51

throw modesty to the winds and take to the island some of my own pieces, not just because I enjoy them, but because they bring memories back.

Stephen Sondheim7:02

Good memories. Memories of working on the shows. And the first of these is Sweeney Todd, which is probably the show that was easiest for me to write. It just flowed.

Speaker 17:13

But tend the tale of Sweeney Twad.

Speaker 17:17

His skin was pale and his eye was odd.

Speaker 17:21

He shaved the faces of gentlemen Who never thereafter were heard of again. He trod a path that few have trod. Did sweet he todd.

Speaker 17:32

A Dave and Barbara Fleet Street.

Presenter7:40

The ballad of Sweeney Todd, sung by members of the company from the original cast, music and lyrics, by my castway, Stephen Sondheim. You often said that uh it's a great piece of Dickensian melodrama that that it's your it was your love letter to London. Pretty poisoned letter.

Stephen Sondheim7:52

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Sondheim7:54

Well, no. It's uh no. I I've always been an anglophile. Uh from the very f my first visit was for Westside Story, as a matter of fact, was the first time I was ever here. And I've always liked Victorian melodrama.

Stephen Sondheim8:06

And this was, you know, a combination of all those things. So it was a love letter to 19th century Victorian melodrama in London.

Presenter8:13

But in spite of that, the the critics were pretty savage about it at the time. They've been right about it since, but at the time it didn't.

Stephen Sondheim8:16

If you're icebergs,

Stephen Sondheim8:19

No, they they no, they no, they they they were pretty awful. I I I was I was hurt. And then a um a friend of mine, a playwright John Gware,

Stephen Sondheim8:28

had a had an an explanation.

Stephen Sondheim8:31

He said

Stephen Sondheim8:32

First of all, it's a British folktale and it's their property and along come some brash Americans who put it on who you know and he said and then he said you took it seriously. Nobody takes Sweeney Todd seriously over there. He said it's exactly as if the British brought over a serious musical of I Love Lucy and what would we say in America? We'd say you can't take I Love Lucy seriously and do it. This is the kind of thing that you scare children to make them go to sleep with. And here is this two and a half hour Victorian operetta about this silly folktale.

Presenter9:07

Let's go back to Oscar Hammerstein and this kind of ongoing master class that you enjoyed for so long. Very privileged. How did you come to meet him?

Stephen Sondheim9:15

My parents were divorced when I was 10 years old and my mother got custody of me and she bought a farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. And three miles from the house she bought lived the Hammerstein family. They had a son named Jimmy, my age, and we became close chums. And I had a good deal of difficulty with my mother, who was a difficult woman. And I spent more and more time over at the Hammerstein house and became a kind of surrogate son. And Oscar became a surrogate father. I like my father a lot, but I didn't see him all that often because my mother had custody and she was angry at him. By the time I was 12 or 13 years old, I was in the Hammerstein house much more than I was in my own. So Oscar became a surrogate father for me. And

Stephen Sondheim10:02

He encouraged me uh to be a songwriter, although I had I'd only been moderately interested in in music before that. I'd taken piano lessons for two years.

Stephen Sondheim10:11

Um

Presenter10:12

And you didn't take to it straight away.

Stephen Sondheim10:13

It was okay. I I didn't I it was fun, but it wasn't all that much fun. My father used to uh was a big Broadway show fan and um he was in the dress business. He often took buyers to to Broadway shows and uh he played piano by ear. So there was always show music around the household before I met Hammerstein.

Presenter10:30

But you were really a movie buff, weren't you?

Stephen Sondheim10:31

Ah, yeah, movies were movies were my thing, yes.

Presenter10:34

Is it true you went on the 64,000?

Stephen Sondheim10:35

I didn't go on it. I auditioned for it and was accepted. But then they realized that I was at that time I had my first job. I was writing for television. And they didn't want anybody in show business on the subject of anything in show business. What they liked was nuns who were experts on boxing and things like that.

Presenter10:54

So home life was pretty miserable. Mum

Stephen Sondheim10:57

Well, well, well, it wasn't because my mother was not around that much. It wasn't happy. It wasn't happy. But I have hot and cold, didn't she?

Presenter11:01

But she did have hot and cold, didn't she?

Stephen Sondheim11:04

Mostly, mostly hot, I think. Particularly when she realized that I considered the Hammersteins my family and not her. Then she had a terrible conflict because she wanted to maintain her friendship with them because Oscar was a celebrity. At the same time, she was furious. She used to say to me, she would sue them for alienation of affection. Now, I didn't know what alienation is. She's telling this to a 12-year-old boy. And of course, her idea of alienation of affection is not the court's idea of it. What she was saying to me is, you like them more than I, so I can sue them for alienation of affection. That was her phrase.

Presenter11:35

And did you ev eventually become totally alienated from her?

Stephen Sondheim11:38

Uh no, I j yes. I eventually realized she had she had told me that um if I ever saw my father without her permission, she could have him thrown in jail. It was of course a lie, but I didn't realize it was a lie till I was fifteen years old, and the minute I realized it was a lie, I packed up and went and lived with my father.

Presenter11:53

Did you see her again?

Stephen Sondheim11:54

Oh, yes, oh sure, sure. And I eventually s I had to support her and she got married again. And then when she, uh uh her husband died and she moved back to M Manhattan and I support her and saw her.

Presenter12:05

So in the NT.

Stephen Sondheim12:05

Filial duty.

Presenter12:08

Mm. Not love. No.

Presenter12:11

Record number three.

Stephen Sondheim12:13

The next piece of music I take to the island is uh, I guess maybe my favorite classical piece of music, the Brahm Second Piano Concerto. It's hard to explain why it affects me so much. I it prof affects me profoundly and always has from the first day I ever heard it.

Presenter13:24

Alfred Brendel playing part of the last movement of bronze piano concerto number two in B flat with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Claudio Abardo. Weren't you, um, Stephen Santime, going to become a concert pianist at one point?

Stephen Sondheim13:36

Not really. When I was in my teens I resumed piano lessons and um I gave some recitals around Pennsylvania, which is where I went to school. However, uh one day I was playing uh I think the Chopin, Polonaise Fantasy, which is in a large A B A form.

Stephen Sondheim13:53

And I got to the end of the A and

Stephen Sondheim13:56

I was sort of playing on automatic pilot and I suddenly woke up and thought, Oh my God, what comes next? Oh, oh I could not remember anything. So I merely went back to the beginning of the A again and of course nobody in the audience missed it or knew the difference. I thought, Oh, what is the point of all this? So I ru I I played A A with no B in it.

Presenter14:16

But the story goes then that you wrote your first musical age 15. You took it in to Oscar. Oh, yeah.

Stephen Sondheim14:20

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Sondheim14:22

Oh yes.

Presenter14:23

absolutely convinced that it would be on Broadway within the year.

Stephen Sondheim14:26

Absolutely within the week, I think.

Stephen Sondheim14:29

Yes, and it was it was a local I went to a school called George School.

Stephen Sondheim14:34

And I wrote a show called By George with two classmates. I brought it to Oscar and asked him to judge it not as if I were a friend of the family, but as if uh it were a script that merely crossed his desk. And so I came over to his house the next day to sign the contract. And he said, If you really want me to treat this as if it were from a stranger, I must say it's the worst thing I've ever read. And I was shocked beyond belief. And he said, it's not untalented, but if you'd like to know why it's terrible, I will tell you.

Stephen Sondheim15:06

And he proceeded to tell me, starting from the first sentence for the first stage direction.

Presenter15:10

But hugely important afternoon, obviously. And you can't repeat it all now, but I wonder, is there a kind of distillation? Is there a very central trick that

Stephen Sondheim15:18

Yeah.

Stephen Sondheim15:19

It's not a trick. It's a central principle, which is to treat songs like little one-act plays, where you present a a situation and then either resolve it, or if you don't resolve it, move it forward, so that by the time you've finished the song, you're at a different point than you were where you were and this is in in terms of the story of the of the show, of the play. So that each song has a function.

Presenter15:39

Um

Presenter15:43

What about the putting together of the music and and lyrics?

Stephen Sondheim15:46

That just comes with practice and and

Presenter15:49

But I'm just thinking about something as simple as Oh, what a beautiful law.

Stephen Sondheim15:52

Oh, I see which one yes.

Presenter15:53

Very straightforward, very simple, but it's how it

Presenter15:55

It sits on the music.

Stephen Sondheim15:56

Of course it is. If you look at the opening quatrain of Oklahoma and it says, Oh, what a morning, oh, what a beautiful morning, oh, what a beautiful day, it's not very interesting because it's so simple. It's when it sits on the music that it blossoms, that it gains size and stature.

Stephen Sondheim16:13

And uh uh delight.

Presenter16:16

But you went on to write the lyrics, as I said in the introduction to West Side Story, and you wrote um I've just met a girl called Maria and I Want to Be in America. You've said since that you are a bit embarrassed by those lyrics or you don't like it.

Stephen Sondheim16:27

Oh yeah, some some of the you know some of the because

Stephen Sondheim16:29

Lenny was very anxious that the show be important. And yes, Lauren Bernstein was uh he wanted the show to be important and therefore he thought the lyrics should be poetic. Well, his idea of poetry is my idea of purple prose. I mean, we just don't agree.

Presenter16:32

Then answered the

Speaker 316:33

Uh

Stephen Sondheim16:44

So

Stephen Sondheim16:45

He would urge me, and I was only 25 years old, and I was the mascot of the group, so to speak. And though I had my own principles and opinions, I was trying to please everybody. So in trying to please Lenny, I pushed myself to write some fairly purple passages. Today the world was just an address is not, I think, what a street boy who's an ex-gang member would say. And I Feel Pretty, of course, is my betinoir, you know, that the idea that Maria would sing a song of such elegant phrasing is deeply embarrassing. No, the lyrics I like in that show are few and far between, but Something's Coming is a lyric I like, because that sounds like

Stephen Sondheim17:31

A boy being excited.

Stephen Sondheim17:33

And the Jet song I like.

Stephen Sondheim17:36

And now I'm running out of moments I like.

Presenter17:38

Poof.

Presenter17:39

Okay, let's have some more music. What's your next one?

Stephen Sondheim17:43

This is Sunday in the Park with George, a show I wrote with James Lepine.

Stephen Sondheim17:47

This is the first time I ever worked off Broadway and didn't have the pressures

Stephen Sondheim17:52

of Broadway production.

Stephen Sondheim17:54

Just to write a show for the purpose of putting on a show was enormous pleasure for me, and I also like the score, and I'm particularly proud of a song called Finishing the Hat, which is uh appeaned to the artistic process.

Speaker 118:08

It's the only way to see And when the woman that you want it goes, You can say to yourself, Well, I give what I give, but the woman who won't wait for you knows that however you live, there's a part of you always standing by, mapping out the sky.

Stephen Sondheim18:26

Uh

Speaker 118:35

Finishing a hunt.

Presenter18:37

Mandy Patinkin as George singing Finishing the Hat in Stephen Sondyme's musical Sunday in the Park with George. So you um followed up the lyrics to Westside Story with the lyrics to Gypsy, which was a huge hit. You weren't even thirty years old, I don't think.

Stephen Sondheim18:50

It was not a huge hit. Like Westside's Story, it was very moderate hits. It ran less than two years, which is not I think it made its money back, but it's not a big hit.

Presenter19:00

But you made a lot of money. You bought a big place in Manhattan. With

Stephen Sondheim19:03

Oh no no oh no oh no no no oh ah no I got a bank loan yes I got a bank loan as a result of the sale of Gypsy to the movies.

Presenter19:03

Goam

Presenter19:08

I'll

Presenter19:12

But you moved in next door to Catherine Hepburn.

Stephen Sondheim19:13

I did indeed.

Presenter19:15

You must have felt very proud of yourself, really, as I say, hardly thirty. There you were, all set up. But interestingly, what you then decided to do was write I've I've had enough of just writing lyrics. I'm going to get to grips with the music as well. So that makes you very ambitious perhaps arrogant, too?

Stephen Sondheim19:32

No, first of all, I'd started that uh the funny thing I'm in the way of the forum, which was in fact the show that came next, I'd started earlier. Gypsy was an interruption.

Stephen Sondheim19:40

Immediately after Westside's story I thought, all right, enough of just writing lyrics, because what I was I was trained as a composer and that's what I wanted to do. And I went to my friend Bert Shevelov, who uh suggested that we do a musical based on Plautus's plays. And we all started to work on a Funny Happening of the Forum.

Presenter19:58

Quite a recherche sauce, though.

Stephen Sondheim20:00

Well, but Bert Bert Bert saw a possibility in it because they're really funny situations and in fact Plautus invented situation comedy as we know it all. It was domestic comedy, you know, cuckolded husbands and things like that.

Stephen Sondheim20:13

Bert said, and we could make a a musical farce. And so that's in fact what we did.

Presenter20:17

Huge hit.

Stephen Sondheim20:17

Yes, that was my first big hit.

Presenter20:19

Zero Mostel starred in New York. Frankie Howard here, of course, was very much the making of that certain part of Frankie Howard.

Stephen Sondheim20:22

That's correct.

Presenter20:27

Does it remain your biggest hit, Sharon? Yes, I think it does.

Stephen Sondheim20:33

Yes, it's certainly the biggest hit uh on Broadway. It ran, I think, just under a thousand performances.

Stephen Sondheim20:39

It's it supported me for many, many, many, many, many, many years, essentially, the income from various productions all over the world, and particularly from schools, universities although there have been schools in the United States that have refused to do it because it uses the word virgin.

Presenter20:54

Number five.

Stephen Sondheim20:56

I'm very fond of piano concertos as a form, as you can tell from the Brahms, but my other favorite piano concerto is quite a different one. It's the Revelle Left-Hand Piano Concerto. One of the reasons I would take it to the island is not only that I love it, but it's also the subject of my senior thesis in college. So it's something I spent a lot of time on and got to love as much as maybe Revelle loved it himself.

Presenter22:17

Part of Ravel's piano concerto in D major for the left hand, played by Jean Casse de Sue with the Orchestre de la Societe des Concerret du Conservatoire, conducted by Pierre Dervaux.

Presenter22:28

Um

Presenter22:29

As far as performance of your work is concerned, Stephen, you prefer, I think, in the main actors to singers, can you?

Stephen Sondheim22:36

Yeah. I uh it's not preferring actors to singers, but uh if if I'm if I have to decide between an actor who sings all right and a singer who acts all right, I think I prefer the actor who sings all right for most of the shows. That's not true of all of them.

Presenter22:50

But does all of that indicate that that you are I mean again, I'm asking you to define yourself and I know you don't like doing it but but but are you as much a playwright as you are a songwriter, a writer of musical theater? Does your theatre happen to be musical?

Stephen Sondheim23:06

Well, yeah, I I I consider myself a playwright who writes in song. I'm I get attracted to stories. I d do not get attracted to themes or theses.

Presenter23:06

Hiya.

Presenter23:15

There are themes and theses.

Stephen Sondheim23:16

Yes, but but they they they are never in the forefront of my head, and I never think of anything except telling the story, creating suspense, making laughs, and and dealing with character. Because playwrights are essentially actors, and when I write a song, I'm really an actor.

Stephen Sondheim23:32

But it's also been creating.

Presenter23:32

But it's also being created by you and it's born of you. And of course, you know, what people would say about your themes are that there are and you've talked about the the miserableness of your parents' divorce and that sort of thing there is divorce, there are kind of strange breakups, there are relationships that can't last.

Speaker 123:43

Sir.

Stephen Sondheim23:43

Uh

Speaker 123:43

Yeah.

Speaker 123:46

Yeah.

Stephen Sondheim23:46

Strange

Stephen Sondheim23:48

Relationship

Stephen Sondheim23:50

And that's true of virtually every play. 90% of the plays ever written by anybody deal with relationships. They deal with things like revenge, with anger, with all these things that you can say, oh, yes, you see, that's traceable back to the breakup of the home. So many players deal with breakups of homes, including King Lear. I mean, you know. So these are...

Presenter24:10

What about tone, though? Because again, you have been defined by people who studied your work very closely.

Stephen Sondheim24:11

But

Presenter24:17

As having a cynical tone, slightly sour. I think Leonard Bernstein said you were slightly sour.

Stephen Sondheim24:22

Well, Leonard Bernstein was not the fount of wisdom. That's his opinion.

Presenter24:25

There's cynicism there, isn't there? I mean, it's what ma what makes it more interesting, isn't it? It's you know I mean, let me quote let me quote you to yourself, you know, the the song The Little Things You Do Together from Company. The concerts you enjoy together, neighbours you annoy together, children you destroy together.

Stephen Sondheim24:32

And then we crawled.

Stephen Sondheim24:41

That show is not a cynical show, but it has a raised eyebrow about the accepted aspects of certain.

Stephen Sondheim24:48

Quote, relationships. I think one of the reasons I'm considered a so-called cynical writer is the company is the show.

Stephen Sondheim24:57

I hate the word breakthrough, but the show that it's the first time I ever got good reviews. It's as simple as that. And therefore, people associated me with urban, what you'd call cynicism. And then the next show I did was Follies, which deals with the difficulty of two long-running marriages. So everybody said, ah, you see what he is, he's cynical about marriage, et cetera. Then nobody could quite pin it down when it came to a little night music, because a little night music is a romantic piece in which everybody gets their heart's desire at the end. So it was very difficult to suddenly say, oh, you see, it's cynical. Then came Pacific Overtures. And nobody could fit that into that category at all because it's not about marriage, it's not about dysfunction. It's about ah. But you see, it's about the clash of two cultures and how they don't get along together. So you see, everything is reducible.

Presenter25:43

Next piece of music.

Stephen Sondheim25:45

The next piece of music was the subject of my junior thesis at college, but this one I would take for sheer pleasure, and it's the Aaron Copeland Music for the Theatre. It's wonderfully orchestrated, and for sheer listening pleasure I would take it to the island.

Presenter26:53

Part of the interlude from Copeland's Music for the Theatre played by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra conducted by Yoel Levy.

Presenter26:59

When is the moment, Stephen, in all of the whole cycle of production, writing and production, staging and so on, that that you feel the greatest joy, that you go, Yes

Stephen Sondheim27:11

Oh, I think it's the universal one. I think you'd find the same answer from virtually everybody. First, there's the joy for the composer when you hear the orchestra reading down the score and you hear the instruments for the first time. Then, the look on the faces of the cast when they hear the orchestra for the first time is, you know, it's like the look on the face of children on birthdays and Christmas. It is unalloyed joy, and whatever the problems of the show, they disappear for that day.

Presenter27:39

Do you think I mean, because you've been very honest about this, how can you be otherwise? You you've had your share of flops, as it were. Do you think you're always philosophical about it now, but do you think the audience takes a some time to catch up with you? Because when they're put on again

Stephen Sondheim27:54

Yeah.

Speaker 127:54

Think of

Stephen Sondheim27:59

Mr. Body Class. Yes, I think, again, at the risk of immodesty, the stuff I write deserves a second or third hearing for people sometimes because sometimes the approach is so peculiar. But I'm attracted to experimental theater. My apprenticeship in the professional theater was on Roger and Hammerstein's third show, which is called Allegro. The critics disliked Allegro intensely because it was such a peculiar way to tell a story, the Our Town Chinese theater approach, telling a story. And it tells 40 years of a man's life. It doesn't have a plot.

Stephen Sondheim28:35

I've always been attracted, perhaps, to a kind of theater that comes in from left field and shows like Assassin, Sunday in the Park with George. You wouldn't expect them to be hits because the approach is not traditional musical theater. An audience has to be alert and it's not comfortable for them. Audiences are comfortable with what they've seen before.

Presenter28:57

So

Presenter28:58

If if if people were to suggest, therefore, that

Stephen Sondheim28:58

For if

Presenter29:02

Andrew Lloyd Webber and his long running shows on Broadway and and and in the West End here was more Oscar's rightful heir than you. Would you challenge that?

Stephen Sondheim29:14

You're using Lloyd Weber, but there are many, many, many shows that are in a kind of direct storytelling line that do not experiment. I like to do it, and I like to see it when I go as a member of the audience. It isn't just as a writer.

Presenter29:25

I'm just

Presenter29:26

But if we're talking about musical theatre, you know, w I I mention Lauder because he's the name that comes up. Of course he's got long running shows, they go on for years, both here and there.

Stephen Sondheim29:32

Got long running shows.

Stephen Sondheim29:34

Well

Stephen Sondheim29:35

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Sondheim29:37

You feel no envy. You feel no envy. It's a different animal. I've written traditional shows. Sweeney Todd is traditional. It's not traditional in subject matter, but it's traditional in storytelling matter, and the way it tells a story. So sometimes I write traditional, what you'd call the Oscar Hammerstein.

Presenter29:38

You feel no envy, you feel no?

Stephen Sondheim29:57

Tradition, and sometimes I don't.

Presenter30:01

Number seven. Another one of yours.

Stephen Sondheim30:03

Yeah. The other show I would take of my own

Stephen Sondheim30:06

to the island is Pacific Overtures and

Stephen Sondheim30:11

I think part of the reason is I just saw a production of it in Tokyo last month at the National Theatre there, which was stunningly exciting, and this is the opening number.

Speaker 130:22

The stirling of the tea, the painting of the st

Presenter30:53

The Advantages of Floating in the Middle of the Sea, sung by the company from the original Broadway cast recording of Stephen Sontheim's Pacific Overtures. You um have a reputation for being a bit of a pessimist, Stephen, so uh that's not going to stand you in good stead on this island, is it?

Stephen Sondheim31:09

Oh, my goodness

Presenter31:10

No, I don't I don't think I'm

Stephen Sondheim31:11

No, I don't think of myself as a pessimist. I tend to be slightly dooered, there's no question, but I don't think of myself as a pessimist.

Presenter31:20

So you're not gonna kind of sink and fall on the sand in a heap?

Stephen Sondheim31:24

No, I I'm I'm certainly I'll certainly feel helpless. I mean, you know, I'm I'm used to running water and uh

Presenter31:30

You're an urban animal.

Stephen Sondheim31:30

Urban animal hypothesis. Oh, absolutely. I was born in Manhattan, brought up in Manhattan and um though I have lived in the country and I love the country, my roots are urban absolutely. And that means all the conveniences of urban living.

Presenter31:40

Then

Presenter31:43

So you you wouldn't be any good with a sort of, you know, the penknife sharpening the stick and steering the rabbit.

Stephen Sondheim31:47

I'd be scared if somebody told me to do it and how to do it, then I'd be very good. I'm very good at following instructions. You know, if you say, or if somebody said collect the firewood and do this, no, and that in that case, no.

Presenter31:56

But ever do this.

Presenter31:59

In that case what?

Stephen Sondheim32:00

In that case, I'd no, I'm l I'm I'd be helpless.

Presenter32:03

Would you? Isn't there a steeliness inside there that would uh get you?

Stephen Sondheim32:03

Isn't that

Stephen Sondheim32:06

Well, about survival. I don't really know. To answer you very seriously, I have no idea what my survivor quotient is. I really don't know.

Presenter32:16

You might have to find out.

Stephen Sondheim32:18

Yeah.

Presenter32:18

Last piece of music.

Stephen Sondheim32:20

I I think one of the one of the one of the great pieces of the 20th century is the Symphony of Psalms.

Stephen Sondheim32:26

by Stravinsky. And not only the whole piece, but the Alleluia is a chord progression I'm so jealous of, I wish I'd thought of it. And I used to stand on street corners in my college days with

Stephen Sondheim32:40

A girl I knew and a married couple, when a guy went to college and his wife, and we would stand on street corners and sing just the little chord progression of Allelujon, which is in four-part harmony. It's the only time I've ever indulged in such silliness, but the whole piece is wonderful.

Speaker 133:03

It's so

Presenter33:59

The English Bach Festival Choir singing part of the last movement of Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

Presenter34:08

Okay, there's your eight records. If you could only take one of those eight, which one would you take?

Stephen Sondheim34:13

I guess it would be porgy.

Presenter34:16

What about your book? We give you the Bible and we give you the complete works of Shakespeare.

Stephen Sondheim34:20

Uh, I'm not much of a reader, but um a man I think I could live with in each for eternity is E. B. White.

Stephen Sondheim34:26

He has a way of dealing with the English language.

Stephen Sondheim34:31

that seems so simple and is always so moving.

Presenter34:36

And what about your luxury? Something non practical?

Stephen Sondheim34:39

It would have to be a piano because I get such pleasure out of playing the piano.

Stephen Sondheim34:43

In thinking about the luxury I thought, well, is there is there electricity on the island? Because then maybe a V C R and a lot of old movies would be terrific. But I think uh for uh f for eternity or for long stay it would have to be a piano.

Presenter34:57

Stephen Sontheim, thank you very much indeed for letting us see your desert island discs.

Stephen Sondheim35:00

Thank you.

Speaker 335:09

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co. uk slash radio four.