Original and fresh, Stephen Sondheim remains one of the most fascinating of  Broadway composers.  His solo Broadway work is not as well known to the public as his early collaborations, such as "West Side Story".   The first cause is probably the death of the movie musical, from which the public would become familiar with  musicals.  Perhaps, a more important a reason is the complexity of his songs, which are like no-one else's.  He doesn't write in the classic musical stage "grand" style of Andrew Lloyd Webber. 

Instead Stephen takes on unusual subjects, such as the cannibalistic murderer of Sweeney Todd,  for his plays, and manages to write for it the most tender of long songs, "Nothing's Going to Harm You".  However, everyone has heard "Send in the Clowns" from A Little Night Music and that is the song I usually mention when I talk about his work to the uninitiated.

Sondheim began his learning of his craft from a family friend, Oscar Hammerstein, with the great man's first critique of his writing.  He says of that day:

So I daresay I knew more about song-writing at the end of that afternoon than most people know in a lifetime, because I got the distillation of his experience.  I was just at the right age and I soaked it all up.  He than outlined a course for me which in fact I followed quite precisely for the next four years.

He earned a degree in music from Williams College which he followed up with a music fellowship.  At the age of 25 he was enlisted by Arthur Laurrents to write the lyrics for West Side Story and the rest is Broadway history.

My first album purchase ever was the West Side Story' movie soundtrack, but  I was then unaware of Stephen Sondheim as the lyricist.   During college, I heard some pieces from Company and after buying the album, fell in love with his song writing.   My feelings about his work were cemented with Follies.  Since then I have gotten several different albums and am always discovering a new gem in his work.  I was thrilled when he added an Oscar in   for writing "Sooner or Later " for 1990's Dick Tracy to his many Tony awards and pleased that he was made a Kennedy Center Arts Honoree.

I have two favorite albums, which have wonderful performances of a variety of his music.  They are "Sondheim Evening", a musical tribute of 1973, and "Side by Side by Sondheim", which was a three person stage performance with only piano accompaniment.  The oddest thing for me is that as much I love Sondheim's music, I have never seen a play of his in person, though  I have viewed some play filmings on TV.  The joy for me is the unusual qualities and complexity of his songs and the pleasure I have in sharing them with new fans. 

Perhaps his most personal song is "Anyone Can Whistle" in which he laments that he can do anything, "I can slay a dragon, I can read Greek", but cannot perform that most simple of human skills - to whistle.  Then asks, "Maybe, if you whistle, whistle for me."  Many of his songs are clever and witty, but in his sweet, reflective songs like this, you begin to understand a bit of Stephen's magic.

NOTE: I recently completed an excellant biography of Sondheim called "Stephen Sondheim - A Life" by Meryle Secrest.  He is quoted as saying, "It's an open secret that the music for Sweeney is in homage to Hermann's language."  It certainly clarified for me why I chose the two of them as my favorite composers.