And then there are the other kinds of operas, like “Carmen,” which is just twenty of the best tunes you’ve ever heard in your life, but they’re twenty different tunes, you know? With a little fate theme that pops up every five minutes. And, of course, “Wozzeck” and “Lulu” are great examples of that presented on the stage. Why is this one symphony? We’re talking about different movements, so it isn’t like he’s using the same tune, and yet there’s a coherence. What it amounts to is, music exists in time, so how do you make it cohere? And that’s just as true with a three-minute song as it is with an hour-and-a-half opera, you know? I remember, we analyzed Mozart’s Thirty-ninth to see how he held it together. I learned all of these compositional principles from Babbitt. Very few people writing do this kind of thing. “Sweeney Todd” is a very good example of that: the utilization of themes over and over again, but developed, not repeating. I like to make the collection of songs have some kind of unity-not just in tone but in musical and lyrical ideas-because I think it makes for a tighter, more absorbing evening. So I routine them, and then I try to do it chronologically, because often you want to write something, then pick up the musical theme, or even the lyrical theme, and use it later on. It seems to be important to keep the pace going, because I think an audience senses when songs are merely reiterating what you already know, or when they’re ahead of you. We say, “Where are songs helpful? Where are they possible but unnecessary?” I try to write songs that are necessary. I routine things-I think most writers do-with a book writer. I remember you saying on our car ride that you knew where the songs had to go. Our conversations, which have been edited and condensed, touched on his philosophy of art, the relationship between book writer and lyricist, and the subtle compositional flourishes in his songs that “nobody has ever noticed.” But he also spoke of another collaboration with Ives-an idea he’d been quietly nursing for decades. When we met, Sondheim wasn’t yet ready to talk about individual songs from the Buñuel musical. Around his singular presence, the household cohered without him, it would disintegrate. Sondheim played the lead: humorous, sardonic, and appealing, beloved but not lovable, in the Shavian way. He held court in his living room as staff and friends came and went-some to put a word in his ear, others to groom his dogs or serve rosé, still others just passing through. (I wasn’t good enough, anyway.)” Nevertheless, we continued to correspond-and to meet for other pieces-until his death.Īt the beginning of our pas de deux, five years ago, Sondheim would receive me in his East Forties town house. I’d forgotten how much I hate being in the spotlight, which is one reason I became a writer instead of, as I was urged to be at age fifteen, a concert pianist. And to use another phrase I’ve never used because I feel too old to do so, it’s bummed me out. What’s more, he wrote to me, “I’ve been, to use a phrase I’ve never used except in mockery, the cynosure of all eyes. He expressed worry that the presence of an outside observer would affect the creative process. The composer began our journey with zeal, but soon, like a Sondheim character, he became archly ambivalent. The idea was that I would publish a Profile of him timed to the première of a new musical that he was writing with David Ives based on Luis Buñuel’s films “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” and “The Exterminating Angel.” Toward the end of his life, Stephen Sondheim-who died on November 26, 2021, of cardiovascular disease, at the age of ninety-one-sat for a number of interviews with me.
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