This piece is beyond extraordinary and making me weep again. You have captured so much of every reason why I have loved him so much since I first started listening to him in the early 70’s or really even earlier because of West Side Story. This ‘thing’ you have written is everything. I raised my daughters to his music. I raised myself to his music. Your work is sublime.
thank you, this means so much to me to read. especially as someone who was raised on Sondheim by parents who love his music-- you did such an amazing thing for your daughters.
1970: I was, or so I thought, a very cool junior in a theater school and a sort of housemother to about a dozen wonderfully talented freshmen and sophomores. One night they all burst into my dorm room yelling, "You've got to hear this!" and reverently becoming totally, instantly silent as the record of "Company" began to play. I don't think we even breathed until it was over.
We all knew something on the order of a miracle had occurred. We couldn't have been in more awe if the sky had suddenly shown two moons. My God. Writing this, I still feel exactly that way.
I'm a new subscriber, here via a friend because of this article. As an actor and singer, I've lived in his work and actually met the man himself, and have a framed letter from him deeply honored to be considered in his outer circle. Your writing is gorgeous and deeply true. Your POV on Sondheim is dead-on and reminds me that he taught me to be okay not fitting in anywhere, because frankly, no one does. They just make up places to fit and pretend those place don't fade. Thank you for this piece especially. ❤️
Reading this piece about Sondheim was incredible. I haven't honestly deeply thought about Sondheim since aged 13 when I performed in a 2014 showcase of Sweeney Todd, but reading this helped crystallise some thought's I've had about your writing. This is poorly written and just a collection of thoughts, but it's 4AM and I can't sleep without finishing this and then posting it.
Ever since you put out the "Very special one year anniversary " discussion thread and asked people what they thought about your writing, the newsletter and it's format; I've been thinking about my response and what started as simply writing a short comment snowballed into essentially writing an essay of my own that caused a lot of self reflection (hence why I didn't post it in the thread, I'm still writing it almost a month later when I have the time and emotional capacity); but this piece has helped me cement some of the ideas that were floating within my piece about your writing.
"It was as though the song were a targeted missile written exactly for her, so precisely relevant to her particular situation as to feel like a cruel prank." That is exactly how I felt when first reading your work, as if a targeted missile had been launched towards my fragile heart.
I now know you hate the word genius from this piece about Sondheim, but in my essay-in-progress, I did use the word genius to describe your work because it feels like exactly that. I don't want to compare your achievements to Steven Sondheim and make you squirm in embarrassment by praising you too much; but I do want to say thank you for your work. Just as Sondheim revolutionized musical theatre in the Post-War era, you have revolutionised the way I think about writing and conveying emotion within the pieces that I write.
Much like how you have learned a lot about your craft through Sondheim; I have been inspired by your writing, found myself referencing your work to others, unconsciously lifting lines from your essays and using them in my daily life. They have in many ways helped me to start understanding myself.
You wrote that "The impossibly round and perfect harmonies at the end of the first act (of Sunday) do actually, somehow, manage to render the effect of light, not the idea of it, but light as in golden hour, as in the light at the end of the afternoon in the nineteenth century in Paris, in a small suburban pack, on an island in the river, on a Sunday, in music.", and your own writing brings New York, a city I've never been to, to life in a similar way. That is the power of your writing.
I felt nauseous in a good way just reading about the time you first really heard "Being Alive", and it spurred within me the hope to meet someone who will make me feel that sense of worthwhile and wanted obligation.
Just like you with Sondheim, I have never read anything of yours that didn't move me (sometimes to tears), teach me something about the world, or fill me with a renewed sense of humanity. Griefbacon often hits me like a weekly tidal wave aimed at a single house in a small town; but in many ways a restorative one.
As a history graduate, your lines about Someone in a Tree were breath-taking. The statement that "these small, fragmented stories are where history lives." is so true and is at the heart of much of social history, that tries to stop focussing on grand treaties and deal in the everyday.
To sum up my rambled thoughts, your essays have in many ways carried me through the tough moments of the last half a year, and they are becoming a way to know myself. I do not know you, but your writing seemingly knows me. I am just someone in a tree.
I obviously can't possibly say anything sufficient in response to this, but I just want to thank you so much. I can't tell you how much it means to me to read this. thank you.
This was beautiful to read. While aware of him and his, I guess, best known stuff (by which I mean whatever happened to break into my personal pop cultural bubble) I really don’t know his work, or any musical theater really, but I want to dig into it now and am excited to explore, especially after this essay.
Not a day goes by that I do not sing Children and Art, Move On, With So Little To Be Sure Of, or Too Many Mornings, or all of them. The whole only time Mr. Sondheim ever disappointed me was yesterday.
hell yes. a thing I’ve been thinking so much about in the days since is how embedded in my brain Sondheim’s words and his worldview are: his lyrics became a shared language among my theater-kid friends and in all sincerity a way of understanding the world. (How often have we said to each other at appropriately sad or funny times, “I wish…” “I know.”) this is a beautiful essay, thank you for it
This piece is beyond extraordinary and making me weep again. You have captured so much of every reason why I have loved him so much since I first started listening to him in the early 70’s or really even earlier because of West Side Story. This ‘thing’ you have written is everything. I raised my daughters to his music. I raised myself to his music. Your work is sublime.
thank you, this means so much to me to read. especially as someone who was raised on Sondheim by parents who love his music-- you did such an amazing thing for your daughters.
Your piece is EVERYTHING! You are an amazing writer and thinker and I am glad I found you.
1970: I was, or so I thought, a very cool junior in a theater school and a sort of housemother to about a dozen wonderfully talented freshmen and sophomores. One night they all burst into my dorm room yelling, "You've got to hear this!" and reverently becoming totally, instantly silent as the record of "Company" began to play. I don't think we even breathed until it was over.
We all knew something on the order of a miracle had occurred. We couldn't have been in more awe if the sky had suddenly shown two moons. My God. Writing this, I still feel exactly that way.
I'm a new subscriber, here via a friend because of this article. As an actor and singer, I've lived in his work and actually met the man himself, and have a framed letter from him deeply honored to be considered in his outer circle. Your writing is gorgeous and deeply true. Your POV on Sondheim is dead-on and reminds me that he taught me to be okay not fitting in anywhere, because frankly, no one does. They just make up places to fit and pretend those place don't fade. Thank you for this piece especially. ❤️
This is just stellar. Thank you for writing. Really and truly.
Reading this piece about Sondheim was incredible. I haven't honestly deeply thought about Sondheim since aged 13 when I performed in a 2014 showcase of Sweeney Todd, but reading this helped crystallise some thought's I've had about your writing. This is poorly written and just a collection of thoughts, but it's 4AM and I can't sleep without finishing this and then posting it.
Ever since you put out the "Very special one year anniversary " discussion thread and asked people what they thought about your writing, the newsletter and it's format; I've been thinking about my response and what started as simply writing a short comment snowballed into essentially writing an essay of my own that caused a lot of self reflection (hence why I didn't post it in the thread, I'm still writing it almost a month later when I have the time and emotional capacity); but this piece has helped me cement some of the ideas that were floating within my piece about your writing.
"It was as though the song were a targeted missile written exactly for her, so precisely relevant to her particular situation as to feel like a cruel prank." That is exactly how I felt when first reading your work, as if a targeted missile had been launched towards my fragile heart.
I now know you hate the word genius from this piece about Sondheim, but in my essay-in-progress, I did use the word genius to describe your work because it feels like exactly that. I don't want to compare your achievements to Steven Sondheim and make you squirm in embarrassment by praising you too much; but I do want to say thank you for your work. Just as Sondheim revolutionized musical theatre in the Post-War era, you have revolutionised the way I think about writing and conveying emotion within the pieces that I write.
Much like how you have learned a lot about your craft through Sondheim; I have been inspired by your writing, found myself referencing your work to others, unconsciously lifting lines from your essays and using them in my daily life. They have in many ways helped me to start understanding myself.
You wrote that "The impossibly round and perfect harmonies at the end of the first act (of Sunday) do actually, somehow, manage to render the effect of light, not the idea of it, but light as in golden hour, as in the light at the end of the afternoon in the nineteenth century in Paris, in a small suburban pack, on an island in the river, on a Sunday, in music.", and your own writing brings New York, a city I've never been to, to life in a similar way. That is the power of your writing.
I felt nauseous in a good way just reading about the time you first really heard "Being Alive", and it spurred within me the hope to meet someone who will make me feel that sense of worthwhile and wanted obligation.
Just like you with Sondheim, I have never read anything of yours that didn't move me (sometimes to tears), teach me something about the world, or fill me with a renewed sense of humanity. Griefbacon often hits me like a weekly tidal wave aimed at a single house in a small town; but in many ways a restorative one.
As a history graduate, your lines about Someone in a Tree were breath-taking. The statement that "these small, fragmented stories are where history lives." is so true and is at the heart of much of social history, that tries to stop focussing on grand treaties and deal in the everyday.
To sum up my rambled thoughts, your essays have in many ways carried me through the tough moments of the last half a year, and they are becoming a way to know myself. I do not know you, but your writing seemingly knows me. I am just someone in a tree.
I obviously can't possibly say anything sufficient in response to this, but I just want to thank you so much. I can't tell you how much it means to me to read this. thank you.
You're most welcome, it means a lot to hear that it touched you.
This was beautiful to read. While aware of him and his, I guess, best known stuff (by which I mean whatever happened to break into my personal pop cultural bubble) I really don’t know his work, or any musical theater really, but I want to dig into it now and am excited to explore, especially after this essay.
Thank you.
Not a day goes by that I do not sing Children and Art, Move On, With So Little To Be Sure Of, or Too Many Mornings, or all of them. The whole only time Mr. Sondheim ever disappointed me was yesterday.
hell yes. a thing I’ve been thinking so much about in the days since is how embedded in my brain Sondheim’s words and his worldview are: his lyrics became a shared language among my theater-kid friends and in all sincerity a way of understanding the world. (How often have we said to each other at appropriately sad or funny times, “I wish…” “I know.”) this is a beautiful essay, thank you for it
Absolutely loved and was wrecked by this piece! Thank you