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How did Sodheims background influence his musicals
Sondheims background was important to how and why he wrote musicals. He had heavy influence from a young age, which started him in music, and aspects of his upbringing are often reflected in his work.
His background in music started at a young age because of his father’s influence, but more significantly Oscar Hammerstein was a next door neighbor and close family friend. ... Hammerstein had written well known musicals like Allegro and Carousel and when Sondheim was starting high school at George Town had begun work on Oklahoma. ...
Hammerstein reviewed it with Sondheim and over the next few years taught him everything he knew about writing musicals. ... Hammerstein was Sondheims biggest influence, teach and friend.
Sondheims somewhat turbulent upbringing is reflected in many of his shows. ...
What was so different about Sondheims musicals?
Over the course of Sondheims career he has experimented with all sorts of different kinds of musicals. ... It destroyed many preconceptions about form and content of American musicals. ... It was the start of Sondheim’s career and lead to his next musicals Gypsy and Anyone Can Whistle also known for their content and new ideas. ... The show didn’t have the happy, positive aspect like most musicals of the time, it was a real story which was not all that pleasant. ... Harold Hobson of the Sunday Times praised it, “There are no native composers in this city of the varied brilliance of Stephen Sondheim, who is responsible for both music and lyrics, lyrics that are sometimes sharp as an icicle, and that others set the mind achingly dreaming of unforgotten joys and irrational sorrows…It is extraordinary that a musical, the most trivial of theatrical forms, should be able to plunge as Company does with perfect congruity into the profound depths of human perplexity and misery.” It went on to win several Tony awards and is sometimes called the first of Sondheim’s ‘concept musicals’
But Follies was to become one of his more significant musicals. ... It shows what audiences believed about musicals and how musicals were supposed to be happy and not ‘unsettling’. Mostly before, but also during Sondheims era, musicals gave the audience a false sense of security and happiness. ... Sondheim’s musicals were ‘unsettling’ they said things that musicals weren’t supposed to say. Audiences did not go to musicals to be challenged, rather they went for escapism, because no matter how bad things were you could always rely on the musical to be the same. ... He was now, even more, steering away from traditional musicals known as ‘musical theatre’ and envisioned their work to serve as ‘blueprints’ for the future. ... Sweeny Todd, the Demon of Fleet Street was Sondheims ‘darkest statement of love in a contemporary society. ... For the next 2 years Sondheim didn’t attempt any more musicals and even considered giving up theater. ... It seemed that Sondheim’s musicals were always shocking and surprising but were still very successful. ...
Passione was Lapine and Sondheims last musical together. ... ’ It seemed that the best and more original aspects of Sondheim’s musicals were that the themes were so ‘un-musical’ this is what had set them apart and made so successful. ... ”
Sondheim’s musical career had spanned over 4 decades and every one of his musicals had been innovative, different and continually pushing the boundaries of what was known as popular theatre. ... The musicals were often controversial but this was what seemed to make them so successful. Sondheim had managed, with his experimentation’s to change they way musicals were performed.
Approximate Word count = 2941
Approximate Pages = 11.8
(250 words per page double spaced)
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