Deryk Barker:

>Well I have to enter a dissenting voice: I have never understood the
>attractions of Sondheim who seems to combine a distinct lack of memorable
>melodies with self-consciously "clever" lyrics.

I have to dissent from Deryk's dissent.  That makes me an antidissenting
dissenter.  I of course disagree with the characterization of Sondheim's
music as a "lack of memorable melodies." *I* can remember them, the same
way I can remember Strauss Lieder.  So our memories differ.  As far as
"clever" goes, I've noticed that Sondheim can be devastatingly simple,
as in the number "Children and Art" from Sundays in the Park with George,
"Anyone Can Whistle," or "Pretty Women" from Sweeney.  What I love about
Sondheim's work is that, unlike, say, ALW or even the early shows of
Gershwin, the songs are not interchangeable from one play to the next
and they always reveal character, which means he's a composer for drama.

Every show I've heard from Sondheim, even the ones that flopped (and
*that* I don't understand at all) I've felt has been so much better than
anything else out there (just as Spielberg seems to work at a higher
level than anybody else currently working, however good) that he seems
to be doing something other than the Broadway musical, although certainly
related to it -- like Weill, a prodigous creator of new lyric theater
forms.

Steve Schwartz