Why is Stephen Sondheim so Difficult to Play?
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- čas přidán 24. 08. 2024
- Here are just a few theories of mine as to why Sondheim is so difficult, now that I'm practising towards accompanying several of his pieces for 2024.
#sondheim #stephensondheim #accompanist #musical #musicals #musicaltheatre #intothewoods #follies #company #musician #pianist
Sondheim did not do his own orchestrations (he didn't know how to orchestrate), but he always wrote in just about everything he wanted the orchestra to play in his piano vocal scores.
EGOT Tunick
Sondheim’s orchestrators never wrote new notes. Sondheim was very serious about writing his piano accompaniments so the orchestrator was really just using all his notes and lines and putting them in the different instrument sections. So he technically did all of his arranging but not the actual orchestration.
This just isn't true - there are plenty of instances where Jonathan Tunick (his primary orchestrator except for Michael Starobin who orchestrated Sunday In The Park With George and Assassins) used his own creativity. For example, the French horn line in the final chorus of 'A Weekend in the Country' from A Little Night Music. I can give you more examples if you want! Sondheim thanked Jonathan Tunick first in almost all his Tony award acceptance speeches. I understand the sentiment of your comment, and I think Sondheim is one of the musical geniuses of the 20th/21st centuries undoubtedly, but your comment significantly overlooks the phenomenal contribution of his orchestrators, Jonathan Tunick and Michael Starobin.
@@JohnHaslamMusic in "Being Alive," in one of the later verses, Tunick added the melody of "Someone is Waiting" to the underscoring. Sondheim was elated, and ran down the aisle to thank Tunick at the end of the song when he first heard it in rehearsal.
Tunick and Starobin are geniuses. Still, the extent to which Sondheim creates the arrangements for his scores in the initial piano accompaniments is very unusual, perhaps even unique.
And being handed one of his songs to sight-read at an audition has indeed always filled me with dread, even though my knowledge of his music is near-encyclopedic, and I've played quite a lot of it professionally.
Tunick also added the trumpets imitating "Bobby, Bobby, Bobby Baby Bobby Bubby" in parts of company.
@@daziegerit was earlier in his career that Sondheim was more open to his orchestrators adding new material and ornaments (for instance all those big MGM style sing endings in Follies were devised by Tunick). Sweeney Todd marks a transition where Sondheim started to use leitmotif and multiple staves more often. When Starobin orchestrated a few songs for Sunday in the Park with George as something of an audition, Sondheim rejected his initial work for adding too many extra parts that weren't in his piano accompaniment.
Very interesting. On a point of information, Sondheim never orchestrated his own music. Broadway composers rarely did. He provided a voice-and-piano draft in short score. Orchestration was/is seen as a separate professional skill, and Sondheim worked regularly with two orchestrators - Jonathan Tunick and Michael Starobin. I believe the full vocal scores are based on the orchestral arrangements, making them harder to play. The published "vocal selections" are usually simpler accompaniments. (Stephen Banfield's book 'Sondheim's Broadway Musicals' has a section on the orchestration process.)
I expected he probably didn’t, but I was certainly that the orchestrations came before what we now recognise as the piano and vocal scores - just due to their complexity and voicing. Thanks for the info!
Also, his rhythms (syncopations, meter changes, etc.) can be quite tricky.
Forbidden Broadway parodies Sondheim brilliantly in the song, “Unworthy of Your Words.”
His rhythms are definitely a contender for the course. I remember accompanying the titular ‘Sunday in the Park with George’ - that was, of all of them, the one I nearly held my hands up and refused to do! However I pulled through, though I dare say a massively simplified accompaniment on my part!
And now imagine playing Richard Strauss, things like "Der Rosenkavalier" or "Die Frau ohne Schatten". Or just good old-fashioned Brahms with his parallel sixths... or Rachmaninov.
Oh absolutely - I think what sets Sondheim apart though is the complexity of his music within the genre (musical theatre). Other musical theatre composers of note such as those mentioned (Andrew Lloyd Webber / Frank Wildhorn etc.) are much more straightforward in the music they write (not to its discredit) - so an accompanist in an audition room can have quite the shock when a Sondheim score they haven’t seen before is suddenly presented to them compared to others. Luckily when it comes to classical and modern classical music it’s seldom expected of us to just read it on a whim - we can practice and prepare!
@@jackmitchellsmith4925 As you say it yurself: not at auditions. Some years ago, I used to receive singers (and, on one occasion, also pianists) at auditions at an opera house in Germany. There, pianists have to play everything the singers choose. One of those auditions was an open call and about 500 singers contacted the theatre. It lasted one week from morning till evening and they had to put on additional dates some months later because they could not accomodate them all during that week. It was all pretty much sight reading, even though, of course, most of the audition pieces were standard repertoire - but some was not, and it was quite a lot. Well, two of the sopranos brought Lulu's song (Berg...) and at another audition (for Paul in "Die tote Stadt"), a tenor brought one of the two arias of the emperor from "Die Frau ohne Schatten", which he had chosen because he was singing it at that moment in another opera house. Right now, I am on a summer break between two rehearsal periods of an opera production at a different opera house (still in Germany). Well, on two occasions, the pianists had to play pieces on a day's notice, for a parallel production and for a concert.
But you're right: within the musical theatre, Sondheim is one of the more complex composers. I remember sight-reading some pieces of Lloyd Webber's at home of a class mate... easy peasy. I also had to play the piano in the orchestra at a high school musical production (it was „Oliver!“). I don't consider myself a good pianist, but still, there was nothing complicated for me... and my mother had to substitute me at one performance on a few day's notice because I had a performance elsewhere (as an amateur singer in the extra chorus of a big opera production at our local opera house)... that went very well.
The early editions of the vocal scores were based on the orchestrations but lately they have been reissued in new versions based on the original piano parts
Actually, it was standard practice for published American musical theatre scores to be "piano-conductor" scores. (These are reductions from the orchestration, but with small notes cued, etc,) This permitted conductors to conduct shows from published scores without obtaining the full orchestral scores. Sondheim's published work from the '60s and '70s followed that tradition. However, in the late 1980s, Sondheim decided that what he wanted published were HIS scores, not reflective of the orchestrators' work. An example of this are the currently published scores of A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC and PACIFIC OVERTURES. If those are examined. vs. the originally published p/cs, you get a perfect understanding of what Sondheim gave his orchestrators. In some cases, it is both marvelous to see what the composer did, but then what the orchestrators contributed. I would check out the currently published composer's score for NIGHT music and "A Weekend In The Country". The composer's work is much easier to play than the p/c version, but it is clear how the former is the parent to the latter.
Very interesting - I’ll give them a look!
@@jackmitchellsmith4925 Sondheim, being Sondheim, is the only Broadway composer, who insisted on this "it must reflect the composer's work" approach to publication.. If anyone else is reading these comments, I would love to know if Kander, Schwartz, Flaherty, Lopez, et al, have published scores reflecting what they gave to the arrangers/orchestrators?
@WestVillageCrank I have a feeling that Schwartz also was very detailed, though I don't know if there's a published version of what he gave orchestrators. When I got the chance to work with him back in February, he knew exactly what notes were in what parts without having to look at the score which leads me to think he did most of the Orchestration.
@@jarodhart9672 Schwartz is a fine, well-trained musician, but I don't know of shows he orchestrated. (Which show did you do in February?) But I suspect that he gives the arrangers/orchestrators very full piano sketches so he would be familiar with the orchestration that arose from his work. He may even indicate possible orchestrations in this piano scores. With the notable exception of Kurt Weill, even superb composers, trained in orchestration, rarely did their own Broadway orchestration. This list would include Bernstein (who orchestrated the overture to CANDIDE, but the remainder of the score was done by Hershy Kay; WSS, where Bernstein oversaw the work of Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal) and Marc Bliztstein (who orchestrated THE CRADLE WILL ROCK, but not JUNO); the reason is the time element. A composer who choses to orchestrate is asking for trouble if a show goes out of town and demands changes; as they almost always do. Who would have the time and energy to not only compose new material, but also routine and then orchestrate?
@WestVillageCrank I did Children of Eden. I looked it up, and Schwartz credits two orchestrators for that show, but did all of his own orchestrations for Godspell. I would think that he leaves very detailed notes if he doesn't have specific points in mind.
As for the composer/orchestrator points you bring up, I do agree that it is mostly a matter of time. However, in WSS I tend to think of Kostal and Ramin as copyists because Bernstein basically told them exactly which line to put on which instrument during their very extensie meetings, the one exception being Something's Coming or whatever the title of that song is. Blitzstein was very much capable and did all of his own orchestrations for literally every stage work except Juno, so I think using that to purvey the rule is perhaps ill-advised. As for contemporaries, I can name 3 composers that choose to do their own orchestrations and think it shows a changing in the business because now the creative teams want to take careful to make sure a show is correct before presenting it since the business is so expensive. The first is Dave Malloy. He orchestrated each of his own shows including the famous Great Comet, which presented some difficulty. Next is Jason Robert Brown, who actually just finished orchestrating his next show. Only in a revival of Parade, with a slightly smaller pit, has he hired an orchestrator. Lastly, myself. Each note I put on the page is there for a reason, and no one will create a sound like I will create it. Of course, I am not yet on the same level as the others, but to me orchestration is the same art as composition.
Very good!
More theatre piano comping videos.
Thank you - will do!
Johnathan Tunick orchestrated all of his shows
Inaccurate
Before you did this video you should have done your research. If you did, you would know that Jonathan Tunick did the orchestrations of most of Sondheim’s shows and based his orchestrations on Sondheim’s piano score. Sondheim did not base his piano score on Tunick’s orchestrations. Shame on you for not doing your research.
Who did what was not the point of the video, ‘nor did I make the claim. The point is that many of his piano scores / piano arrangements of his work are closer to a condensed orchestration, which leads to a much more complex playing / reading experience for the pianist.
Chilll. Stop shaming.