March 20, 2008
Sunday Theme and Variation
When James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim first discussed a collaboration on a musical, they wanted to do some sort of theme and variation. The show that resulted, Sunday in the Park with George, uses that concept both textually and musically.
But I doubt that most viewers get many of the connections, so I thought it would be fun to put together a video that highlights some, but by no means all, of the variations on a theme. In particular, I left out most of the love music, since I finished a separate video of that yesterday. (See previous blog post.)
Also, it's worth pointing out that I didn't find all these connections by myself. I relied on Mark Eden Horowitz's excellent Sondheim on Music and Stephen Banfield's somewhat more specialized Sondheim's Broadway Musicals for ideas, although I did come up with a few of my own.
Note that I saved the best for last. As Sondheim describes it in the Horowitz book, even Mandy Patinkin, who had been singing the two songs for a year and a half, didn't realize that X and Y were the same melody. I'll leave the discovery of those two songs as a, one hopes pleasant, exercise for the viewer.
One more word about Horowitz's Sondheim on Music; it's a fascinating and quite accessible interview with Sondheim. Although it's filled with musical examples, one doesn't need to be a music expert to enjoy it. For example, Sondheim's description (too long to quote here) about Seurat's work habits and the true nature of the Grande Jatte painting should be must reading.
Posted by jt at March 20, 2008 04:08 PM