I know he has mentioned Harold Arlen as a favorite a few times in interviews.
You'd do well to read some of the very insightful books written about Sondheim's work if you are truly interested what he thinks about certain subjects.
It is an education to read anything he says regarding craft/art/theatre.
I read that he considered Boy George's score for "Taboo" to have been very underrated.
"A coherent existance after so many years of muddle" - Desiree' Armfelt, A Little Night Music
"Life keeps happening everyday, Say Yes" - 70, Girls, 70
"Life is what you do while you're waiting to die" - Zorba
I dout he said anything negative about Jason Robert Brown - he is very careful not to crticize other living composers.
He claims to admire all the greats of Broadway's formative years: Arlen, Porter, Berlin, Rodgers, Gershwin. His classical influences are mainly late 19th century and early 20th century: (Ravel, Stravinsky) I can hear echoes of Faure and Debussy in SUNDAY. And Sondheim credits Bernard Hermann as his inspiration for SWEENEY.
Cast albums are NOT "soundtracks." Live theatre does not use a "soundtrack." If it did, it wouldn't be live theatre!
I host a weekly one-hour radio program featuring cast album selections as well as songs by cabaret, jazz and theatre artists. The program, FRONT ROW CENTRE is heard Sundays 9 to 10 am and also Saturdays from 8 to 9 am (eastern times) on www.proudfm.com
Yes, he even recorded the "phone message" for the original New York production of TICK... TICK... BOOM!
Cast albums are NOT "soundtracks." Live theatre does not use a "soundtrack." If it did, it wouldn't be live theatre!
I host a weekly one-hour radio program featuring cast album selections as well as songs by cabaret, jazz and theatre artists. The program, FRONT ROW CENTRE is heard Sundays 9 to 10 am and also Saturdays from 8 to 9 am (eastern times) on www.proudfm.com
"He claims to admire all the greats of Broadway's formative years: Arlen, Porter, Berlin, Rodgers, Gershwin. His classical influences are mainly late 19th century and early 20th century: (Ravel, Stravinsky) I can hear echoes of Faure and Debussy in SUNDAY. And Sondheim credits Bernard Hermann as his inspiration for SWEENEY."
Not to nitpick, but it's Herrmann. And you left out Kern - he even wrote the liner notes for a Columbia Kern album. And he had a mutual admiration society with David Raksin. I also know he was a big fan of composer Robert Ward, who wrote the opera of The Crucible and who is one of the great unsung American classical composers.
Sondheim's theory on standing ovations is quite interesting. He says they are the audience congratulating themselves on taking the time and money to make it ot the show.
Where did you get that from Dramarama? He was sat behind me at Parade at the Donmar in London in December 2007. He really seemed to be enjoying himself too.
bk: I was interested in your mentioning composer Robert Ward who I believe was a professor at the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music. Ward wrote a commisioned piece for NYC's St. Cecilia Chorus in 1964 and I was a member of that chorus at the time. It was based on John Kennedy's inaugural address "Let The Word Go Forth".
In an interview with Frank Rich, Stephen Sondheim mentioned that among his favorite shows were Jerome Kern's SHOWBOAT and George Gershwin's PORGY & BESS.
Several years ago, in an interview with the New York Times magazine, Sondheim listed "50 Songs I Wish I'd Written." If anyone can find the link, that might give us an idea of the answer to this question.
When I see the phrase "the ____ estate", I imagine a vast mansion in the country full of monocled men and high-collared women receiving letters about productions across the country and doing spit-takes at whatever they contain.
-Kad
He himself cited Britten as a major influence on Sunday in the Park With George. He's not that big a fan of Debussy, but he loves Ravel. The Ravel piano concerto for the left hand was the subject of his college thesis, and he once gave Oscar Hammerstein a recording of the piano trio for his birthday. He hears more Ravel than Debussy in his own music.
Apart from the Broadway composers whose work he loves (and his favorites are probably Gershwin, Arlen, and Kern, in that order), he has mentioned (in addition to Ravel) Brahms, Stravinsky, and particularly Rachmaninoff, who may be his second favorite composer.
He has twice been on the BBC radio show Desert Island Discs. The second time, in 2000, he named the Brahms second piano concerto as his favorite piece of classical music.
In the talk with Rich at Oberlin, he said of Adding Machine, "[W]hether one likes it or not, that's serious stuff. It was an attempt to use the complexities of music in different ways, and lyrics and the stage, too. And I think anybody who would think for two seconds of putting that on in a commercial theater should have his head examined."
I heard that he not only stood at the show, he was also heard cheering so I'd guess he did like that. If that's true.
I know that somewhere his choices from the first time he was on were published, but I can't remember where. I know that on that list he included a recording of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra (and Sondheim's record collection was so old at the time that the recording he cited was Fritz Reiner's first recording, with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, long out of print at the time since it was supplanted by Reiner's later Chicago recording) and a recording of Ravel's Valses Nobles et Sentimentales (I think the orchestral version rather than the piano version).
Co-incidentally, this morning I played Bartok's CONCERTO FOR ORCHESTRA with Fritz Reiner conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, recorded in 1956 in Chicago's Orchestra Hall and digitally remastered in 1993. Reiner and the Chicago Symphony were dynamite together. If you don't know Bartok, this is the recording you should get. It is available on Amazon.com for about $6.00. Read the reviews it gets!