A Sound of Music with brains as well as heart
If you’re interested in how words work with music, the collected lyrics of Stephen Sondheim are an investment you’ll never regret. But Sondheim isn’t infallible, and when he writes about his mentor Oscar Hammerstein II he’s often plain wrong. Sondheim mocks one particular lyric from The Sound of Music: ‘Like a lark that is learning to pray.’ ‘Wait a minute – a lark praying?’ he snarks. But the character who sings those words is a devout young Austrian woman with a head full of Schubert and folksongs. Hammerstein is writing as Maria, not himself. It’s an art that Sondheim never quite mastered, which is why his characters – whether Swedish aristocrats or East End cannibals – all sound like New Yorkers in therapy.
