Why Sondheim's Music is So Addictive

I came here because I heard Cornell West and John McWhorter share a love for Sondheim's work. I'm not well versed. Haven't seen any of his plays and only knew "Send in the clowns."

I really hope you managed to make the “Stephen Sondheim; Old Friends” show on the West End.

Watched it the other night and it has all the elements you described here, performed by the best in the business and those who knew the man well. It was a 39 song rollercoaster of emotion and a truly fitting tribute. RIP Mr. Sondheim. Thank you for your gifts to the world.

I sang Happy Birthday (8Oth) to Mr. Sondheim as part of the audience he was giving a talk to. The most emotional happy birthday I had ever sung collectively to anyone! Never met him personally but know him somehow????

What a wonderful video. I was obsessed by musicals in my teens, but never really got Sondheim until many years later. I think when I was younger I wanted everything just perfect and happy and unreal, but the older me appreciates the complexity much more.

Into the Woods spoke to me in 1993, in college as a vocal music major, on my own for first time.
It speaks to me today, 30 years later, with my parents recently passed, now truly on my own.
But no one is alone. 🥺❤️
I wasn't expecting this video to make me cry in the middle of my workday, but here we are.
I feel like I always knew Sondheim; i grew up with my mother listening to Barbara Streisand's Broadway album, and West Side Story. I saw a Papermill Playhouse production of Sweeney Todd in high school, & worked up, "Worst Pies in London," as one of my college audition pieces.
But it wasn't until seeing that PBS production of Into the Woods that I truly fell in love. And I've loved him ever since. Definitely my favorite composer, of all time, ever.
Thank you for this video. And even for the crying. 😂

Beautiful video

What a beautifully made video ! I'm a television director in Canada and that video really touched me with its content but also by the tone you sued to voice it. Cheers from Montreal and bravo.

Sweeney Todd was my introduction to Sondheim and I fell in love. Since then...I wish I could compose half as well as him. ZT'L sweet Stephen

Send in the Clowns was written for a non-singer, Glynis Johns.

I had the incredible good fortune to have seen the original tours of Follies, Company, A Little Night Music and Pacific Overtures in Los Angeles in the 1970's. FYI - I read somewhere that Sondheim wrote crossword puzzles for the New York Times newspaper. And the 6 minute gathering in TImes Square to sing Sunday is the finest memorial service I can imagine.

What a beautiful video. Thank you. 🥹♥️

His long-time orchestrator, the great Jonathan Tunick needs acknowledgement, too

I LOVE COMPANY SO MUCH ITS SO UNDERRATED

This was beautiful and heartfelt - thank you

Thank you for this beautiful homage to Sondheim.

The're are better composers. His music says a lot without saying anything at all.

Sondheim is a beautiful genius. What a wonderful video, thank you... :)

I genuinely found this fascinating. You introduced me to something new that I didn't know I liked. Thanks

He was a fine composer apart from his songwriting. His songwriting degraded the more he got fixated on singing actors, not singers. His music is fine, but hardly addictive. His predecessor lyricists were every bit as clever and often more clever than he. His style came directly out of his emotional limitations as a person.

I love this video too. Thanks Ed we love all of Sondheim. His music affects Graham my partner and me deeply, even done in Broadway Backwards where gender roles are changed. Must access MUBI , Pete Hutley, Newcastle Australia.

What a perfect love letter to an artist.😀

🥱

Brilliant lyricist. With a couple of exceptions, poor tunesmith.

I wholeheartedly agree. He was a wonderful and witty lyricist. His songs are also specifically written for each show and therefore not interchangeable.

What school did you go to that took on such challenging work with teenagers? How on earth did you even tackle it?

After finishing my first musical (Cinderella) I can even more appreciate the textures and layers to his writing. His songs are a challenge. Not a phrase wasted or needlessly added to fill time. His musicals are not to be consumed at leisure but instead requires both actors and audiences to actively listen and be honest. As mentioned, he wrote of life, the good with the bad, so no his are not pure fantasy but he never forgot to include the hope that’s so rooted in our being and for an audience you knew that sometimes that hope wouldn’t be enough, just as in life.
He didn’t write escapism. He wrote of the complexity of humanity.

His music is delicious. Thank you for this reminder.

The first Sondheim show I witnessed was Sunday in the Park with George with Jake and Annaleigh. The next, the re-first preview of the revival of Company, and was so very fortunate Mr. Sondheim was in the room... it was a few short weeks before his passing. Since then, saw Into the Woods thrice -- the NY City Center, and then twice on Broadway -- what a production! Then the magnificent Sweeney Todd with Josh and Annaleigh. And now heading to NY for Merrily We Roll Along. So thrilled Sondheim shows are getting all the revivals right now. Hope to see a version of Follies or a Little Night Music in the coming years.

I love your film & your understanding of Stephen Sondheim's music & his career. Yours is one of the best assessments of his work I have seen. Your choices of clips are uniformly excellent & it is beautifully edited. I found your choices of Sondheim's songs to illustrate your explanations to be thrilling. I gasped when I heard the first strains of "Too Many Mornings." I think it is exquisitely beautiful, but often overlooked for the bigger, showier & admittedly also wonderful "Follies" songs. But, in addition to its beauty, the essence of "Follies" is in that song. Mere seconds later, you included "No More," the Sondheim song that is closest & dearest to my heart. Then, seconds later, "Finishing The Hat" was included & I said aloud to my walls, "this guy knows what he is doing." Bravo! You should be very proud of the film.

I am much older than you & my introduction to Sondheim's greatness came in 1972, when I lived in Washington, DC. "Company" closed on Broadway & began its national tour in DC, with the Broadway cast. I was aware of its award-winning run, so I went to see it. The opening notes you mention in the film pinned me against my seat & I was transfixed. I kept thinking that it was like he had read my mind & used my thoughts. But, in his hands, they were better expressed -- & they rhymed! That was the beginning of a lifetime love of his work & I have traveled great distances to see various productions (e.g., many West End productions, including the Judi Dench "A Little Night Music). I saw the original Broadway production six times, including opening & closing nights.

I am 73, but the love still burns brightly. In two weeks, I will see "Here We Are." On another You Tube page, I wrote a comment saying that I have felt very privileged that my life & Sondheim's career coincided, allowing me to observe his career up close & in real time. He is a genius whose works will last forever. I feel also very lucky to have happened upon your film. It has given me great pleasure & I will watch it again & again. Thank you for making it.

Writing as someone without a background in music, listening to this analysis and commentary was like spending fifteen minutes listening to a poetic docent. Thank you for sharing!

what an amazing video ❤

What a lovely appreciation of Stephen Sondheim, the genius of the man and his music. Thank you.

We have lost the greatest genius of musical theater. RIP, Stephen Sondheim.. not me crying at 8 in the morning. :'] beautiful work.

Thank you....I loved this musical coming out party of yours....good for you. I love Sondheim and his work....I've been fully present in theatres early on, now I am older and sometimes I remember why I love, and have loved, so much even as a single older Gay man....Sondheims multi-level creations bring back/out my best memories of fantasy and real....I recently became 80 years old...my thump-pause-thumping heart keeps glad time...especially after Listening In....thanks again

Beautiful ❤

I definitely didn't appreciate Sondheim till I was in my '20s. As a child/teen, I was more obsessed with ALW's music. but you get to the point where you realize the lyrics from his musicals can be awkward and trite, but not so with Sondheim - challenging but fun.

You lay out Sondheim's incredible genius with such clarity and insight. I have been completely mesmerized with the power of his work and what it tells us about ourselves starting in high school when I discovered him and then eventually playing as a professional violinist in his musicals.

He wasn't afraid of being complicated if it sounds good

BRAVO

Felt so lucky to be introduced to Sondheim's genius through Sunday in the Park, by a Music History teacher, who had understood that Sondheim was already a monument of music. I then met numerous fans who introduced me to his previous masterworks, and from then on, I was eagerly waiting for the next show.
Thank you so much for this homage.

Thank you for wonderfully articulating what so many of us feel. I only discovered Sondheim a year or so ago, after performing in a musical revue with his songs, and the expressiveness of his music blew my mind.

This made me weep.

Beautiful, sensitive, complex and thoughtful piece. Thank you!

It is not. ALWebber's music is addicting, Sondheim feels like a chore, minus West Side Story and Sweeney Todd.

Oh my god I love this video. As someone who has fallen deeply in love with Sondheim, who has been moved and changed by his work, it's so lovely to find many of my own feelings about him spoken from someone else's mouth. Beautiful video.

fell in love with sondheim through sunday :'-)

Thank you for creating this love letter to Sondheim, it's really lovely. Like most people watching this through, I loved him and his work, and also feel a deep connection to it. Singing even his saddest work makes me happy. Thanks again.

That was a ggreat 16 minutes Spent! Thank you for making it!!