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CBC
a day ago
- Entertainment
- CBC
A music librarian brought Stephen Sondheim to tears — and got him to bequeath his life's work
Mark Horowitz is quite proud that he made Stephen Sondheim cry. He's even more proud that, in doing so, he convinced the late musical theatre legend to bequeath his vast archive of manuscripts, sheet music, recordings, notebooks and more to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., for generations of Americans to peruse. "He's the entire reason I got into this profession, so this was a dream come true, really," Horowitz, a senior music specialist at the Library, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. "To be able to affect him in that way was thrilling and gratifying." The Library announced this week that it has acquired more than 5,000 items from Sondheim's collection, which will be available to the public on July 1. The American composer and lyricist, widely hailed as one of the most influential figures in musical theatre history, died in 2021, and left his collection to the Library in his will. Playing the long game Horowitz started working on the acquisition in 1993, when he invited Sondheim to the Library to view a collection of musical ephemera he had personally curated to impress him. Horowitz — author of Sondheim on Music: Minor Details and Major Decisions and editor for The Sondheim Review — was well-versed on Sondheim's interests and inspirations. The personalized tour included original manuscripts from composers Béla Bartók, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Igor Stravinsky and Johannes Brahms. But it was American composer George Gershwin's manuscript for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess that moved Sondheim to tears, Horowitz said. "That was the thing that truly was the most emotionally moving to him," Horowitz said. "Watching him cry was thrilling. If you make somebody cry, you've won the game." After that meeting, Horowitz says, Sondheim changed his will to leave his papers to the Library. The pair remained in touch over the years, and Horowitz conducted a series of interviews with the legendary composer at his home in New York in 1997. Marginalia and unknown compositions In a press release, the Library's music division chief Susan Vita called the collection "a treasured addition" that will "honour and preserve Sondheim's legacy." It ranges from drafts of songs that never made it to first rehearsal, as well as a spiral music book titled Notes and Ideas that document some of his musical efforts while a student at Williams College. There are even compositions Horowitz never knew about — and he was pretty he'd known them all. Scrawled in the margins on the lyrics to A Little Priest from the 1979 musical Sweeney Todd Horowitz counted 158 examples of different types of people who could be baked into meat pies, the grisly fate of the murderous protagonist's victims. The vast majority never made it to the final cut "He was very good at killing his darlings," Horowitz said. "He never fell in love, I think, with something to the degree where he wasn't willing to excise it, if it would make the song better for any reason." Horowitz says it's a miracle the collection ever made its way to the Library. In 1995, a fire broke out in the office where Sondheim kept his papers. "I'd seen some of the manuscripts before the fire, and when I went back afterwards, if you lifted the manuscripts out of these cardboard boxes that they were sitting in, there were singe marks outlining where the manuscripts sat," Horowitz said. Beyond a small amount of smoke damage around edges, the papers survived largely unscathed. "You had paper in cardboard on wooden shelves, inches from a fire. And it's truly the closest thing I've ever seen to a miracle in my life that they did not go up in flames," Horowitz said. "It makes me believe in a higher power." 'Life-changing' musicals Sondheim's work, Horowitz says, made him believe in a lot of things, including the transformative power of musicals. "It wasn't just entertainment; it was life-changing and life-affecting in a way that I don't think I'd experienced in other musicals," he said. He thinks often of the lyrics from Move On from 1984's Sunday In The Park With George: "I chose, and my world was shaken / So what? / The choice may have been mistaken / The choosing was not / You have to move on." "I've known people who quit jobs, taken jobs, gotten married, gotten divorced after listening to that. It gave them the courage to make life choices," Horowitz said. "It's extraordinary." Horowitz says the Sondheim collection will inevitably draw academics studying the composer's legacy, and musicians looking to perform his pieces. "But I think my secret desire is that there will be young composers who come and want to learn from the master how to go about writing a song," he said.
National Post
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- National Post
Library of Congress acquires Stephen Sondheim's papers and manuscripts
When Stephen Sondheim visited the Library of Congress in 1993, he saw something that stopped him in his tracks. Mark Horowitz, a senior music specialist at the library, had prepared a selection of historical scores from its collection – including works by Brahms and Rachmaninoff – to show the acclaimed composer and lyricist. Article content 'The last thing I showed him was Gershwin's manuscript for 'Porgy and Bess,'' Horowitz said. 'That's when he started to cry.' Article content Article content Article content The Library of Congress announced Wednesday that it has acquired the papers of the late composer, who died in 2021. Manuscripts and documents charting the creation of some of the most iconic and beloved musicals of the past 50-plus years – including 'Company,' 'Into the Woods' and 'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street' – will now sit alongside 'Porgy and Bess' in the library's permanent collection. Article content Article content Sondheim's music and lyrics will be available for public viewing July 1, while the remaining letters, notes and more will be accessible later this summer. The treasure trove of notebooks, sheet music and letters illuminates the craft behind the eight-time Tony winner's relentless reinvention of the musical. Article content 'When it comes to theater makers in America in the last century, he's the Shakespeare,' said Matthew Gardiner, the artistic director of Arlington's Signature Theatre, which is known for its productions of Sondheim's musicals. 'It's so special to have these documents and lyrics and poems to see his process. [It's] a celebration of a life's work that changed an art form.' Article content Article content Article content The library's acquisition of Sondheim's materials was decades in the making. Shortly after joining its music department, Horowitz arranged the show-and-tell with Sondheim, partially to persuade the composer to donate his manuscripts and letters to the institution. Article content 'After that meeting, he said he was going to change his will,' Horowitz said. 'He sent me a letter with a blowup of the language he put in his will about his papers coming to the library. I felt like, yes, I could breathe a sigh of relief now that [was] done.' Article content Three months ago, boxes containing nearly 5,000 items began arriving at the library's Madison Building. The treasures included the program for 'By George,' a musical Sondheim wrote in high school, and documents from the creation of more celebrated musicals, such as 40 pages of potential rhymes for the song 'A Little Priest' from 'Sweeney Todd.' Even for a Sondheim fan like Horowitz, sorting through these notes and pages of sheet music was overwhelming. The papers, he said, illustrate the painstaking energy that went into a Sondheim composition.
Washington Post
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Stephen Sondheim's papers go to Library of Congress, offering a look into a Broadway genius
NEW YORK — Manuscripts, music and lyric drafts, recordings, notebooks and scrapbooks from Stephen Sondheim have been donated to the Library of Congress, offering the public a chance to see firsthand the creativity of one of musical theater's giants. The collection includes about 5,000 items, ranging from drafts of songs that were cut from shows or never made it to first rehearsal, as well as a spiral music book titled 'Notes and Ideas' that document some of his musical efforts while a student at Williams College. He died in 2021.
Washington Post
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Library of Congress acquires Stephen Sondheim's papers and manuscripts
When Stephen Sondheim visited the Library of Congress in 1993, he saw something that stopped him in his tracks. Mark Horowitz, a senior music specialist at the library, had prepared a selection of historical scores from its collection — including works by Brahms and Rachmaninoff — to show the acclaimed composer and lyricist.
New York Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
5,000 Sondheim Sketches and More Head to Library of Congress
The Library of Congress has acquired Stephen Sondheim's vast collection of manuscripts, drafts and ephemera, the library announced on Wednesday. The material could be a valuable resource for academics and artists alike. Sondheim, who died at 91 in 2021, left the library more than 5,000 items from his long career as a musical theater composer and lyricist, including sketches, scrapbooks and more from shows like 'Sweeney Todd,' 'Sunday in the Park With George' and even 'Here We Are,' the musical he was writing at the time of his death. 'There's no question he was brilliant, a genius,' said Mark Horowitz, a senior music specialist in the library's music division. 'But here, you're really seeing the perspiration behind it all. The amount he put behind each song is staggering.' In 1993, Sondheim visited the Library of Congress and saw the manuscript of George and Ira Gershwin's 'Porgy and Bess.' He was moved to tears and, Horowitz said, made the decision to leave the library his own archive, and later persuaded his collaborators Arthur Laurents and Harold Prince to do the same. (Sondheim previously donated a collection of manuscripts to the Wisconsin Historical Society in the 1960s; copies of those are available in Washington.) Unlike memorabilia sold last year in a blockbuster Sondheim auction at Doyle, the items at the Library of Congress are limited to those with research value. But they are treasures nevertheless: a one-page inner monologue written as subtext for the song 'Send in the Clowns'; opening-night telegrams from the likes of Prince and Leonard Bernstein; and a notebook of ideas going back to his early days as a student at Williams College. Horowitz was struck, he said, by how much more lyric and musical sketches there are over time. There are three boxes worth of drafts for 'Company' (1970), for example, but nine for 'Sunday in the Park With George' (1984). 'I've never seen a composer who has so many music sketches, trying out different melodic lines, different harmonies, rhythms, chord progressions,' Horowitz said. 'Even with classical collections, I've never seen this.' The song 'A Little Priest,' from 'Sweeney,' has 40 pages of lyric sketches. In that comic Act I finale, Todd and Mrs. Lovett trade punny hypotheticals of what type of people could be baked into meat pies, a little more than 30 in all. Those were just a sampling of a much longer list. 'He does lists in the margins: rhymes, synonyms, emotions of things,' Horowitz said of Sondheim. Sketches like that will be helpful for researchers looking to add to the existing wealth of academic work on Sondheim's life and career, but Horowitz has other hopes for the collection's future, too. 'One of my fantasies is that young songwriters will come for inspiration for how to write a song,' he said. 'You can really see how one approaches songwriting at this kind of level.'
