On the Works of Stephen Sondheim- The Sweeney Todd Suite

I watched the original production on youtube, and I was so overwhelmed by the story and the music itself that I couldn't avoid making note of it here.

Go check it out and lets' discuss it.

" Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a 1979 Tony Award–winning musical thriller with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by Hugh Wheeler. The musical is based on 1973 play Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street by Christopher Bond.

Sweeney Todd opened on Broadway at the Uris Theatre on March 1, 1979 and ran for 557 performances. It was directed by Harold Prince with musical staging by Larry Fuller. It starred Len Cariou as Sweeney Todd and Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett. The musical tells the story of Benjamin Barker, alias Sweeney Todd, who returns to London from Australia after spending fifteen years in prison on false charges. When he learns from his former landlady Mrs. Lovett that his wife poisoned herself after being raped by the Judge who wrongly imprisoned him, he vows revenge. " - Wikipedia

I love Sondheim's work with themes, especially in this score. Its getting too late to chat, so I'll be back.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE MUSIC?

Well, Sweeney Todd is the masterpiece of musical theatre. Stephen Sondheim is the master and this is his masterpiece.

Still, why do you have to even put the plot spoilers there. Those of us who know it know what happens, and those who don't will either watch it or not join in the discussion. It's also worth it to mention that the story of Sweeney Todd (as told by Bond) has sunk more into the public's consciousness due to Tim Burton's film adaptation.

I took out the spoiler for you, Doctor Pangloss!

Thanks for the post.

All of Sondheim is brilliant.

I cannot recommend enough to anyone interested in setting word to music, that they seriously study the music and lyrics of Stephen Sondheim.

I have had the immense pleasure of conducting two of Sondheim's masterpieces (the Canadian premiere of Into the Woods, and a wonderful semi-professional production of the "chamber" version of Sweeney Todd a few years ago) and can tell you that studying these two scores alone is a mind-blowing experience.

Examine how Sondhiem sets a text to music, and you quickly come to the conclusion that there is no other music that could possibly go on the lyrics. he has the genius of finding the music that is completely effortless for the words. You say the words and the music comes to you exactly as Sondheim wrote it.

Sondheim is God.

Thats all I have to say.

I am kind of sad that my obsession with Sweeney Todd is waning because my obsession with Sweeney Todd and I had great times together. I will maintain that it's the best musical ever. My absolute favorite part is right near the end, where Ms. Lovett sings "No, no, not lied at all, no I never lied..."

I lubs me some Sondheim. He has directly affected how I perceive and conceptualize melody.

1) Sondheim is a god... Definitely a great composer.

2) I find him a bit cheesy, sort of the same way I see Danny Elfman.

2) I find him a bit cheesy, sort of the same way I see Danny Elfman.

ugh, saying the name of Sondheim in the same breath as Elfman?

I don't understand what exactly you mean by "cheesy".

Care to elaborate?

My favorite part would have to be the music that plays when Lucy returns to the barber shop.

Beadle-deedle-deedle-deedle...

Hysteria in music amazes me.

From the beginning, I considered Sweeney Todd to be more of an opera than a musical. There is very little spoken dialogue, and the quality of the music is so exceptional that it transcends the musical theatre genre.

Just about all of Sondheim is marvelous, but I agree - Sweeney is his masterpiece, and the greatest piece of musical theatre ever written...if not one of the finest operas of the 20th Century in the English language.

Which is why (though it's cinematically breathtaking) the recent film version left me flat. They might just as well have tried to film a production of Turandot starring Jet Lee and Lucy Liu doing their own singing. I mean, really.

Ungh. Let's not talk about the movie. It has no place in discussion of Sweeney, musical or otherwise, except discussions of how it failed.

That said, Sondheim is my idol. He's fantastic, and Sweeney Todd is MASTERFUL. The Ballad gives me chills every time. I would love to hear it with full orchestra, though--I've only got the recoding of the "chamber" version. But that's fantastic enough... does anyone who know did the orchestration for the smaller group?

I just saw the movie yesterday, and was pretty much amazed by it. According to my friends, however, the music is much better in the actual musical. I did see some similarities between Sondheim's music and that of Danny Elfman, but that could have just been the Tim Burton aspect of it. Needless to say, Sondheim kicks Elfman's butt.

I'm really excited, for my high school is putting on this production this spring. I'll be playing string bass in the orchestra and cannot wait to hear the music as it was originally made.

I love Sweeney Todd, and Sondheim. The music is both harmonically rich and emotionally cognitive... I do have a problem with all of this Elfman dissing though, (a little respect where respect is due would be nice)

I just saw the movie yesterday, and was pretty much amazed by it. According to my friends, however, the music is much better in the actual musical. I did see some similarities between Sondheim's music and that of Danny Elfman, but that could have just been the Tim Burton aspect of it. Needless to say, Sondheim kicks Elfman's butt.

I'm really excited, for my high school is putting on this production this spring. I'll be playing string bass in the orchestra and cannot wait to hear the music as it was originally made.

no similarities at all between Sondheim's brilliance and Elfman's music.

I'm quite sure it was the Burton side you recognized.

And yes, the original is FAR better than the dreadful film. So far, there have been no convincing film productions of any of Sondheim's musicals.

Singers aside, the film version of Sweeney has some nice atmosphere to it, but gets the tone all wrong. All the snide and sarcastic humour is completely lost, replaced with Burton's ill-conceived attempt at making Sweeney Todd into a "real horror film".

The actors do commendable jobs at imitating 2nd rate singers, but then, none of them ARE singers, so it's perfectly understandable. Sadly, to cut the 3-hour long musical to a more "normal" film length, so much great music had to be excised.

The really sad thing in all of this is that they make full-length film versions of Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals, barely making a dent in the musical elephantiasis he suffers from, and keeping almost every note of "borrowed" music intact.

Meanwhile, they just can't get a decent grasp on Sondheim's pieces, and butcher them all to hell in weak efforts to make them into "films".

The only thing the movie has going for it, in my opinion, is that they could do a huge, big-budget full orchestra. The reduced instrumentation of the latest revival worked really well, but a full orchestra's just awesome any way you slice it.

Actually, it's become a real problem. Someone will introduce me to people with, "These are my friends," and I respond, "see how the glisten," and everyone looks at me like I'm insane.

my better half and I had a summer job together in a little shop a few years ago, and a customer walked in... prompting him to burst out "a CUS-tomer!"

yes, we worked in a meat shop.

And needless to say, whenever we sold packages of Shepherd's Pie, we were sorely tempted to add "peppered with actual shepherd on top".

"Tinker?"

" No, no... something pinker."

"Butler?"

"Something... subtler."

"Tailor?"

"Something paler."

"Potter?"

"Something hotter."

"Locksmith?"

-awkward pause-

:P

"That's not fiddle player, that's piccolo player! "

"How can you tell?"

"It's piping hot!"

LOL

i love sweeney todd. i love. sweeney todd. so. much. asdf.

Well, Sweeney Todd is the masterpiece of musical theatre. Stephen Sondheim is the master and this is his masterpiece.

can someone vouch for this for me? because i've suffered a lot of cognitive dissonance for a long time about how much Sweeney Todd "speaks" to me and resonates with me and how much every other broadway musical completely doesn't. (i mean i enjoy broadway but it's like entertainment, you know? every other one EXCEPT this one. so - would you say that it's because Sweeney Todd is "just that awesome" and not because i'm missing something in other musicals?

Ungh. Let's not talk about the movie. It has no place in discussion of Sweeney, musical or otherwise, except discussions of how it failed.

i really agree with what everyone has so far said about the movie with regards to: downplaying, removing and/or missing the point of the music, (missing the point of a lot of things), actors who sing okay-ish, etc...

at the same time I do feel like there do exist cool things that you can do with it that you can only do in a movie, if you do it right (and not just stuff like a rehashed corpse bride visual style)

like: the part (in the movie) where mrs. lovett says softly over mr. t's shoulder something like "we could have a life us two. maybe not like I dreamed, maybe not like you remember. but we could get by." and then he turns around and they look at each other

it has nothing at all to do with the music, of course, but the way she whispers it, the way they look at each other, and the way they're able to give a moment of such quiet desperation and sadness -as actors- couldn't have worked in a stage version, i think

still yeah movie completely missed most of the point :mellow:

That reminds me that Mrs. Lovett never really brought that up in the original. At least not in that sweet, sincere way. The closest she got was saying before "By the Sea" that they could move away into retirement... but nothing...nothing can compare to the moment "n-blanket" has brought up.

If I think back to my musical influences, especially in college, Sondheim probably had a bigger influence on my harmonic language than I realize. "A Little Night Music" especially resonates with me. It's still hard for me NOT to write a waltz as a variation to thematic material.

Steve Winkler

I was writing my "Nocturne" for flute and piano and I subconsciously used this small quip that I really liked. Then I realized it was a small quip of "There's No Place like London."

Tell me about leakage in composition...

For six months after I watched the movie, all of my pieces were as dark and they sounded like "Poor Thing".

If nothing else, my compositions since then have been much more dependent on the use of the motif.

I've written an opera since then using Sondheim's technics just for fun.

Since this thread has been revived, I thought I'd mention that I miss one part in particular from the play that would have made the movie much better:

"Kiss Me" and "Ladies in their Sensitivities"

The only problem I can find in doing that would have been very difficult for the new Johanna to sing her part.

I also think that the new Beadle Bamford should have sang songs at the Harmonium!

" Sweet Polly Plunkett lay in the grass, eyes turned heavenward sighing, ' I love a lad who alas loves a lass who alas loves the lad of another lass wot once I passed in Canterbury. ' "

From the beginning, I considered Sweeney Todd to be more of an opera than a musical. There is very little spoken dialogue, and the quality of the music is so exceptional that it transcends the musical theatre genre.

I'm not quite concerned with what it's called. I'd appreciate a little less music theater that all sounds the same these days anyway. It's the age of the popsicle(pop-musical) and as much as I appreciate what it's doing for music theater, I miss the old stuff.

I know people don't like to compare the musical and the movie, because they just don't compare, even though they portray the same thing, I saw the movie first, and loved it for what it was, because I didn't know better. This latest age of movie musicals is amazing in my opinion, because it's getting this current generation of clubs and music videos and ipods (which I'm a part of) to go to the theater. Hairspray, Sweeney Todd, Dreamgirls, Chicago...all musicals from decades ago that people under 30 are RUNNING TO GO SEE because they saw a movie version and their parents tell them they saw it on stage before they were born.

The thing I missed most in retrospect having watched the movie first THEN watched a stage production was the effect of the chorus. I don't see how they got away with cutting the chorus from "God that's good" completely. Those words, without the chorus, aren't spoken even once in the song. Also, I missed city on fire and the ballad.

For those who may know the music but have never seen a stage version and don't have the funds or there is no sweeney playing near them, I greatly recommend looking on you tube for "Sweeney Todd in Concert". There is a video production of a concert version starring George Hearn (the longest running Sweeney, though not the original) and Patti Lupone, who if you aren't familiar is one of the best and oldest divas of broadway and she's still going strong today. The production, though concert version (meaning full orchestra amazingness) also has a full chorus, almost all of the music (some things have been cut to fit on a DVD and it still runs near 3 hours) and is still very much acted out in costumes and minimal props. It's an absolutely amazing production that ran for several performances in San Francisco, I believe.

I think the greatest thing about Sondheim is he makes you THINK!