A Tribute to Stephen Sondheim by Keith Lockhart
A light has gone out of the world. Stephen Sondheim has passed, and I can’t describe the emptiness that I’m feeling in response. I suppose I was always hoping, hoping against hope as he grew inevitably older, that he had one more great work of art left in him to share with the world. The fact that our minds and hearts now won’t be challenged by another Sondheim work is a difficult one to come to grips with.
Stephen was a giant of the American Musical Theater, but he was so much more than that. No one has ever fused music, lyrics, and theater to shine such a bright light on the human condition. I learned so much from his work…starting in 1985, when I conducted a forty-performance run of Sweeney Todd as a young musician in Pittsburgh, and extending to 2017, when the Pops premiered an orchestral version of the autobiographical Sondheim on Sondheim, which Stephen honored with his presence when we performed it in Tanglewood that August. I stand in awe of his contributions to the artform, his virtuosity, and his subtle understanding of humanity. I love every one of his works…the great successes because of their perfection, and even his less-than-successful theatrical ventures because of what they dared to aspire to.
Much of Sondheim’s music found its way onto the Pops’ stage over the years, and our performances of his music, notably the 2017 performances of Sondheim on Sondheim and our semi-staged A Little Night Music several years earlier, remain some of my favorite musical memories. Boston has always had a special relationship with Sondheim: many of his shows received their out-of-town tryouts here, and his most famous song, “Send in the Clowns,” was written in a hotel suite in Boston, during out-of-town tryouts for A Little Night Music.
One of the true joys of my career is that I get to meet, and know, amazing people. Incredibly talented musicians, dancers, actors, comedians. Incredibly intelligent and inspiring leaders. Sports legends. Everyone intersects with the Pops. However, the hour and a half that I spent with Sondheim in his Manhattan living room years ago, talking about our plans for a never-realized Sondheim 70th birthday celebration, ranks as the most memorable personal connection of my career. The word “genius” is certainly overused, but I am convinced that Stephen Sondheim was the only true genius I have ever met. Meeting him seems to me to have been what it would have been to meet Beethoven, or Da Vinci. I feel blessed by that memory, and by a professional connection that has endured most of my career. And I miss him, already.
“Anything you do, let it come from you…then it will be new. Give us more to see.” The end of Dot’s advice to George in “Move On,” from the 1984 Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Sunday in the Park with George. Thanks, Stephen, for giving us so much more to see.
Keith Lockhart
