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Hi

@theosondheim / theosondheim.tumblr.com

changing to green to pink to gold, and that changes everythingabout me
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Is there really not a audio of Beanie singing Don’t Rain on my Parade??? Really that’s just despicable

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aeschylus-stan-account

From the introduction to “The Collected Musical-Plays of Essendim” published Sept. 3039

Six works of Essendim survive, more than any other single composer of American musical-plays. They are The Barber-Devil Suindoda, Joroga in the Pleasure-Garden upon the Sun’s Day, The Companions, The Foolish Acts, The Ones that Venture into the Forest, and We, The Gaily-Proceeding. (The Foolish Acts’ title is an untranslatable pun: the word in ancient English referred not only to ill-conceived deeds but also to a kind of extravagant live entertainment that features prominently in the piece itself.)

The titles of other musical-plays survive, but the works themselves are irrecoverably lost. Two of these lost works, The Evening’s Small Song and The Peaceable Prelude, were regarded as masterpieces.

Essendim wrote virtuosically, but always with a keen regard for character. He was famed for his skill at rhyming, and indeed his verses are meticulously arranged. But he also garnered a reputation early in his career for writing harsh music. While none of the notated music survives, contemporary sources characterize his melodies as lively and covering large intervals—without many pauses for the singer to recover breath. This meant that a performer of Essendim’s pieces needed great vocal skill and exactitude.

To introduce Essendim’s particular style, I have translated an excerpt from The Companions below. Any attempt fully to render the many rhymes and intricate structure in our language will inevitably fall short. However, I hope to give at least a flavor of Essendim’s urbanity and probing intelligence.

It sounds! The ‘phone*– And, yes, so does the door’s bell– The companions flood in;
Held not by firm ties But by conviviality, And the companions make the chamber ring.
O, sleepless nights, brief meals And entertainments, heartfelt murmurs, lengthy ambles, conversations upon the telephone—
Minds join, Spirits mingle, Secret names are said, And we gaze upon a gallery of photographs** Filled with love And the days too are filled with love Seventy times they are filled, To Bohabi***, lovingly From these gentle madmen Who are my friends– My friends who are wedded.

*short for “telephone”, a rudimentary communication device popular when Essendim was writing **something like flat, still, two-dimensional holograms; the most modern and widespread type of image in his day ***the central character of The Companions and the speaker of this excerpt

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lordsondheim

I could understand a person if a person was a fag denaturalizes heterosexuality and alienates the audience by forcing them to confront the violence which is always implicit in how straight culture defines itself!!! go off miss sondheim

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The day has come... dreaded this day for so long... but there’s only one place I want to be (here). Thank you all for nurturing and encouraging my love for Sondheim, especially from 2014-2017, when I used this blog the most. I appreciate that Sondheim connected me to you all, and that I’ve gotten the chance to meet so many wonderful people because of him. Gratitude is immense. And he has given us so much. I will think of him often, as I have done for the last 7 years.

Hugs everyone. Love to each and every one of my friends here.

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My heart is completely broken over the loss of Stephen Sondheim. So much of his music has played such an important part in my life. His songs are songs that I sing in hard times and songs that I sing in moments of celebration. I am so sad to hear that he is no longer here to create a long side the musical world.

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“I was in rehearsal for Equus, and I read it [Sweeney Todd], and I go, “Holy shit. They’ve lost their minds.” I re-read it and thought that if Steve writes a romantic score, it might work. They’re going to go into rehearsal at the end of November, so I had no work for like six or seven months. I got an offer to do a film and shoot it in Alberta and that would mean me missing the first week of rehearsal. I went to Hal … and asked, “Do you think Steve would give me music so that I’m not behind the eight ball when I get there, and I can work on it while I’m in Canada?” Steve agreed. So I go to Steve’s home, and I’d been there before but only at parties. I’d never been in the composing room. There we are in the composing room and he’s nervous. I’m the one who’s supposed to be nervous. He was just nervous, fidgety. He said, “Excuse me,” and he leaves the room. He comes back with a joint, and he lights it, takes a couple of tokes, offers some to me. Then he says “You know the Catholic Mass for the Dead?” I said, “Steve, I’m a Catholic, French Irish, (singing ‘Dies Irae’).” He says, “Listen to this.” [hums]. “I don’t get it.” He says, “That’s “Dies Irae” backwards.” I said, “Oh, you’re a sick fuck; aren’t you?” He laughed. So he plays that for me and “Barber and His Wife.” I was in tears. It took me about two weeks to not cry when I sang that. It still does that to me. And then he hands me what I thought was a New York phone book. It’s “A Little Priest,” and I’m on the floor. That was some afternoon.”

— Len Cariou in Eddie Shapiro, A Wonderful Guy: Conversations with the Great Men of Musical Theater (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021)

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