Loving You: The Untold Sondheim Episode 2 Transcript

[00:00:00] Martin Milnes: In the mid 1950s, when Steve was writing Saturday Night, his first professional show, he met the roommate of his two close friends, a young composer who soon after wrote for dance arrangements for Gypsy. Later, this composer met a lyricist named Fred Ebb. And together they conquered Broadway with their musicals, Cabaret and Chicago.
Steve loved nothing more than celebrating other people's talent, and Steve's admiration for this composer was boundless. So now Peter Jones and I are proud to present Fred Ebb's perfectly marvelous collaborator, Mr. John Kander.
[00:00:54] John Kander: When Fred died in 2004, Steve had me over for dinner, which was not a usual thing, it was just the two of us, and he was very supportive and compassionate. And then as I left, say goodbye and we embraced, he said, 'You know, I write lyrics too'. And even saying it and remembering it, it moves me to think of his sensitivity and kindness at that moment.
[00:01:23] Peter E Jones: He never once called you John to me. Never. You were always Johnny. Always Johnny. He was very fond of you.
[00:01:34] John Kander: I think we that about each other without having long conversations about it. What is it that brings people into that kind of relationship? I don't know whether it's trust, if it's common interest.
[00:01:48] Peter E Jones: Uh, you were the whole package because he felt very comfortable with you as a person and as a composer. He could respect your talent and respect you as a person. That's my take on it, knowing him the way I did. 
[00:02:01] Martin Milnes: Welcome to Loving You: The Untold Sondheim. A podcast made by Steve's friends. With Steve's friends hosted by me, Martin Milnes. 
[00:02:13] Peter E Jones: And me, Peter E. Jones.
[00:02:26] Martin Milnes: 1962 Broadway welcomes two new musicals, A Family Affair by John Kander and his roommates James and William Goldman. And A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. In those days, virtually all new musicals had their previews out of town in New Haven, which is where John met up with Steve.
[00:02:51] John Kander: I was there when Steve was doing Forum in New Heaven and I went to see it and it was just terrific and I loved the score. The show originally opened with a song called Love Is In The Air. We were having lunch the next day and I was going on on about that song and he said that there was pressure on him from Robbins to write a new opening, and I went, 'Steve, don't let them do that to you! You stick with that song. It's a wonderful song.' And of course he didn't. And he proceeded then to write perhaps the greatest opening of any musical comedy story been written called Comedy Tonight. My advice, of course, was thankfully discarded. But I do remember the confidence with which I implied that if you cut that song, you'll destroy the show.
I played that score a lot. Because I admired it so much, uh, more so than his friends on, you know, all of whom were happy to tell me what a terrific lyricist Steve was. But they didn't admire his music all that much, which really shocked me because the score of Forum is unbelievably sophisticated 
[00:04:03] Martin Milnes: And equally, John, Steve loved your work.
Because your song Home from 70 Girls, 70 is on Steve's list of Songs I Wish I'd Written. 
[00:04:11] John Kander: Yes it is. It's a good song. I was delighted that he felt that way. 
[Song] I've got an another leak, oh! But he's in Puerto Rico! 
Johm Kander: I think I know why he would like it.
The craft of the song is two musical ideas and two, uh, lyrical ideas playing in counterpoint to each other. And lyrically it's very sophisticated in that way. I liked that. He liked it. 
[00:04:42] Peter E Jones: Oh, he loved it. That was one of the songs he played that night, by the way. Martin Milnes: The study night! Yes! 
Peter E. Jones: When we were, uh, pulling out old acetates and reel to reels.
He was just so excited to play for me the special songs he loved, and that was one 
[00:04:58] Martin Milnes: PJ, let's chat about this night. You just mentioned in Steve's study. You and Steve were listening to recordings of his favorite songs written by other composers, all of which featured on Steve's list called Songs I Wish I'd Written. But what exactly is this list? And why did Steve publish it? 
[00:05:16] Peter E Jones: For Steve's 70th birthday in 2000, the list Songs I Wish I'd Written, parentheses, At Least In Part, was published in New York Times Magazine. The main thing in the magazine was an article written by Frank Rich. And Frank was for many years, the Chief Drama Critic at the New York Times.
So along with the article, there came an addendum, which was this list of songs, Steve Light. And the title of the list was Songs I Wish I'd Written, At Least In Part. 
[00:05:46] Martin Milnes: And it's a really fun list because as well as what I call the usual suspects like Gershwin, Cole Porter, and one of Steve's favorite composers, Harold Arlen, there are many pieces by more obscure writers from shows which closed in previews out of town and didn't even get to Broadway. But this evening in the study happened several years before the list was published, yes? 
[00:06:07] Peter E Jones: Within the first three months or so that we met in 1991 this evening in the study, seemed like it went on all night. It didn't. When that kind of thing is going on and you're getting excited and you're really into it and you're pulling one thing out after another and playing this and demonstrating that, the time just flies. And that's what was happening, especially when the wine glasses keep being refilled.
Young PJ: Now what tape should I put on next?
Steve: That one. Ah, the show is called Kelly by the heavyweight boxer. 
Young PJ: I don't know it. 
Steve: Oh, you'll love it. There's a big Carousel bench scene type number that's seven minutes long. Oh, that screeching is the composer. Moose Charlap.
Young PJ: The guy that wrote Peter Pan songs with Carolyn Lee. 
Steve: Yeah. Oh, that's, that's just bliss.
Young PJ: I, uh, think we need to clean your tape heads. 
Steve: Oh. If you say so. 
Young PJ: All right. Back to the records. Donnybrook, New Girl In Town. Make a Wish. Make A Wish? 
Steve: Oh, I love this one.
Young PJ: Hugh Martin. Trolley Song Hugh Martin! I don't know this one either. 
Steve: I love this one. 
Peter E Jones: There's a Hugh Martin song on the list called I Want to Be Good and Bad from a show called Make A Wish. Steve said, 'Oh, I love Make A Wish! I had to buy another copy. I wore out the LP!' Pour some more wine. Find something else to put on.
Young PJ: Hardhearted. Hardhearted Hannah?. 
Steve: Now, careful, that's a 78. Do you know ---
Young PJ: Do I know how to play a 78? 
Steve: Sorry, I asked. Yeah. Oh, listen to this. Listen to her. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that just wonderful? 
Peter E Jones: Oh, one thing leads to another. It just kept going. And uh, I have to say, I think that was part of. How we started to fall in love with each other was that evening. 
Young PJ: Ah!
Steve: Isn't that swell? 
Young PJ: Hmm.
[00:08:29] Martin Milnes: Did you already know any of these songs that Steve liked? 
[00:08:32] Peter E Jones: Yes. Often his response was, how do you know that? How can you possibly know that? That sort of thing. And some of them I was introduced to by Steve. I said something like, I love, how does the wine taste that's from We Take the Town. How do you know that?
Well, you've got it here, Silverware. There were many examples like that where I would know one of the songs or a song from the same score as the one he wanted me to hear, and it would be a back and forth type of thing like that. I know of course with time things become, uh, rather golden, but it was a, a real evening of the meaning of minds and hearts, shall we say? A young person being a blank slate was always important to Steve because he was such a teacher. But in this case, uh, the blank slate had a little residue on it already from, from its own experience.
[00:09:31] Martin Milnes: To me, this list reveals not just Steve's wide ranging knowledge and tastes, but also how much he really championed and loved celebrating the talent of other writers. That generosity was keenly felt by so many people, especially those composers on the list who were friends of Steve's. 
[00:09:48] Peter E Jones: Oh, there are a few friends on that list besides John Kander, like, uh, Maltby and Shire, for example. Yes. I think I've just found travel. Oh, you're kidding. This is Travel by Maltby and Shire, which is also on Steve's list. 
[Song] Take me where you want to go. Make it anywhere at all. Follow any wins that blow. Any course that seems to call.
Peter E Jones: Richard Maltby is the lyricist, David Shire the composer. And I think David Shire as a composer influenced Steve as much as David might think Steve influenced him. 
[00:10:24] Martin Milnes: And like John Kander, Richard Maltby and David Shire were around at the very start of Steve's career, especially when Steve was writing Forum and struggling for recognition as a compose. 
[00:10:35] Peter E Jones: Yeah, and I'll bet that Richard and David can tell us many stories of what went on in those days and how much Steve really championed their work.
[00:10:41] Martin Milnes: Great. Well, let's start by talking to Richard.
[00:10:50] Richard Maltby: We had a really sort of storybook friendship with, with Steve. And, and we sort of got drawn into that circle, which is pretty high powered. Um, and sort of terrifying. I mean, dinner at Hal Prince, oy oy oy! But we would get together, we would have these evenings. We would go to Steve's house, we would have dinner, and then we would go upstairs and we would play.
You know, we'd play what we were working on and he'd play what he was working on. He'd play Waiting Around For The Girls Upstairs or Pretty Little Picture. He was in those days miserable because nobody would take him seriously as a composer. Do you know that when Forum opened, the reviews didn't mention that there was a score? 
[00:11:33] Martin Milnes: At all?
[00:11:33] Richard Maltby: Didn't mention that there was a score at all. They didn't say his music wasn't good. Didn't mention that there was anything. Yes, he got. Anyone Can Whistle, but it was a flop. And so therefore everybody thought that was just proof that he couldn't be a a Broadway composer. So that just completed the, uh, horror that Steve was feeling.
And then Company happened and the world shifted. And so on a certain kind of level, we were peers. We were writing starting out and he was as a composer, still starting out. Let's leave a aside that he'd already written West Side Story and Gypsy, but still that's what we were doing and they were wonderful evenings.
[Tape] There will be one, there will be, there will be. And there's a man who's on the computer?
Richard Maltby: It was wonderful because we could really see how his mind worked and how he shaped an idea and, uh, he would play things in various forms of something that he thought was finished and then it would be, would have a different stanza the next time we, we got together, they were magical evenings.
[00:12:45] Martin Milnes: And the song Travel played a key role in your friendship with Steve. David, what's the story behind this number? And what's its special link to Steve? 
[00:12:54] David Shire: Well, this song came from a musical that we were writing that never got on an adaptation of a Rumer Goden novel called The River. But there was this song in it called Travel. And that was one of our signature numbers at the Prince parties.
The Prince parties were very exciting because the evening always ended with whatever composers were there, taking a turn at the piano and playing. Some songs of theirs and our favorite songs was Travel Through the years, there was a point that we, when Steve was getting older and when we played Travel, he would actually start to cry.
[Song] Oh, to catch the scent of your adventure full and strong. And to know the greatest joys are yet to come along. Take me where you wanna go. Take me where you wanna go. 
[00:13:53] Martin Milnes: Richard, you and David became friends with Steve in 1961. When he saw your new musical.
[00:13:59] Richard Maltby: We met because we had written The Sap of Life and it played at the Sheridan Square downtown. And it, it got nice reviews. I mean, pleasant enough reviews, not enough to make anybody want to go to see it, but it was, you know, a sort of a pleasant pat on the back. But one day Steve came. We didn't even know he was there, but he came and then several days later he came back and he brought Jerry Robbins and then a couple of days after that, he came back again and brought Hal Prince and then came back a fourth time with Leonard Bernstein.
[00:14:32] Martin Milnes: Suffice to say he was impressed then? 
[00:14:34] Richard Maltby: he was impressed!. Well, you know, I've thought back to it. Those are the days of, you know, Jule Styne and that was the conventional sound. I've listened to the score of The Sap of Life. What David was doing at the piano is just absolutely breathtaking. Nothing in the world at that time.
It, it must have been absolutely dazzling. I wrote Steve a note saying was he just bowled over by David's piano playing? Is that why he came back? And he said, 'Yes, it was, but I also liked the lyrics.' And then he proceeded to quote one of the lines from the song. And I thought Steve Sondheim knows a lyric from the Sap of Life? It was 'While plucking the plums out of the tree, flip a few pits back to me.' I can't imagine why anybody would want to quote that line, but Steve says he thought of it every morning, so. 
[00:15:24] Martin Milnes: David, you quickly developed a working relationship with Steve and even inspired one of his most famous characters and all this came from The Sap of Life.
[00:15:33] David Shire: I did a lot of things for Steve. After that, anyone can whistle. I went out of town with as a second rehearsal pianist. I also worked on Evening Primrose with him. The television musical that he wrote. I was. Again, a kind of underscoring assistant and pianist. But I also worked on company. They went out of town to Boston and I had just married my first wife, Talia Shire, and Hal called and said, 'Listen, the dance music for one big number isn't right. And since you are the only composer I know who sounds like Steve, well can sound like Steve, 'cause of course he influenced me incredibly. He said, uh, would you come to Boston and write this a dance number?  
[00:16:24] Martin Milnes: Tick Tock, I think. Yes. Tick Tock Ballet.
[00:16:27] Peter E Jones: Well, David, I think he called you because you had worked with Steve a couple of times before you worked well together. He liked you 
[00:16:34] David Shire: Also, I was one of the people that Hal's wife, Judy, was always trying to fix up. We were going to parties at the Prince's house after we had been discovered at Sap of Life, and she was always fixing up with people and nothing happened. 
Judy Prince: David! There's someone we wanted to meet, you'll love her.
David Shire: Hal told me that they were kind of thrown when I came up to Boston with a wife. Because I was one of the models for Bobby Baby, the the guy who was always there, kind of never got married, but that was very exciting to be out of town with that show. Steve disappeared for a day or two and summoned us all up to his hotel room and played us Being Alive. And I was in the room. I, I was someone in a tree, someone in a room.
[00:17:35] Martin Milnes: And Richard, while David was in Boston for Company witnessing the birth of Being Alive, you had your own contact with Steve about this same number. 
[00:17:42] Richard Maltby: We had written a show called Love Match. It was about Albert and Victoria and Albert sings this really wonderful song called To Be Alive.
[Song] And find some secret no one else has found. No one.When any man's one life is through ---
Richard Maltby: It was one of David's really splashy compositions. So Steve called me up, he's in Boston. He said, I've just written a song called Being Alive, and that title is very similar. Do you, do you mind terribly if I use it? I said, sure, Steve, you can use it.
When he died, everybody produced those notes that he sent, and it was a wonderful realization that what we had felt was shared by so many different people. Everybody had a life changing note from Steve and at the end, just in the year before he died, I was feeling that sense of what does it all add up to?
And Steve noticed, I guess, that this was Richard in trouble. And so he rolled up his sleeves and wrote a really long note about how I should be proud of what I've done. That is Steve. Steve is, uh. Has this deeply sentimental side that he tries desperately to hide and, um, unsuccessfully. 
[00:19:09] Martin Milnes: Richard, I know that Steve had contact with your children growing up and children meant a great deal to him. Can you remember a time when he showed that sentimentality with them? 
[00:19:19] Richard Maltby: I had the experience with my daughter. We had a house in Connecticut and every time I put on a show album, they'd go me, but occasionally I would put in Sunday In The Park. And my great surprise, they didn't say we take that out, so I would play it a lot. One day they were out. Playing and my daughter was singing one of the songs from it, and I thought, that's really surprising. I said, do you know that the show, there's a, a video of that? Would you like to see it? And uh, she said, oh yeah, I would. Steve lived just down the road from us in, in Roxbury. I, um, asked him and he sent over the video.
With a little note and Emily devoured it. I said, 'you gotta write a thank you note, right?' So she wrote a thank you note. She said, 'I think Dot made a mistake. She should have understood that George was supposed to make art and not take her to the Follies.' 
[00:20:13] Martin Milnes: Oh, that's wonderful. 
[00:20:14] Richard Maltby: I mean, if there ever is a note that was gonna produce a response from Steve and he wrote this lovely, lovely note about how life produces difficult choices, you know.
It was really, really sweet. 
[00:20:26] Martin Milnes: How old was Emily at the time? 
[00:20:27] Richard Maltby: Eight or nine. 
[00:20:29] Martin Milnes: Separate to the musicals, which you and David have written together, you've each had individual careers, Richard, your a Tony-winning director, and David, you are an Oscar-winning film composer. So after you moved to Hollywood in the seventies, David, how often did you get to see Steve?
[00:20:44] David Shire: I used to have dinner with him every three, four months, every five months, but it was always a treat. Then as he got more and more famous and uh, world class kind of stopped having that. Also, I was spending half my time in uh, LA. Steve was never happy about that. I think that's one of the things that caused us to become more distant.
He once said to me. Why are you spending all that time writing all that music in Hollywood when you should be writing musicals? That kind of brought me down a little. Mm. 
[00:21:21] Peter E Jones: Steve loved your film music. 
[00:21:22] David Shire: Well, eventually I sent him a, a compilation of my film work so he could hear that it had some musical substance.
And then the next time I ran into him, he said. Well, now I know what you were doing in Hollywood all those years and kind of with a smile like, okay, I'll let you have that. 
[00:21:46] Martin Milnes: And of course David, it's thanks to you that Steve found a key collaborator. 
[00:21:50] David Shire: So when Steve was about to choose the orchestrator for company, he actually called me up and said, 'Listen, I have to choose between Jonathan Tunick and Don Walker to orchestrate Company. Who do you think?' And before he could even finish the sentence, I said, 'Tunick. Go with Tunick; and he remembered Tunick from the show. 
[Song] You with the hang up, start on a brand new page. When will we bang up in this computer age? You'll say to somebody new "How do you do? I love you!"
David Shire: We wrote a musical called How Do You Do? I Love You. Which was not successful. It got a review out of town. Our first professional review, the title of the review was 'Goodbye. I Hate You'. Anyway, Jonathan Tunickk orchestrated that show and um, Steve was kind of impressed with Jonathan's orchestrations. So in a way I started that one of the great collaborations in musical comedy history.
Because I'm kind of self-deprecating. I said, uh, that may turn out to be my biggest contribution to the American Musical Theater. 
[Song] I'll always be here. Travel. Take me where you want --- 
[00:23:24] Martin Milnes: And now presenting Jonathan Tunick, another great musician whose talent Steve loved. 
As Steve's orchestrator, Jonathan transformed Steve's handwritten piano accompaniments into full orchestral scores for almost every Sondheim show over 53 years.
PJ and I now invite you to join our chat with Jonathan at home In his study nearby are his Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards. Steve himself described Jonathan as the best orchestrator in the history of theater. Well, Jonathan, we'll start at the beginning and see where we go. How's that? 
[00:24:04] Jonathan Tunick: Okay. By the way, the old cliche the best place to start at the beginning.
I found that to be totally untrue. The best place to start is where you land and work your way towards the the end. And Steve thought so too. Towards the end of his life, Steve started talking about starting a song by writing the ending and, and I said, 'Hey, you know, we, we've never talked about this, but I do the same thing.'
[00:24:31] Peter E Jones: Yeah, he always wanted to know where he was going. 
[00:24:33] Jonathan Tunick: I always thought of it as the horse wants to head for the barn. So if you want to build up momentum. Build the barn and then the horse will go to it. 
[00:24:43] Peter E Jones: Exactly. 
[00:24:45] Jonathan Tunick: Well, the absolute beginning was a friend of mine came over with a recording and he said, you've gotta hear this. This is really terrific. You're going to like this. And he showed me the cast album of Forum. Which I'd heard of, I'd seen the advertisements in the paper and, and some such, but I, I hadn't seen the show and I hadn't heard the music. I looked at the cover and I said, oh, Stephen Sondheim, he's the guy that wrote the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy.
And now he's writing music. And I quite unfairly jumped to the conclusion that he was a duffer as a composer, another lyricist who picks out tunes on a toy xylophone 
[00:25:27] Peter E Jones: comparing him to Bob Merrill. Now that's --- 
[00:25:30] Jonathan Tunick: I'm not naming names. 
[00:25:32] Peter E Jones: I did 
[00:25:32] Jonathan Tunick: And besides there are others. I made up a joke. Jerry Herman dies and his estate puts his piano up for sale and takes out an ad in the Times. Piano for sale. Black keys never used, but I typically digress. So my friend brought over the album of Forum. All I had to hear was the first five seconds of the overture before I was bouncing off the ceiling with excitement. I said, 'This guy can write music. I wanna work with this guy.' We had a mutual friend, the composer, David Shire, who by the way, I consider the greatest composer of my circle.
I subsequently met him when David set up a dinner. There was an old fashioned restaurant then just opposite Lincoln Center called Vorsts. We traded polite compliments about one another's work. Then I heard that he was writing a new musical and it turned out to be Company. I don't think the name had even been invented yet, and I did something that I had never done before and I've never done since.
I called him up and asked for the job. He said, actually, I've been thinking of you for it. I need another week or so to make up my mind and I'll get back to you. And he was as good as his word. He got back to me and said, you've got the job. And that was it. 
[00:27:04] Martin Milnes: Jonathan, do you remember hearing the score of Company for the first time?
[00:27:07] Jonathan Tunick: Yeah, that would be after the famous Italian dinner. Shall I tell that one? 
[00:27:13] Martin Milnes: Please share. 
[00:27:14] Jonathan Tunick: Once Steve had engaged me to do Company, he invited me to dinner so we could just talk about the show and get acquainted in general. I met him at a little neighborhood, Italian restaurant, around the corner from his house.
And, uh, we sat down. He ordered a scotch. I ordered a scotch. We sat and talked for a while about old movies and radio shows and comedians. He ordered another scotch. I ordered another scotch. We talked about Broadway musicals. We talked about Ravel. We talked, we talked about this and that. He ordered a third scotch and I said, 'I better stop at two. If I have any more, I'll get so drunk that I'll do something embarrassing and you'll decide not to hire me after all.' And he said, 'I understand. No one can keep up with me. I just love to drink. The first understatement of many to come over the next 40 years. And he proceeded to order during the course of the meal, I wouldn't be surprised if it was 10 scotches. We had a great time getting along famously, and he showed no sign of inebriation, and as a result of my having turned down that third scotch Steve maintained for the rest of his life. That I don't drink, and we'd go out to dinner. He would start to order a drink and 'What'll you have, Jonathan? Oh, you don't drink, do you?' To him anything less than three scotches was a teetotaler. 
I suppose that would be the same occasion that we proceeded to his house and he played me what he had of the score. Itwould've been the first of many times I found myself sitting to his right on the piano bench as he played and sang, grumbling out the song, usually an octave below pitch, these amazing songs, and being, if not the first, one of the first people to hear them. 
[Steve on tape]That's a whole choral thing that I can't, uh, quite get across. But it's all the voices building. Jonathan Tunick: You can imagine how exciting and invigorating it would be to, to hear material of this quality for the first time. Just the structure of the rhyme schemes and just the jokes. But I, the one I always remember is from Sweeney Todd. We got to the line 'What is that? It's fop.' And I almost fell off the piano bench that found, that's down and out funny! The selection of the word fop. Mm-hmm. It just belonged there. 
[00:30:12] Peter E Jones: Did you find that his process with you going through a score for orchestrating was different than other composers you worked with? 
[00:30:21] Jonathan Tunick: That's interesting. And, and, and my first reaction is to say no, except he knew more about what he had written than almost anybody else that I worked with. One exception being Burt Bacharch. He knew what he had written, but typically I would be working with a composer and I'd be thinking, well, well, what do you mean by all of this? What are we trying to say here? And I have to couch the question very politely. I remember a question that I found myself asking constantly, not of Steve, but of certain other composers. A lot of them: Do you want me to write what you played or do you want me to write what you wrote? You never had that with Steve. I mean, he was totally literate. He played what he wrote. The questions were. Infrequent and they tended to be precise. Well, I remember in Follies, the principle came up of everybody's lying.
And, uh, once I understood that, I, I didn't have to ask any more questions. 
[00:31:34] Peter E Jones: So he would discuss with you the dramatic thrust of the music. Instead of saying, I want clarinets here. He would say, uh, should be rueful. 
[00:31:42] Jonathan Tunick: Hardly ever mention the name of an instrument. There were of course the obligatory instruments, by which I mean the ones that are referred to on the stage.
Aside from that, I don't think he ever mentioned the name of a musical instrument to me. He once told me at Sweeney Todd rehearsal that he, he really liked the bass trombone. He says, 'I love that farting noise!' And with Steve, he was so precise. So if I had a question, I would really ask it. Whereas with somebody else, I would, I'd just fix it.
Mm. One of the very few times Steve got really pissed off at me. It didn't happen often, but it sure did this time. I had written a horrible wrong chord and had heard it at rehearsal and it fixed it, but the copyists hadn't put the fix in the parts yet. So when the band played it at the orchestra reading, they played this awful dissonance, and Steve said, 'What's that? What, what's that?' I said, 'It's okay, Steve. I, I already fixed it. I was hoping you wouldn't notice.' You know, I was kidding. Right? I was, and he took serious offense at the idea that I would think that he wouldn't notice. I didn't even mean it. I, it was like, I hoped I got away with that one 'cause it's so obvious and it, it took quite a bit of calming down to get him to 
[00:33:12] Peter E Jones: No, as humorous as he always was, there were times where the humor escaped him.
[00:33:17] Jonathan Tunick: There's a reference in Passion, which I maintain is the most personal of his shows where it describes Foca as having her nerve endings right beneath the surface. That was him. He could be ultra-sensitive to just the slightest, you know, he might let it go by. He might not notice. I mean about not noticing.
I mean, this is the guy who had sit, sat next to me at numberless orchestra rehearsals with the paper in front of him, letting the most appalling mistakes go by. However, to me, certainly professionally, he was responsible for my becoming well-known in my field and just being associated with a composer, not only of his success and prestige, but of his quality was an important factor in my own success.
Then of course, working with a composer of his depth and importance improved me. Did anybody hear my Tony speech? 
Martin Milnes: This one for Merrily? 
Jonthan Tunick: Yeah, there haven't been a lot of them. I made the speech all about Steve and I believe it's been reported that I've struck the all time record for the shortest Tony speech and I said 'I'm particularly happy to be winning this award because it's my only Tony Award for a Sondheim musical, which it is.
You know, all the important shows were before I was eligible. By the time they instated the Tony Award for orchestrators in 1997, all the important shows were done, right? So I said, 'Thank you, Steve, my old friend and teacher.'
And I left. I think the whole thing took. 10 seconds maybe if that there's a rule. Make him cry, make him laugh, get off. 
[00:35:29] Martin Milnes: And of course, Jonathan's first Tony in 1997 was for a musical written by another friend of Steve's whose talent he loved and celebrated: Maury Yeston. Composer-lyricist of Nine, Grand Hotel and Titanic.
Maury's piece New Words was on Steve's list of songs he wished he'd written. In fact, Steve loved new words so much that he sent Maury a number of emails.
[Song]
Dear Maury, having just sobbed my way through your performance of New Words, I have to once again thank you for writing it. If there's a better lyric moment in the history of lyric writing than 'It gets harder', it will have to be proved to me. Thanks for writing it and playing it. You look great Incidentally.
Happy holidays. Steve, 
[00:36:42] Maury Yeston: well, you see, that's his generosity because others had been generous to him. I think that Steve has written as many great lyrics as anybody ever had, but that was his heart offering something to me to encourage me and, and then he continued writing to me about that. He never stopped it. It really made him weep. 
[00:36:59] Martin Milnes: And he also adds here, 'I'm still sobbing. No song I've ever heard has pierced my heart the way this one does. I'm not sure why, though. I have my ideas. May, whoever is in charge, bless you for it'. 
Maury Yeston: What a lovely man. I here tell that his family situation was complicated. Yeah. And I think that what we're supposed to do is to turn adversity into something creative and wonderful.
And that's precisely what he did. He could simply write in that key better than anybody ever and gave it to the world. So he's a man of his time, reflected his time, why he became our prophet and will always be. He didn't just catch the wave. He was the wave. 
Martin Milnes: And Maury, how do you remember Steve as a friend?
Maury Yeston: I think what comes to mind for me is his extraordinary generosity. You know, not every writer is able to appreciate. Wonderful work of somebody else without feeling in some cases reduced by it and saying, well, am I that good? We all go through that, right? His extraordinary love of other people's talent.
And the energy that he put into all during his life to try to aid it, to be kind to it, to support it in every way. Everybody thinks that Steve is actually as complicated as his music is, and that all of the, what might be called conflicting negativ, negative anxiety provoking aspects of his work, characterize him.
He was a bubi. He was the sweetest man in the world. He had extraordinary modesty. Really extraordinary modesty for somebody who was that gifted and had every rright to feel imperious and, but no, quite the opposite. Humility. Genuine humility. And I think I recognize that because I think that on that level, one should have, and one does have humility.
Humility against the form. The form is Beethoven. It's Mozart, it's G&S. That's the form. Those are the giants. And Steve had that. 
Martin Milnes: Maury on the note of giants, in your emails to Steve, you discussed one of the most important American classical composers, Aaron Copland, who also has a song on Steve's list.
[Song] There was a little sheep in the South Amerikee, crying oh the land that lies so low.
Martin Milnes: 'Your mention of Copland forces me to forego my modesty and tell you that shortly after he died, his nurse caretaker male wrote me asking me to meet with him as he had a photograph to show me. He did indeed come over for a drink, bringing a picture of him and Copland sitting on a couch in Copland's house, the two of them smilingly holding a loft for the camera, a cover of the LP of Sunday In The Park With George. The guy who was a show buff had wanted Copland to hear the album and played it for him after it was over, Copland apparently said, 'This is remarkable. Who is responsible for this proudest moment of my life? Responsible. Wow. Steve.' 
[00:40:21] Maury Yeston: I'm so glad you read that because the public perceives icons as icons. Yes. Not people there is, you know, one of the legendary great, great artists of our time.
Letting us know or letting me know that he's just like everybody else human being. Yes. And that Aaron Copland thought that something that he had written was responsible. That is an extraordinary word I've heard. Masterful. I've heard talented fellow, but responsible, and that Copland would use that word.
The idea that you have to be responsible to your art. You don't waste yourself. You don't write under your own capacity. You keep striving. And what a great word to describe Stephen Sondheim's work responsible. He doesn't pander. He's not trying to make money. He's responsible to explicating in his way the subtleties, the manifold variety of the human condition.
In the most complicated way, and even if it's painful and you can feel it, I think that's his greatest contribution. 
[00:41:40] Martin Milnes: We know that prior to Company, Steve struggled to gain artistic recognition, but would you say that ultimately Steve helped redefine what great art could be and who could be considered an artist?
[00:41:52] Maury Yeston: One of the really great contributions that Steve made was finally a tin pan alley guy who wrote a popular. Music for the masses could really be thought of as an artist. He broke through that. We never really thought of Lerner & Loewe as artists, but Steve was neurotic in a sufficient direction that what he created became obvious and was raised to the level of any accomplishment in any form of art, ever in history. He did that simply with the quality of, of his intellect, his emotions, his heart, his technical ability, his musical gift, his patience, and his genuine warmth as a human being. Generosity, modesty, incredibly hard work.
And absolute painstakingly demands for the best that he could possibly be. To which he would sometimes torture himself just to achieve what he felt was his standard. 
[00:42:56] Martin Milnes: Beautifully said. Thank you. 
[00:42:58] Maury Yeston: I can't believe they just came out of my mouth.. Yeah, but that's, that's Steve. Yeah.
[00:43:21] Martin Milnes: PJ, we've now heard much about Steve's love and support of other people's talent and his list of Songs I Wish I'd Written is a perfect example, but there's one song on the list which has never been published, and which almost no one in the world has ever heard, and it's one of yours. Music and lyrics by Peter E. Jones.
[00:43:42] Peter E Jones: Bluellow. From an adaptation I was working on of a famous novel called Peyton Place. 
[00:43:48] Martin Milnes: Peyton Place is a musical, which you wrote in 1994 during your romantic relationship with Steve. Sadly, the show was never produced, but as a composer-lyricist, Steve believed in your talent right from day one. His support has clearly meant a great deal to everyone we've spoken to in this episode, but as his former partner what has Steve's love of your work and your talent meant to you? 
[00:44:13] Peter E Jones: Well, uh, strange question to ask me, Martin, because, um, when I first met Steve, that would've been the most important thing. If, if he had said, you're fabulously talented and I'm going to support you in any way I can. That isn't how it played out as we'll find, but ultimately discovering that he loved something very specific that I had done and did believe in me as a composer, meant the world. It's just that the timing, 'losing my timing this late', and for me it was having no timing this early! Things didn't time out the way it would've in a storybook situation. I guess 
[00:45:00] Martin Milnes: Considering your history with Steve, the fact that you're included in Songs I Wish I'd Written is, I think, quite significant. 
[00:45:07] Peter E Jones: Yeah. Yeah, it is. And you know, at the time the list came out, its significance escaped me. I don't know if I was just too busy with trying to keep up with what I was doing at that time, or. I just couldn't take it in.
But it's only just now that I've really started to understand what it means, why he did it, why he chose it. 
[00:45:28] Martin Milnes: We could of course, discuss that significance here and now. However, to fully understand it, we need to learn more about you. And indeed more about Steve. 
[00:45:38] Peter E Jones: Yeah. Well, the only way to understand our relationship is to understand Steve, you know, all this, including the significance of Bluellow.
We'll have to share it over time here, but to do that we have to talk to more people. Maltby and Shire have known him for about 60 years, and John Kander was friends with him for 70. 
[00:45:56] Martin Milnes: Yes, because not only did Steve love John Kander's talent. But in fact, John's entire career was kickstarted by working on West Side Story and Gypsy.
But Steve and John were friends even before that when Steve was writing his unproduced show Saturday Night, and John was just a young, hopeful living with his roommates in mid 1950s, New York City. 
[00:46:20] John Kander: I had for a number of years, a nine room apartment with my two best friends, James and William Goldman, who I'd known since I was 10 years old.
And, uh, Billy met Steve first and I remember brought him over several times to the apartment. And I remember listening to bits of, of Saturday night, and I think there was one night when we played Russian Spy. And I just want you to know that you don't want to hear any more about that evening. 
[00:46:50] Peter E Jones: You sure?
[00:46:51] Martin Milnes: Well, I'm most intrigued.
John Kander: It takes a number of people in a lot of space to play Russian Spy. It's sort of like playing murder, uh, the actual rules that there were no rules. Then you ended up with a pile of bodies on the floor. Ah, Johnny Wins. 
[00:47:13] John Kander: Mary was there and ---
[00:47:14] Martin Milnes: Mary Rodgers?! 
[00:47:15] John Kander: And anyway, it was,  it was a noisy, funny, violet evening.
I was working by then playing and coaching singers and conducting, and Jim was writing plays and Billy was writing novels. And, uh, the three of us had the nerve to think that we were going to be able to survive in the world that we eventually did. And Steve was a part of that generation. So yeah, we were all at the beginning of the most serious part of our lives, I think. 
[00:47:48] Martin Milnes: Having met Steve socially, how did you then get the job writing dance arrangements for Gypsy? 
[00:47:53] John Kander: It goes back to the opening of West Side Story in Philadelphia that evening, I somehow ended up at this great big opening night party at the Bellevue Stratford Hotel, which had a, an enormous bar in the center of it.
There were like six deep in front of the bar of people trying to get a drink and I'm not very aggressive and I was raising my hand like that, and this little short oldish man in front of me saw my distress and said, what do you want when I order my drink, I'll order you. It turned out his name was Joe Lewis and he was the pianist for West Side Story.
A year later when he was taking his holiday, he said, do you want a sub for me? I'll be gone for three weeks. And I said, sure. And so I went into the pit and it was during a period where they were putting a lot of replacements in. So Ruth Mitchell, who was the stage manager, got used to me 'cause I was playing all those rehearsals and playing some auditions at the time.
And she came to me and she said, 'We're starting auditions for a show called Gypsy and I need somebody to play. Would you be interested?' And I said, sure. I said, sure a lot. In those days anyway, for six weeks, I was playing the auditions and Jerry Robbins got used to me, people get used to me and uh, said, literally, 'Would you like to do this show with me?'
And I said, 'Do you want me to?' And he said, 'yes'. And I said, 'yes'. And that was how I ended up doing dance music for Gypsy. And by that time, as everybody in our business knows, once you sort of make your mark as a professional, you can reach anybody. But I'm not a very competitive person to begin with. So if I had the gumption to get my own drink at the opening West Side Story, I would probably never have had a career.
[00:49:50] Martin Milnes: What was Steve like as a young man working on Gypsy? Julie Andrews told us that he could be very shy. Did you sense that too? 
[00:49:57] John Kander: Well, that's a little hard because I was shy myself. I think getting to know Steve was a slow process. It wasn't like, oh, these two guys are destined to become great friends. But I never forgot the kind of raw impression that I had of him when he was performing that.
That was the most naked Steve I had ever seen. I was not privy to private personal conversations with him, but it was sort of indication that there was somebody there who was more interesting than I realized, 
[00:50:33] Martin Milnes: And this performance was when Steve and Julie Styne demonstrated Rose's Turn. 
[00:50:37] John Kander: It was a day I'll never forget because I don't think any of us knew what we were gonna see. This was just like eight of us in this room. Jule came out, sat at the piano, and Steve came out, put some notes, and began to perform this thing, which none of us had ever heard, and it was overwhelming and it was still to this day, the ultimate version of that piece. There was no end to it. Then the piece did not have any final high note 'For me!' But Steve's incredible performance, I'll never forget as long as I live. Uh, you really watched a person disintegrate in front of your eyes. It is still the ultimate unreachable performance of that piece. 
Anyway, we saw each other occasionally and in a very friendly way. And I think we're supportive to each other. We got to know each other, I think just by hanging around together. And then I think we grew over the last 15, 16 years of our lives to really like each other. I know that I felt that way toward him. 
[00:51:48] Peter E Jones: Do you think that some of it too is the fact that the years of being busy working in the business and trying to make one's mark, the two of you had done all that? So now here is a time where the two of you can just meet each other on the terms of 'I'm still here'. 
[00:52:05] John Kander: Yes, that's likely true. We became really quite warm friends. We started seeing each other somewhat more socially, and he came up to the country several times. We had a semi-serious conversation once when he was over here. That was, he wasn't writing and I was sort of needling him about it because the idea of not writing, it seems like denying yourself pleasure, and he made a comment that surprised me.: 'who would want to hear his writing today among younger people?' I think my response was basically, fuck that. That's not why you're writing.
Then you know that's not true. We write because it's more fun to do it than not to do it. We talked about that a couple of times, and clearly he got outta that period because he was in the middle of writing something when he died. I'm sure I'll think of a lot of stuff when we hang up here today. I'm not the world's most public person, so this is not easy for me.
[00:53:08] Martin Milnes: Well, we really appreciate it. Thank you. 
[00:53:10] Peter E Jones: We really do. Because you are one of the few people who have been there that long with him. So we're so appreciative that you were able to talk. 
[00:53:19] Martin Milnes: It means a lot. 
[00:53:20] John Kander: Thank you guys, and thank you for asking me. I'm pleased to have done it. And I do want just as a final thing, and I may have misread Steve. I don't think so, but he grew more content with his life and that made me feel good. I'm feeling very, very warm memories right now. And I'm gonna go take a walk and go sit under the tree that we last did that with. Think of you guys.
Voiceover: In this episode, Travel by Maltby & Shire was sung by Chloe Hopcroft, Nic Myers and Kit Pakapom. New Words by Maury Yeston was sung by Lauren Jones. And The Golden Willow Tree by Aaron Copeland was sung by Bruce Graham. The songs were produced by Chris Traves with Musical Direction by Gareth Valentine and Piano Accompaniment by Sam Young.
Mehran James McCullough: And now for our cast, Stephen Sondheim was portrayed by Alistair McGowan featuring Eddie Andrews as young PJ. The Prince party pianist was Steve Ross who played Bock and Harnick's Matchmaker Matchmaker. Judy Prince was played by Rebecca Ridout. In Russian Spy Young Steve was played by Nathanael Hodgkiss, Young Johnny by Taraan Jeram, Young Billy by Jude Peters, Young Mary by Melissa Redman and Young Jim by Mitchell Walsh. Dramatic reenactments were written by Martin Milnes and produced by Peter E. Jones. The music of Stephen Sondeim was played by Colm Molloy, and Comedy Tonight was played by Gareth Valentine.
Sondheim Instrumental tracks were provided by Broadway Studio Orchestra. Home by Kander and Ebb was sung by Mildred Natick and the original Broadway cast of 70 Girls 70. The vamp of How Does The Wine Taste? was composed by Harold Karr. I'll Never Go There Anymore by Moose Charlop annd Eddie Lawrence was screeched by Moose Charlop on the original composer's demo tape.
The Overture to Make A Wish was composed by Hugh Martin. And Hardhearted Hannah by Milton Ager, Jack Yellen, Bob Bigelow and Charles Bates were sung by Belle Baker.
From Maltby and Shire's The Sap of Life, A Hero's Love was played by David Shire. To Be Alive from Love Match, and the title song from How Do You Do? I Love You were sung by Richard Maltby Jr. and played by David Shire. Marlow's Theme from Farewell, My lovely and Salsation from Saturday Night Fever were composed by David Shire. The excerpt from Bluellow by Peter E. Jones was sung by Lauren Jones and Shane O'Riordan. Final Mix and Mastering is by Chris Traves. Songs I Wish I'd Written credits were read by Jonathan Christopher, and I am Mehran James McCullough.
Loving You: The Untold Sondheim is produced by Martin Milnes and Peter E. Jones. The executive producer is Jason Caffrey of Creative Kin Limited. The mix engineer is Phoebe Murdoch. The podcast's original score is composed by Peter E. Jones. The series is written, devised, and directed by Martin Milnes.