Why I love Sondheim’s music

I just started to work on an upcoming production of Into the Woods … and once again I am enthralled with how Stephen Sondheim masterfully puts his music together. Case in point ….

Act two starts with a very lovely, open-sounding melody. The actors are really singing in 3/4 phrasing, which is a waltz.

Characters’ phrases are 3-beat groupings

It’s a slow waltz, which makes it elegant, regal, lilting, and romantic (rather than “dancing” such as in a Strauss waltz which is a bit more fun, capricious, and intoxicating) … This makes total sense in that it begins with Cinderella and her prince, who are the royal family of the show. So, it should be elegant and regal.

The romance of this melody and the slower 3/4 phrasing has two meanings:

• the romance of the royalty and of the characters’ love
• the romance of a fairy tale – which is how act 1 ended – in a “happily ever after”

3/4 time being a waltz … the emphasis is on the first beat: ONE – two – three; ONE-two-three; ONE-two-three … and so on. The stressed first beat gives a foundation to the phrase; and we expect this type of stress … go ahead – say it to yourself, “ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three.”

So the characters’ phrases feel solid, steady, expected … almost stately … and certainly romantic.

It would seem that all is just dandy.

But one of the themes of this show is that of being careful what you wish for, because if and when you get your wish you may not like the real results. The honeymoon feeling wears off rather quickly for the characters … the romance changes into the more hum-drum, work-a-day life. It ain’t all a fairytale. There’s something not-quite-right in the land of Cinderella and her Prince and with the other characters.

And Sondheim conveys this not-quite-right feeling by manipulating the stresses in the phrasing. Whereas the actors are singing in a 3/4 rhythm – with two groups of three in each measure, the orchestra is playing in groupings of four plus two … one-two-three-four one-two; one-two-three-four one-two

Orchestra playing 6/4 in grouped patterns of four plus 2

And unlike a strict waltz, this grouping of four-plus-two doesn’t have a predictable stress in any of the beats. The stress that would have been felt by the characters’ melody is nearly gone when it is coupled with the orchestra’s phrasing.

By juxtaposing these patterns with each other, Sondheim takes a solid, predictable romantic feeling and makes it into a ‘not-quite-a-waltz.’ It’s not quite what we’d expect … it’s not quite the happily ever after … it’s not quite everything that we dreamed it would be …

He could have (and I would imagine that lesser creative composers would do this) used harmonies or dissonance in the orchestra to foreshadow some kind of brewing trouble. But he didn’t. Here the characters have a lovely little melody and the orchestra is playing a lovely sounding part. So it’s not so much a foreshadowing of something but a sense of being unsettled – of it not being entirely perfect as we had imagined it to be.

And this is why this moment in the show is so satisfying to the audience. They’d never analyze the music nor even consciously think about the rhythmic structure. But the audience would feel as though there’s something not quite right … that the luster of having attained their wish is just beginning to feel ever-so-slightly tarnished.

One more reason that I love Sondheim’s music.