Sondheim piano sonata analysis

Sondheim's Piano SonataAuthor(s): Steve SwayneSource: Journal of the Royal Musical Association, Vol. 127, No. 2 (2002), pp. 258-304Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Royal Musical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3840465 .

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Journai ofthe Royal Musical Association, 127 (2002) ? Royal Musical Association

Sondheim's Piano Sonata

STEVE SWAYNE

In the autumn of 1949, Stephen Sondheim enrolled in Music 103, the

first semester of the two-semester senior honours course in music at

Williams College (in northwestern Massachusetts). There were no

specific requirements for the course, according to the college prospectus for that year, other than regular consultation with the supervisor for music honours. In essence, Sondheim began a programme of inde?

pendent study with Robert Barrow, then the principal composition teacher at Williams who had been promoted to full professor that year.1 The 1956-7 college prospectus contains the first mention of the

requirements for the degree with Honors in Music. Barrow was chair

of the Music Department at the time.

In the senior year history candidates must submit a thesis; theory candidates a composition in one of the larger forms or a group of smaller works. In both cases the first semester of senior year is spent in preparation of the

writing of the thesis or composition, under supervision of one or more members of the department, meeting twice weekly. The work of the second semester consists largely of the actual writing of the thesis or composition.2

Seven years before these guidelines were issued, Sondheim elected to

write for Barrow a composition in three of the larger forms: a piano sonata that uses sonata, extended ternary and rondo forms in its com?

pleted movements.

The continuity between Sondheim's early musical vocabulary and his

mature musicals emerges more clearly in the light of the sonata.

Written when the winds of international musical fashion were begin?

ning to favour the Second Viennese School, the sonata generously

employs the vocabulary of Paul Hindemith, a composer whose influ?

ence on American composers has yet to be fully charted. What one

unexpectedly discovers from the sonata is not only how proficient Sondheim was in this vocabulary: one also discovers hitherto unsus-

pected concordances between the sonata, Sondheim's mature works, and the sound world and compositional aesthetics associated with Hindemith. Familiarity with Sondheim's sonata changes the way

I thank Stephen Sondheim for making his Williams College student reports available to me. I thank Linda Hall, archives assistant at Williams College, for her inestimable help in researching

1 Sondheim went on to enrol in Music 104 in spring semester 1950, completing Music 103, Music 104 and the Honors programme in Music successfully. Information about Robert Bar row in this article comes from papers and press releases contained in the Robert George Barrow file of the Williams College archives.

2 Williams College Bulletin (March 1956), 146.



sondheim's piano sonata 259

scholars and musicians, classical and popular alike, must talk about the

music of Sondheim's maturity and enriches our discussion of musical

America in the middle of the twentieth century.

THE HISTORY OF THE SONATA (AND MUSIC AT WILLIAMS)

The scope of Sondheim's accomplishment is best understood in the

context of the emergence of the Department of Music at Williams.

Before 1927, Williams offered no academic courses in music. That year, the Department of the History of Art and Civilization (renamed the

Department of Fine Arts in 1930) offered the sole music course in the

Williams curriculum, a two-semester 'History and Appreciation of

Music'. The prospectuses give the impression that this was a stolid work-

list approach to the Great Men of Music: Semester I went from Pal-

estrina to Bach, Semester II from Bach to 'the present day'. In fact, the

description of the Fine Arts major, with its one music course, seems to

go out of its way to exclude serious mention of music:

The primary objective is to provide a sequence of courses which will

acquaint the student with the culture of the East and the West as it is

expressed and as it may be evaluated in terms of the fine arts throughout the course of civilization. The introductory course emphasizes the prin? ciples which form the basis for design and expression in the arts. The major is planned as a further analysis of these principles and as an introduction to the fundamental problems of art history and criticism through the study of significant achievements in architecture, sculpture, and painting.3

In the autumn of 1939, the 28-year-old Barrow arrived at Williams. He

had earned three degrees from Yale - BA (1932), B.Mus. (1933), Mus.M. (1934) - and was the recipient of the Ditson Fellowship for

Foreign Study in 1934. The award enabled him to study conducting with Sir Henry Wood and composition with 'the distinguished com?

posers Ralph Vaughan Williams and Paul Hindemith'. After his return

to the USA, he worked for four years as organist and director of the

choir school ofthe National Cathedral (Episcopal) in Washington, DC, before moving to Williamstown. Barrow's hands-on experience with

choral and organ music and his exposure to continental culture would

be matched the following year when Joaquin Nin-Culmell, a concert

pianist who studied at the Paris Conservatoire, joined the faculty. Barrow rose rapidly from assistant to full professor

- he held the rank

of associate professor for four years - in part because of his ambition

and in part because of the college's needs. In 1940, the Fine Arts

department was renamed Fine Arts and Music. That same year, the

course offerings in music grew sevenfold to five regular two-semester

courses and two year-long honours courses for juniors and seniors

offered by permission of instructor. Seven years later, the department was renamed again, from Fine Arts and Music to Art and Music. Finally,

3 This description appeared in the Williams College Bulletin from 1937 to 1946, with the exception of 1943 and 1944.



260 STEVE SWAYNE

TABLE1

MUSIC THESES AT WILLIAMS COLLEGE, 1943-60

year author/composer title/composition length

1943 Charles Gorham Phillips The Jazz-Age Isolationists' 108 pp. (text) 1946 Edwin Stube Slow Movement for Organ 4 pp. (112 bars)a 1950 Stephen Sondheim Piano Sonata in C major, 1st 13+16 pp. (176 + 171 bars);

and 3rd movements 2nd-movement sketch (2 pp., 32 bars) catalogued in 2001

1951 William Farrar Wynn A Movement in Sonata Form 13 pp. (222 bars)a 1952 John Phillips Seven Pieces for Piano 5 + 3 + 3 + 4 + 3 + 3 + 4 pp.

(84 + 34 + 72 + 73 + 44 + 52 + 67 bars)a

1953 Alexander C. Post Sonata for Organ, 1st 13 pp. (194 bars)a movement

1954 John T. Overbeck 'The Bagatelle and Beethoven' 89 pp. (text) 1955 Donald Robert Munroe Two Three-Part Inventions 3 + 3 pp. (24 +36 bars)a

Paterson for Piano 1957 Robert Kelton Goss Two Three-Part Inventions 3 + 4 pp. (30 + 62 bars)a

for Pianoforte 1957 David Gregg Niven Two Three-Part Inventions 3 + 4 pp. (35 + 57 bars)a

for Pianoforte 1958 Ridgway M. Banks Sonata Form Movement for 17 pp. (96 bars)

Clarinet and Piano 1960 J. Edward Brash *

Regina by Marc Blitzstein: 51 pp. (text) An Approach to American Opera'

1960 Robert J. Stern Rondo-Sonata for String 11 pp. (184 bars) Quartet

a The author wishes to thank Ben Isecke of Williams College for his help in determining the total bar counts of these works.

by 1950 - the year Sondheim graduated - the Music Department was

completely separate from the Art Department. (In comparison, Yale

University appointed its first music instructor in 1855 and had elevated

music to the level of an academic subject by 1890.)4 The faculty and administration might have had the Music Depart?

ment on an even faster track but for the intervention of World War II.

In the 1943-4 and 1944-5 prospectuses we read: There will be no Fine

Arts and Music majors for the duration because of the limited course

offerings under war conditions/5 As a result the senior theses in music

during the 1940s are small in number and scattered. Sondheim's

sonata, in fact, was only the third senior thesis in music produced at

Williams, so there were few established departmental guidelines and

fewer precedents for him to follow at the time.

How exceptional was Sondheim's decision to write a sonata becomes

somewhat clearer when we look at the theses that followed Sondheim's

(see Table 1). On either side ofthe 1956-7 departmental guidelines, as many honours students chose to write a

* composition in one of the

4 See Allen Forte, 'Paul Hindemith's Contribution to Music Theory in the United States', Hindemithjahrbuch, 27 (1998), 62-79 (pp. 69-70).

5 Williams College Bulletin (December 1943), 94; (December 1944), 51.




larger forms' as opted to compose 'a group of smaller works'. But with

only one composition thesis preceding his own - Edwin Stube's rela-

tively short G minor organ voluntary - Sondheim's decision to write a

three-movement piano sonata was ambitious and idealistic. Perhaps his

struggle to complete the work is reflected in the more modest honours

compositions that were written after his own.

Beyond Sondheim's compositional difficulties lay practical ones as

well: he could not play the sonata. While his chosen instrument was the

piano, by the time he reached Williams he had abandoned whatever

aspirations he may have had to become a virtuoso.6 His preferred venue for performance at Williams was the theatre; he wrote shows for

the Adams Memorial Theatre and appeared in non-musical plays

during his years there.7 The technically demanding sonata lay beyond his considerable abilities.8 Certainly either Barrow or Nin-Culmell

could have premiered the sonata, had Sondheim set his sights on a

performance beyond whatever passable account he himself could give for anyone who would listen.

Sondheim, however, did not have performance in mind. Nor did he

seem to see beyond the narrow confines of the assignment at hand.

Unlike nearly all the other students whose composition theses are listed

in Table 1, he worked on music paper rather than reproducible vellum

and submitted his manuscript (presumably his only copy) to the

college. A piano sonata - a genre with two centuries of history and a

host of associations adhering to it - gave Sondheim an opportunity to

show his skill in controlling his musical language over a long expanse of time without the benefit of words. In many respects, and in contrast

to the musicals he composed and eagerly performed at Williams, the

sonata was more of an academic musical exercise than an expressive artistic pronouncement.

The mystery surrounding the sonata's second movement can also

lead to a cursory view of the entire work. Until November 2000, the

Williams College archives had only the first and third movements of

Sondheim's sonata in its collection. When in September 2000 I asked

Sondheim about the missing second movement, he responded by

sending a two-page sketch for it with instructions that it be shared with

the Williams archives. (That sketch, marked 'unfinished', is now on file

at the archives.) In a separate letter, Sondheim stated: T can't find the

6 Sondheim: 'I liked playing the piano part of the first movement of the Rachmaninoff C minor [concerto, op. 18], which I played in high school, toured, and gave recitals in Pennsyl? vania.' He also played Chopin's Polonaise-Fantasy and Ravel's Valses nobles et sentimentales, the latter 'entirely for my own pleasure'. Personal correspondence, 20 November 2001.

7 Not until the 1967-8 Bulletin did the following appear: 'It is expected that music majors will participate in at least one department sponsored performance group during their junior and senior years' (p. 153). New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner may reminisce about singing with Sondheim in the Williams College Glee Club, but Sondheim declares that he never sang in the Glee Club, nor was he required to participate in any organized music ensemble while he was a music major at Williams.

8 Sondheim: 'As for the Piano Sonata ... it's never been performed. And of course I knew how difficult it was -1 was writing theoretically rather than practically.' Personal correspondence, 19 January 2001.



262 STEVE SWAYNE

complete second movement, even though I'm almost certain I finished

it -1 doubt Bob Barrow would have let me get away with an incomplete thesis.' But Linda Hall, archives assistant at Williams College, assever-

ated that there is no record of the archives' having received the second

movement and that it is unlikely that it has been misfiled or lost.9

Even without a second movement, Sondheim's thesis dwarfs nearly all the others in its immediate vicinity in extent and scope. The other

theory students may have expanded their single movements into multi-

movement works at a later time; in their cases, one sonata movement

apparently satisfied Barrow. In contrast, Sondheim produced at least

two and maybe all three movements while he was a senior, with all the

pressures every graduand knows - and then some. (In his last year he

was composing what would have been his third Williams musical - High

Tor - but the project had to be abandoned when Maxwell Anderson

would not give Sondheim permission to adapt his play.) And where one

of the completed movements rather slavishly adheres to sonata form, another charts its course with almost reckless abandon.

The sonata continues to occupy a shadowy netherworld in Sond?

heim's biography and creative persona. It has never been performed in public. It is not scheduled for publication. It is never discussed as an

influential work. It may be close to being forgotten. However, with the

recent premiere of another early instrumental work - the Concertino

for Two Pianos, orchestrated for chamber orchestra with piano obbli-

gato by Jonathan Sheffer10 - it is time to reassess the sonata for what it

reveals about Sondheim's development as a composer.

THE MANUSCRIPT OF THE SONATA

The physical manuscript exhibits numerous fascinating features. For

example, the two outer movements are separately bound, a curious

decision that may be explained in part by the omission (and expec- tation?) of the second movement. The bindings themselves differ in a

number of small details that, when taken together, suggest that the two

movements may have been bound at different times and by different

individuals.

One can also see that Sondheim took greater care in planning and

writing the third movement than the first. The manuscript of the first

movement consists of five four-page folios, with each folio consisting of

a front page, interior verso and recto pages, and a rear page. One folio

serves as a wrapper; Sondheim used die front page as a tide page and

enclosed within this folio the remaining four folios. (He has continued

9 Personal correspondence with Sondheim, 19 January 2001, and with Linda Hall, 2 February 2001.

10 See my review of the composition and Sheffer's arrangement, 'The Concertino: When the Music Got Lost', Sondheim Review, 8/1 (summer 2001), 33. In his programme notes Sheffer mistak- enly identified the Concertino as Sondheim's senior thesis. More recently (12 April 2002), the presenter of a US National Public Radio broadcast introduced a recording of Sheffer's perform? ance with the statement that 'when [Sondheim] was in college, he wrote a sonata for two pianos as his senior thesis'.



sondheim's piano SONATA 263

to use the folio-as-wrapper method of organizing his manuscripts.) The

movement itself is written from folio to folio, giving the manuscript the

following layout:

folio 1 - wrapper: tide page on front page; empty interior verso page

folio 2-pp. 1-4 ofMS

folio 3-pp. 5-8ofMS


folio 5 - p. 13 of MS on front page; all other pages empty

folio 1 - wrapper: empty interior recto and rear pages

This arrangement of consecutive foliation results in six blank manu?

script pages, a relatively inefficient use of paper for a 13-page manu?

script with a title page. Another indication within the manuscript itself further suggests that

the transcription of the first movement from sketch to fair copy was not

completely plotted out in advance. On page 3 a piece of paper has been

pasted over the first system. The differences between the original

manuscript and the palimpsest are shown in Table 2.

Comparison of these features of the first-movement manuscript with

those found in the third movement reveals that in the latter, rather than using consecutive foliation, Sondheim interleaved his folios in the

following manner (page numbers correspond to front, interior verso, interior recto, and rear pages of each folio):

folio 1 - pp. 1, 2, 15 and 16 of MS




This manner of foliation allowed the binder to staple the folios

together at the centre (i.e. between pages 8 and 9), whereas the

arrangement of the folios in the first movement required that the

binder sew the folios together along the edges of the gathered folios. An unusual feature in the foliation of the third movement is found on

page 9 ofthe manuscript, where Sondheim used three staves to a system while maintaining an empty staff after each system, with the result that

there are only three systems on this page instead of the typical four.

Nowhere later in the manuscript does Sondheim appear to have tried

to make up for this lost system by squeezing in extra bars - in fact, the

final page has only three systems of regular grand staff writing on it.

Another interesting aspect of this movement is that Sondheim uses two

different types of manuscript paper. Folios 1 and 2 are from The Music

House (an establishment in the neighbouring town of North Adams); the paper for folios 3 and 4 was made for 'G. Schirmer' and is slighdy smaller and a litde more yellowed than the Music House paper. Where the first-movement manuscript is a model of waste, the third is a model of efficiency.

The two-page sketch of the second movement stands apart from the



264 STEVE SWAYNE

TABLE2

SONDHEIM, PIANO SONATA IN C MAJOR, FIRST MOVEMENT COMPARISON OF MANUSCRIPT AND PALIMPSEST

MSp. 3, first system (bar no.)

first bar (28) second bar (29)

third bar (palimpsest only) (30)

subsequent bar (31)

original manuscript

identical in both versions 3/4 bar: beat 1 identical in both versions; beats 2 and 3 identical with 2/4 bar in palimpsest

identical in both versions

palimpsest

3/4 bar: new material for beats 2 and 3

2/4 bar: identical with beats 2 and 3 of second bar in original

completed movements in a variety of ways.11 Although both pages are

written on the same Music House paper on which most of the sonata

appears, the layout is unusual. The folios from the Music House have

distinctive footers on the front page and the interior recto but not on

the interior verso or rear pages. The first page of the sketch has no

footer, thus making it either an interior verso or a rear page. It is also

clearly marked, like the companion first pages of the two completed movements, with a roman numeral indicating which movement this is.

The second page is written on the front page of a folio that is turned

upside down. Given that an opened and inverted folio would put the

front page on the left-hand side of a two-page layout, the two pages of

the sketch are written either on opposite sides of the same piece of

paper (i.e. interior verso and front) or on two different pieces of manu?

script paper. In either case, the sketch was provisional, as other factors

demonstrate.

The manuscript is written in pencil rather than pen, and the musical

and expressive details that fill the completed movements - dynamics,

phrase and pedal markings, time-signature changes - are almost non-

existent here. In a few instances, the absence of time-signature changes leads to confusion as to how to realize the sketch: did Sondheim mean

to move from 3/4 to 6/4, or are the notes supposed to be semiquavers rather than quavers? And the sketch breaks off mid-idea in this

predominandy 3/4 sketch with a hovering authentic cadence within an

unmarked 7/8 bar that has no closing barline - a fitting caesura for this

enigmatic movement (Example l).12

11 This description of the sketch is based on an observation ofa photocopy of the sketch and corroboration from Sondheim.

12 I acknowledge the cooperation of the copyright-holder in allowing me to quote, here and in Examples 3-6, 8, 10, 11, 13-18, 20-7, 29-31 and 33, from the piano sonata by Stephen Sondheim. Copyright ? (renewed) by Rilting Music, Inc. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission.



SONDHEIM S PIANO SONATA 265

Example 1. Sondheim, Piano Sonata in C major, second movement, bar 32.

Example 2. Suspended dominant chords.

G7sus4 F/G Dmin7/G

THE MUSIC OF THE SONATA

The 7/8 bar also serves as a useful introduction to the musical language that Sondheim used in the sonata. While there are gestures to tradition

throughout - cadential motion, sequential patterns, primary and

secondary materials - Sondheim employed them within a decidedly

contemporary musical language. Unadorned triads are difficult to find

in the sonata, appearing most noticeably (and almost as non sequiturs) at the close of the completed movements. Ninth, eleventh and thir-

teenth chords abound. The dominant chord in particular often takes

on a specific colouration. In lead-sheet parlance and with C as tonic, Sondheim tended to use G7sus4, F/G and Dm7/G chords for the domi?

nant function in the sonata. Example 2 shows these three chords next

to one another, with a fourth chord showing how they can also be

derived from rearranging superimposed fourths, a device that will

become important in the third movement. The 7/8 bar also has a pre-

ponderance of flats, including a double flat; in this it is representative of the sonata as a whole, which has no double sharps but has an abun?

dance of flats and double flats along with naturals (cautionary and

necessary) to cancel them out.

Table 3 provides an overview of the first movement. A cursory glance at the number of bars in each main division of the movement shows that the development section is the largest of the three. The table does

not reveal another factor that makes the development still lengthier than the other sections. The base metre for the movement is 4/4. The

development has a greater proportion of bars that are metrically larger than 4/4, and the other sections have a greater proportion of bars that



TABLE 3 g 0>

SONDHEIM, PIANO SONATA IN C MAJOR, FIRST MOVEMENT

(numbers are those of bars; * = in inversion; d = in diminution)

exposition (1-61) development (62-128) recapitulation and coda (129-76)

first-theme group (1-30) 1-11: 1st theme (= motif) in varied

guises (aand a1) 12-18: heraldic triplet idea (T) that

slackens

19-22: agitated transitional material derived from a; notable for

arpeggios at end of each bar 23-4: a6- in cadential 6-4 position 25-6: cascade of figuration derived

from a 27-30: furioso dissonant passage; a* in

accompaniment; slackens at end to lead to:

second-theme group (31-61) 31-8: 2nd theme (in A minor), 1st

statement (b)

39-48: 2nd theme, 2nd statement

(developed); leads to climax (47-8)

(47-8): ascending tetrachord

first-theme group (129-52) 129-39:: 1-11

140-3 (1st beat) :: 12-15 (1st beat); voicing of the final chord different between 2 versions

143-5: quieter reflection on material from 19-22

[no cognate for 23-4] 146-7:: 25-6

148-52: reiteration and transposition of

27-30; builds at end to lead to:

second-theme group (153-69) 153-60: similar to 31-8; at same pitch

level (i.e. no transposition), but now in C major (cf. 2nd-theme

recapitulation in 1st movement of Ravel's Quartet)

161-6: compression of ideas from 39-57; ?j much more agitated than jg exposition c?

167-9: tetrachord (from 47-8) thrice |

repeated in diminution ?



49-57: 2nd theme, 3rd statement, in

augmentation and piano 58-61: codetta built around T; music

comes to a near stop

TABLE 3 continued

section 1 (62-6): based on 1-11 section 2 (67-80): combination of a

(accompaniment and ostinato) and T

(melodic interest) section 3 (81-3): a'as dramatic

interruption section 4 (84-8): similar to 2nd half of

section 2 section 5 (89-94): extension of section 3 section 6 (95-101): agitato derived from

19-22 section 7 (102-13): short introduction

from ad, then contrapuntal combination of a and b, b becomes more prominent at section end

section 8 (114-24): impassioned statement pib fragments; metre

effectively switches to 12/8; ad in

accompaniment

section 9 (125-8): transition to

recapitulation built on ostinato use of ad

o z o

I

coda (170-6) ostinato built on a6, used extensively

along with tetrachord diminution; final dominant identical with dominant used to begin the

recapitulation



268 STEVE SWAYNE

Example 3. Sondheim, Piano Sonata in C major, first movement, bars

1-4.

Allegro moderato (J = 138)

a

are metrically smaller than 4/4. From the description of the discrete

sections within the development itself, one can further see that the

development section is far from trenchant. Indeed, because of the

nature of Sondheim's musical material, the concept of development becomes problematic, as the opening of the sonata demonstrates

(Example 3). The first phrase of the sonata encapsulates the procedures that Sond?

heim used throughout the sonata. The harmonic language makes a nod

to convention, with a bass line that clearly traces a I-IV-V-I progression. The chords, however, are all substitutes for the expected chords: the

opening tonic has an added ninth, is missing the third, and has an

accented fourth that may, in fact, redefine the function of the chord; the subdominant is a chromatically inflected ninth chord; the dominant

is a suspended chord. Only the closing tonic resembles a classic C major chord, and even it is bent by an appoggiatura in the alto voice. These

alternative harmonies arise from Sondheim's linear writing: no fewer than four voices make up the contrapuntal fabric. The phrase marks and

pedal marks leave litde to the whim of the performer, and in the outer

movements Sondheim was precise in his markings. The motivic aspects of the opening warrant separate discussion. The

three-note motif that opens the piece - the ascending perfect fifth fol-

lowed by the descending second - immediately folds back on itself and

is repeated a fourth higher. It is then answered by a modified inversion

of the same idea in the alto register. The rest of the sonata will give

ample evidence that Sondheim chose this three-note gesture for its

protean quality. In the first movement alone it will be used extensively as melody, figuration and accompaniment, in its original form, in inver? sion and in diminution. The motif will also provide the kernel from

which the principal melodies are derived for the other two movements. In other words, Sondheim chose his basic musical material so as to

develop it immediately and continuously. Such motivic concentration embodies Sondheim's beliefs of the

time, reflected in his contemporaneous senior analysis paper on

Copland, in which he cited as 'one of Copland's greatest virtues' the

manner in which the older composer thoroughly utilized his musical





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materials in his Music for the Theatre.13 Here, in the sonata, Sondheim

plotted out a piece almost as long as Copland's but one that uses a

smaller nucleus than did Music for the Theatre.1* By writing the sonata in

the way he did, Sondheim subjected his philosophy about the import? ance of effective motivic construction to an extreme test, i.e. how to

compose three distinct movements based on the same three-note motif

without succumbing to repetition or triviality. While he was not entirely successful in making the motif interesting

- the first movement in

particular has its longueurs - Sondheim here set out on a composi?

tional path to which he would return in Sweeney Todd (1979) and the

musicals that followed, works noted for their motivic construction.15

After this confident and assertive opening, the second phrase varies

the motif/first-group material rhythmically and directionally. Sond?

heim's repeated use of mirrored statements ofthe motif further under-

scores his interest in counterpoint at this juncture in his compositional

development. An awkward transition from a highly inflected F minor to

a stark E minor also brings in a new thematic idea, notable for the

heraldic repetition of the E and the triplets that follow (bar 12). These

two gestures, sometimes presented in tandem, sometimes separated, will

recur at pivotal moments throughout the movement (Example 4). The

motif temporarily recedes in the background as the new idea briefly

13 Stephen Sondheim, 'Notes and Comment on Aaron Copland with Special Reference to his Suite, Music for the Theatre' (unpublished paper, 1950), 5. This paper is now housed at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research at the University of Wisconsin (hereafter 'Wisconsin'). See also Steve Swayne, 'Music for the Theatre, the Young Copland, and the Younger Sondheim', American Music, 20/1 (spring 2002), 80-101.

14 For an analysis and history of Music for the Theatre, see Larry Starr, The Voice of Solitary Contemplation: Copland's Music for the Theatre Viewed as a Journey of Self-Discovery', American Music (forthcoming), and Howard Pollack, Aaron Copland: The Life and Work ofan Uncommon Man (Urbana and Chicago, 2000), 128-34.

15 The best and most widely available analysis of Sweeney Todd is found in Joseph P. Swain, The Broadway Musical: A Critical and Musical Survey (Oxford, 1990), 319-54. Sondheim had engaged in motivic writing prior to Sweeney Todd, as can be clearly seen in Anyone Can Whistle (1964). But when asked whether he was a 'motivic-oriented composer, one who builds a melody and an entire score out of small and motivic components', Sondheim responded: T started to put my toe in the water .. . with Pacific Overtures. Then, it sprang full flower in Sweeney.' See Steven Robert Swayne, 'Hearing Sondheim's Voices' (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1999), 344; pp. 331-49 reproduce the author's 1998 interview with Stephen Sondheim.



270 STEVE SWAYNE


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*r=rr

$fi>.

turns lyrical. The triplet gesture is used in a sequence, after which the

music becomes more agitated with the presence, for the first time, of

semiquavers. This transitional music is loosely derived from the motif -

especially as it appeared in the first bar - and itself will reappear later

with its distinctive auxiliary-note figure and the concluding arpeggio. The music is clearly building up tension on its way to the next signifi? cant structural signpost; even the motif definitely returns, but in diminu-

tion, in keeping with the rush towards the second thematic group. The

music erupts in a cascade of figuration both derived from the motif and

reminiscent ofthe heraldic/triplet idea, with its E-B bass (Example 5). Yet another transitional passage, this one marked/wnoso and with the

motif diminution now in the left hand as an accompaniment figure, leads to the second subject, in the relative minor (Example 6). Its

resemblance to the comparable theme in the first movement of the

Ravel Quartet is more than incidental (Example 7). Both themes

initially appear in the relative minor. Both prominendy feature the

9-8-7-6 tetrachord, first in descending motion and then in an ascend-

ing answer (bars 56 and 58 of the Ravel melody). Both themes share

the same rhythmic contour, with Sondheim's rhythm being an augmentation of Ravel's. These are all suggestive but not conclusive. Alook

at Sondheim's recapitulation, however, provides the telltale evidence

that he had the Ravel in mind when he was composing his sonata.

Ravel's theme is notable for the manner in which it is recapitulated in

the tonic major without a shift of the pitch classes; the tetrachord thus

becomes 7-6-5-4. Sondheim's theme reappears in precisely the same

way (Example 8). (One might further posit that Sondheim's three-note

motif is derived from the first three notes of the Ravel melody, though this would be far more difficult to prove.)



SONDHEIM'S piano sonata 271


30-5.

Ravel is not the only modern musician lurking behind Sondheim's

second theme. The sinuous accompaniment of Example 6 resembles

the piano writing of Prokofiev. Sondheim not only knew but may have

also played some ofthe Visions fugitives, op. 22, prior to his matricula-

tion to Williams (see Example 9).16 Sondheim's texture is more

involved than that of the Visions fugitives and more closely resembles

passages from Prokofiev's piano sonatas, although Sondheim said he

was not familiar with Prokofiev's sonatas at the time he was writing his

own sonata.17 Despite this unfamiliarity, the third statement of Sond? heim's second theme, in augmentation and marked piano, looks and

sounds like a page lifted straight out of one of Prokofiev's nine piano sonatas (Example 10).

In addition, Sondheim used the term martellato at bars 199 and 125 in the development and a third time at bar 170 in the coda. (It also

appears in the coda ofthe third movement at bar 165.) One associates

16 Sondheim: T never studied Prokofiev's piano sonatas and I didn't become familiar with them until after college. The only Prokofiev pieces I might have been in contact with as part of my piano playing career [was] when I was 15-16 years old. I have a memory of the Visions Fugitives, but that [and] the Love for Three Oranges "March," which I played on the piano, are the only Prokofiev I think I ever came into immediate contact with.' Personal correspondence, 21 March 2001. In this context, 'study' suggests preparation for public performance. 17 See note 16. The similarities between Sondheim's second theme (first movement) and the second theme of Prokofiev's one-movement Sonata no. 3 in A minor, op. 28, are particularly suggestive. In the Prokofiev, the tenor line traces a descending-ascending tetrachord, 8-7-6-5 of the C major sonority in the first bar but 9-8-7-6 of the D minor sonority in the third bar. Like the Ravel and the Sondheim, the Prokofiev presents the second theme in the relative key (here, C major) and recapitulates it in the tonic key without shifting the pitch classes.



272 STEVE SWAYNE

Example 7. Ravel, Quartet in F major, first movement, second theme.

pp tresexpr.

ri 55 I ? itl f~h fn _ ___

vlns | 1,2 &-T u U' U'

* __i

_c__ tresexpr. ^ m

f rrr rr

j. JI2

vlc

55

pizz.l *=T r r

l n? n i-?-rm

L-Jf L?J*

Jr -A-JJ2

*==f=f


152-7.

# %*. *$&.

/5ff ^?^jtg: a

fiEMM i___b

%b.

'hammered out' piano not with Ravel (or with Sondheim, for that

matter) but with Prokofiev and his percussive piano style. At this time

Sondheim was also playing the transcription of the March from The

Love for Three Oranges, whose opening, with its two bars of repeated




Example 9. Prokofiev, Visions fugitives, op. 22 no. 3 (Allegretto), bars

1-4.

|t*j j i I j h

fflp n

ffl^^

s rj^*^ r^*^

i i-Qb-Q

^^ r p

Example 10. Sondheim, Piano Sonata in C major, first movement, bars 49-53.

52 i)

iglg 11 fl

rg

s s

^TO-^

notes, has a martellatoiike character to it. Prokofiev, however, never

used the term martellato in his piano music,18 so Sondheim evidendy encountered it elsewhere, as will be seen below.

Whereas Sondheim's indebtedness to Ravel has been and continues

to be explored, the connections between Sondheim and Prokofiev are

virtually uncharted. In his study Sondheim's Broadway Musicals, Stephen

18 Although Prokofiev did not use the term marteUato, there is percussive writing in the Visions fugitives, especially nos. 14 and 19. The term marteUato appears three times in Gyorgy Sandor's edition of Prokofiev's Third Sonata - twice in the development and once in the coda - but this edition did not appear until 1966, and earlier versions of the sonata do not use the term.



274 STEVE SWAYNE


"illin Wrigi

marcato

Banfield writes about the Trokofiev-like polytonality' of There's Some?

thing About a War' (cut from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the

Forum) and the 'uncharacteristically discursive' harmonic scheme of

'Green Finch and Linnet Bird' from Sweeney Todd which 'could almost

have been written by Prokofiev or Berkeley'.19 But the links between

Sondheim and Prokofiev clearly run deeper than a harmonic similarity here and there. Prokofiev's linear writing and acerbic harmonies must

have delighted Sondheim, whose own work is suffused with involved

linear writing and non-conventional harmonizations. And Sondheim's

predilection for ostinati and vamps finds a cognate in Prokofiev's

motoric rhythms. The passage from the development of Sondheim's

sonata shown in Example 11 demonstrates his ability yet again to put his three-note motif through its paces, the result being a sound not far

removed from the mechanistic writing for which Prokofiev is famed

(note the presence of the heraldic/triplet idea). Motoric ostinati are to be found in nearly every mature Sondheim

show. To pickjust one from a score full of examples, Sunday in the Park

with George (1984) uses an ostinato which accompanies the painter

Georges Seurat when he is engaged in painting in his pointillistic manner and which recurs elsewhere in the musical (Example 12); this

particular example comes from 'Color and Light'.20 The similarity between this ostinato and a passage in the development of the sonata, written 34 years earlier, is striking (Example 13), and in each case the

sound world of Prokofiev is in the near distance. (Notice again the use

19 Stephen Banfield, Sondheim's Broadway Musicals (Ann Arbor, 1993) (hereafter SBM), 99 and 292.

20 'Color and Light', music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim ? 1984 Rilting Music, Inc. All rights administered by WB Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Warner Bros. Publi? cations U.S. Inc, Miami, FL 33014.



SONDHEIM'S PIANO SONATA 275

Example 12. 'Color and Light' (Sunday in the Park with George), bars

172-5.


of the motif in the left hand.) Considering Sondheim's penchant towards pastiche, other parallels between his music and the music of

Prokofiev are waiting to be drawn. The linearity of multiple voices, the

texture of the piano accompaniments, the dissonant tonal harmonies, and the deployment of motoric ostinati in the works of both composers

suggest that further exploration of the connections is warranted.

Two other passages from the first movement deserve mention. In his

musicals, Sondheim is noted for layering one melody on top of the

other, typically in ensemble numbers and often before a climactic

reprise of the main musical idea of the ensemble (e.g. Tt's a Hit!' in

Merrily We Roll Along, Tlease, Hello' in Pacific Overtures, the trio from

'Soon' in A Little Night Music, the 'Johanna' quartet in Sweeney Todd, and others). In the sonata we find an early example of this quodlibet- like aspect of Sondheim's style, as Sondheim in the development section cleverly interleaved the first and second themes (Example 14). Here again, the piano writing bears an uncanny resemblance to

Prokofiev's, although the marriage of first and second themes can be

found in the first movement of Hindemith's Third Piano Sonata in Bt

(1936), another sonata that Sondheim's sonata - especially the third

movement - brings to mind.

The second passage of note is found in the coda of this first move?

ment, where Sondheim recapitulated material that appears only in the

development section. The figuration from the final section of the

development, once again built from the three-note motif, winds down



276 STEVE SWAYNE


uo

-i *? m i=a m

i Ltijt p T

=f cresc. poco a poco

U *f ?y \-rif dt

i 'frn'Tn ^

wm m T-^ Sfi>. * 5a. * %b.


rit. molto 125

<t) H; ?J\rJ-J/ zi ?*? w7 z" ?*" ~w7 ~L ~*^w7 zr ? w7 z "?*" "J"/N JJDQt p

martellato mp

dim. poco a poco

njTTf 1^ ijjjJ JT^ $&. # 3a.

Jgju i^

ta^

tempo pnmo

IS

*/

to a dominant chord with a flattened fifth (Example 15).21 Sondheim

repeated the figuration and the altered dominant at the end of this

movement (Example 16). The third movement similarly contains

material from the central section of the movement that returns in the

21 Note how Sondheim demarcated the development and the recapitulation with a double barline; the same demarcation separates the exposition from the development.





coda, giving us two examples in this sonata of a technique Sondheim

will use in his maturity: the delayed presentation of important and

recurring musical material.

In discussing the manuscripts of the completed movements, one

could summarize the differences between the two manuscripts as one

of excess (first movement) versus efficiency (third movement). Musi-

cally, the first movement contains a surfeit of material, not only in the

development but in the other sections as well. As Table 3 shows, tran?

sitional material from the exposition proves to be almost as significant in the development as do the two main themes. The second theme in

particular is fragmented in the development to the point of being

nearly unrecognizable. Some of the transitions are jarring, and some

of the passage-work sounds contrived. Given the numerous short-

comings in the first movement, one might sympathize with Sondheim's

decision to leave the sonata unrevised and unpublished. This is a far cry, however, from saying that the first movement is

atrocious. The music may be out of balance at certain points, but the

skill revealed in the sonata is considerable. In addition to the element

of craft, one gets from the first movement a sense of passion and

engagement, as ideas build to dramatic (and generally effective) musical climaxes. The music is both deeply heartfelt and calculated to

an almost unnatural degree. In Sondheim's case, at this early stage in

his career, these two aspects of composition are not as separable as they

might be with other composers at a comparable level of musical matur?

ity (Chopin springs to mind). Here in the first movement, the calcu-

lations are in general too close to the surface and thus make the

passions sound less mature. Sondheim would grow in his ability to

handle large-scale musico-dramatic structures;22 the third movement

already provides an illustration of how Sondheim learnt to hide some

of his calculations more skilfully. But before I turn to that completed movement, there is more to say about the second movement.

22 See Banfield's discussion of 'Someone in a Tree' (SBM, 267-71), where he speaks of Sondheim's 'additive' and 'permutationaT techniques in this song and, by implication, Sondheim's other extended songs (see p. 358 for other examples).



278 STEVE SWAYNE

The sketch of the second movement contains 32 bars of continuous

music before it breaks off inconclusively. There are, however, numer-

ous instances of erasures and second thoughts throughout the sketch.

No dynamic marks are provided, and there is only one expression mark

(a marc. at bar 27) as well as a few phrase marks and one ritard followed

by a Tempo Primo. The manuscripts of the other two movements, in

contrast, are full of dynamics, pedal markings and other expressive indications. In this sketch, Sondheim had not completely settled on

how this portion of the second movement should sound, let alone how

it might continue.

Marked 'Andante', the music has a key signature of five flats. This is

something ofa curiosity, as the opening bass line undulates between Et

and At and the first real cadence at bars 11 and 12 moves from a Dt

suspended chord to a Gt major ninth chord. The movement has a

texture akin to a Satie gymnopedie. a 3/4 time signature; a bass line of

one note per bar; a tenor-register chord that enters on beat 2; the four-

bar introduction before the sinuous melody line appears (Example 17). The combination of these musical details suggests that Et Dorian

could be the mode Sondheim has chosen. Before this mode is con?

firmed, however, the music begins to use sharps and flats in equal measure and in a decidedly un-gymnopedie fashion. The harmonic

rhythm here speeds up as Sondheim employed his standard suspended- chord substitution for the dominant chord in a cadential formula. In

fact, two cadences a semitone apart chime back and forth. The disso-

nant bell-like notes on beat 3 will later coalesce into the first three bars

of the opening melody, now in D Dorian and in the upper register of

the piano (Example 18). After this melodie fragment, die music grows more agitated with an eruption of semiquavers that incorporates the

suspended-chord cadential formula. A slackening of tempo, a return

to quaver motion, and a 4/4 bar lead to a third statement of the

melody, this time with its first four bars in the bass. The writing here is

contrapuntally conceived, with four independent voices, though the

impression is one of stasis. After a one-bar passage of ascending semi?

quavers, Example 1 occurs, and the sketch ends.

It is difficult to imagine in what direction the movement would have

gone from this point forward. A few months later, Sondheim encoun?

tered difficulties with another slow movement, that of his Concertino

for Two Pianos (c. autumn 1950). In preparing it for its premiere nearly 50 years later, Sondheim made a few small cuts in the first movement

and extensive cuts in the 'endless' second movement.23 One could

posit that the second movement of the earlier sonata is also (and

literally) endless because, at this time in his writing career, Sondheim

found it difficult to control his musical material when it unfolds at a

more languorous rate. Indeed, a cursory overview of his mature songs turns up scant few where the melody unwinds in a plaintive arioso (e.g. sections of 'There Is No Other Way' in Pacific Overtures, Anthony's

'Johanna' in Sweeney Todd). More frequently, his ballads incorporate

23 Personal correspondence, 19 January 2001.



SONDHEIM'S piano sonata 279

Example 17. Sondheim, Piano Sonata in C major, second movement, bars 1-8.

Andante

Example 18. Sondheim, Piano Sonata in C major, second movement, bars 13-18.

13

2P_=? fejg? ?*m ?_S

Sva,

i m m* ^^^a ^m^

rf

tU l LdX l **%

m E

S=S m ^m

r=rf ?

more active melody lines that come to rest on longer notes (e.g. 'Send

in the Clowns' in A Little Night Music, 'Good Thing Going' in Merrily We

Roll Along, 'No One is Alone' in Into the Woods, 'What Can you Lose?' in Dick Tracy, T Read' in Passion).

But the second movement does sound strikingly like another Sond?

heim song, one that was written for the musical-in-progress The Girls

Upstairs (begun in 1965), withdrawn, and then reincorporated in the

overture of the renamed Follies (1971). 'All Things Bright and Beauti?

ful' is also in 3/4, has a gymnopedie-like accompaniment and a long- breathed melody, and contains chains of suspended chords that slip from one to the other by semitone motion. The song is also noteworthy for the number of expression marks Sondheim employed here, includ?

ing the unusual designation colla voce, making the song look like the

outer movements ofthe sonata in its expressive exactitude. The resem?

blance between the two works is so extraordinary, in fact, that a rework-

ing of the song could easily serve as a central section for a slow

movement east in ternary form, even though a distance of 16 years separates the sonata from the song (Example 19) ,24

24 For the USA and Canada: 'All Things Bright and Beautiful'. Words and music by Stephen Sondheim. Copyright ? 1971 by Range Road Music Inc, Quartet Music Inc. and Rilting Music, Inc. Copyright renewed. All rights administered by Herald Square Music Inc. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

For the world excluding the USA and Canada: 'All Things Bright and Beautiful' - Stephen Sondheim. ? 1971 Range Road Music Inc, Quartet Music Inc, Rilting Music, Inc. and Burthen Music Company, Inc All rights administered by Herald Square Music Inc. Copyright renewed. Used by permission. All rights reserved.



280 STEVE SWAYNE

The third movement, like the first, shows Sondheim's concern for

traditional forms and architectural balance even as it gives greater evi?

dence of motivic and structural creativity. Cast in a large ternary form

(ABA'), the movement combines elements of sonata and rondo form

without being a Beethovenian sonata-rondo (as in the final movement

of the Second Symphony). Where the first A section is itself cast in

ternary form, suggesting a rondo for the whole movement, the second

A' section is binary in form, in keeping with the recapitulation of a

sonata. The central B section - more a respite from, rather than a result

of, the outer sections - gives free rein to Sondheim's contrapuntal skills

and culminates in a fugato. Table 4 provides a schematic overview of

the third movement.

The workmanlike three notes of the main motif once again serve as

the basis for a large proportion of the musical material in this move?

ment (see Example 20) ,25 As in the first movement, the music opens with the upward leap of a perfect fifth followed by the descent of a

major second; once again, the basic rhythm is short-short-long (marked a). But a number of alterations make the motif sound new. It

now begins on the fifth scale degree instead of the tonic, starts with a

quaver pickup to the first bar instead of on beat 2, and is accompanied

by independent voices instead of being anticipated by an emphatic chord. Together with the slighdy slower tempo, these changes provide a contrast to the declamatory nature of the first movement's opening and combine here to give the motif a yearning quality (for example, the melodic appoggiatura of the right hand resolves on the tonic after

the downbeat). Moreover, after the motif has been stated, the music continues with

variants of it. The bass voice immediately echoes the first two notes of

the soprano - a truncation ofthe motif-with its arpeggiated fifths. The

soprano presents no fewer than three variants ofthe motif in quick suc- cession: the original; a variant that features a downward fourth instead

of the upward fifth; a five-note elision of these first two (the centre of

which is marked r, compare b in Example 3); and a fragment that con?

tains only the upward fifth. At the same time, the alto contrarily answers

the soprano with inversions ofthe stepwise-moving section ofthe motif, sometimes following the soprano, sometimes coming in with the

soprano, and sometimes anticipating the activity of the soprano. Sond? heim could have added 'giocoso' to his tempo marking, as the voices

play with each other, taking turns as they expand their independent but related musical ideas. The counterpoint that opened the first move?

ment clearly established a hierarchy where the top voice reigned. Here, the clear three-voice writing of the first two bars provides a clue from the very beginning of the movement that the activity in the inner and lower voices will prove to be as important as what is occurring in the

soprano.

25 See Table 4, note a, for an explanation of the bar-numbering in this movement.




Example 19. 'All Things Bright and Beautiful', bars 65-77.

65 a tempo, poco rubato poco rit

All

^ l=? ?

things

j?

Bright and beau - ti - ful,

*

H ^m colla voce f

mm ^^ i *=$ a fg %. f

5o5. ̂a/..

tfS a tempo =tbt t uTjf f j?

Ev- 'ry-thing for - ev - er, ask Ev-'ry-thing for-

H,n? ii. ?rf3 n W r ^=&g

fT

d&L ZKC5!

UP- d?F

4^r r

i

^ 4

ry day..

*=k S

ff^ *-Bf

*Wfr^ &m u ^M^

r

After a scalar gesture that will later figure prominently as a tran-

sitional figure (bar 3, right hand), the main idea returns (Example 21).

Only two bars separate the two statements of the main idea, but Sond?

heim ingeniously varied the pitches ofthe idea at its repeat. The return

is so emphatic, in fact, that the alteration could pass unnoticed. But this

is no slavish imitation. Where the leap of a perfect fifth opened the

motif before, now it is a major sixth, and the other intervals ofthe motif

now outline a C major pentatonic scale as the accompaniment begins



TABLE 4 ?g

SONDHEIM, PIANO SONATA IN C MAJOR, THIRD MOVEMENT

(numbers are those of bars)a

A (1-73) B (74-118) A' (119-70)

ternary (ABAr) with codetta A (1-27): first-theme group

1-10:1st theme, repeat of 1st theme and extension

11-19: sequence of lst-theme rhythm; ostinato accompaniment; climax and relaxation at 18-19

20-7: transition theme B (28-51): second-theme group

28-38: introduction, 2nd theme and extension

39-42: sequence of 2nd-theme

fragments

43-8: transition built up of juxtaposed and combined elements from A and B

49-51: transition derived primarily from rhythm of 1 and melodie line of lst half of 2

binary (CD)

C (74-100): intermezzo 74-9: main idea derived from 1

80-4: development of 2nd half of 74 85-?: reiteration of main idea 89-95: lyrical expansion of main idea

fragment

binary (AB') with coda A (119-45): verbatim restatement of 1-27

119-28:: 1-10

129-37:: 11-19

138-45 :: 20-7 B' (146-60): second-theme group

146-56: 2nd theme and extension, but with different accompaniment from that in 28-38

157-60 :: 39-42

coda (161-70) 161-2: transition material similar to

43-4

163-4: recapitulation of 80-4

i I



TABLE 4 continued ? o

96-100: augmentation, climax and ?? relaxation based on main idea g

D (101-18): fugato ?

101-2: subject derived from 74 g 103-6: answer, fifth below; countersubject ?

includes motif of upward leap followed co

by scalar descent; 2 bars free counterpoint 2 107-15: answer, tenth below; countersubject H

motif present; 7 bars free counterpoint; hint of Aat 115

116-18: subject, 2 octaves below; continuation of A; 1-bar transition

A' (52-67): recapitulation of first-theme

group 52-60: 1st theme, repeat of 1st theme

and extension; 52-6 :: 1-5; equivalent of 6 missing; 57-60 similar to 7-10, with different

accompaniment at 7/57 61-9: sequence of lst-theme rhythm;

ostinato accompaniment; 68-9 similar to 18?19

codetta (70-3) 70-1: development of material in 49-51 72: climactic augmentation and re-

harmonization of 1st half of 2 73: emphatic statement of upward-fifth

motif (2nd half of 2)

165-6: reharmonization of 70-1 167-8: augmentation of 72

169-70: thrice-repeated statement of

upward-fifth motif (73)

a The numbering used in this article treats the movement's first bar in the manuscript - a full 4/4 bar consisting entirely of rests save for a single quaver at the end - as a ?g null bar (as in Example 20, where the original bar 1 is reduced to a pick-up). oo



284 STEVE SWAYNE

Example 20. Sondheim, Piano Sonata in C major, third movement, bars 1-2.

Allegro (J = 126)


$&. *$a.

to take the music away from the tonic. The effect is both dramatic and

sure-footed. Notice also the inversion ofthe main motif in the left hand

in bar 3, as well as the descending fifths in bars 5 and 6, yet another instance of Sondheim's contrapuntal bent.

The scalar transitional figure blossoms into a true scale, taking us

into the tenor register of the piano. It is here that the music presents an ostinato figure in the right hand derived from the first theme (see c in Example 20) while the left hand provides both fundament and

melody. The movement may have started out sounding vaguely French, but the jagged and insistent rhythm of the ostinato hammers

home the sonata's American roots. Moreover, both the ostinato and the harmonies -

suspended chords and second-inversion major seventh or ninth chords - sound as though they were lifted wholesale





3fc. -*

a j

i n~Pl

JTBJ^BTCT

?e- %6.

out of 'Company' or The Miller's Son' (A Little Night Music), songs that, at the time of the sonata, were 20 years away. Sondheim's voice

here is unmistakable (Example 22). The ostinato and its harmonic components are first repeated and

then compressed, and the resulting tension finds release in 3,fortissimo whole-tone sonority that dissolves into the relative minor. The subse?

quent theme that emerges at bar 20 sounds peculiarly edgy; while set

within the framework of two 4/4 bars, the melody uses long and short

rhythms in an unpredictable, almost erratic manner. It is a finely crafted and distinct second theme in the classic sonata form, but in fact

it is only a transitional theme which soon gives way to a sequential

passage built around quartal harmonies (Example 23). Formally the

transition both fulfils and thwarts the expectations of sonata form; har-

monically, the passage employs some ofthe most Hindemithian sonori-

ties thus far encountered in this movement.

Whereas both the first theme and the transition are anchored in a

key - C major and A minor, respectively

- the actual second theme is

anchored on a pitch. A brief introduction (bars 28-9) adumbrates the

theme in the right hand while the left hand descends from E to A, the

central pitch of this episode. At this point (bars 30-1), the second

theme is presented in full: an undulating theme notable for its use of

large intervals with the longer notes (d) and scalar figures with the

semiquavers (e) (Example 24). The Hindemith ofthe Third Sonata -

particularly the scherzo, with its mixture of tertian and quartal writing - here gives way to Ravel. Notice the continued use of counterpoint in

the inner voices.



286 STEVE SWAYNE


_HHM^_???-??_-=___I_?M-i_n_M_l---M- ... -_=_--1_ ._l| H | II nini || ?

%b. *%b. % sa>. *?, *

Sfo.


* $a.

Sondheim's skill in manipulating his musical motifs is on display

throughout this section. Two moments in particular deserve comment. In an elaboration of the second theme, Sondheim employed a diminu-

tion of d as accompaniment to the regular form of d in bar 39, which

is followed by a syncopated melisma derived from e in bar 40. Quartal harmonies and seventh chords vie for prominence (Example 25). Even

more artful is the way Sondheim juxtaposed the first and a diminution






of the second themes - in the left and right hands, respectively - in the

transition back to the music that opened the movement (Example 26). As Table 4 shows, the return to the first group, with its transposition

of material and minor rewriting of accompaniment figures, remains

fairly true to the opening of the movement. It is the four-bar codetta

to the larger, self-contained A section of the movement that stands out

for its stentorian delivery of the opening motif and its harmonic

sophistication in handling dissonant sonorities as pre-dominants and

dominants (Example 27). Notice yet again the use of a suspended dominant sonority for the penultimate chord. It will be this material, almost doubled in length, that will close the movement and the sonata.

This grand pause mid-movement signals a change not only of tempo but also of texture and mood. While inner voices earlier provided traces of contrapuntal lines, the central section of this movement is

saturated with counterpoint, so much so that, halfway through the

section, the music pauses yet again, this time to introduce an extended

fugal treatment of the thematic material. Each half of this central

section also has its particular harmonic east: a turgid intermezzo that

moves from the minor to a luminescent major to quartal harmony and

then back to the minor mode, followed by the fugato - so marked in

the score - that begins with the quartal harmony ofthe intermezzo and

heads towards free dissonance. Presented at a pace slightly slower than

what has come before, the two halves constitute a lengthy binary inter?

lude to the outer sections of the movement, an interlude too large for

a classic rondo and too distinct to be called a development section.



288 STEVESWAYNE


f4#

ffg ii ?rrn-rrn m fff

__

pr; p r-

m W4 n ______ *RF^

^

__

'1 ?!?>-?- >^^t

Nevertheless, the basic musical material once again is derived from the

same three-note cell around which the entire sonata is organized, thus

making it developmental at the same time as it is original. The coun?

terpoint is awkward at times, especially in the fugato, but the sense of

formal balance and musical contrast is unerring and remarkable for

someone who had not written many extended compositions.

Example 28 tabulates the motivic relationships between the interlude

and the openings ofthe other three movements. For the first theme of

the first movement, the motif appears in its original form; all other

motifs have been transposed to this opening pitch for the sake of

comparison. An asterisk above a note signifies that it has been trans?

posed up from its original octave. This motivic economy over the

course of a composition more than 300 bars long clearly demonstrates

that Sondheim's interest in generating larger musical structures from

smaller motivic kernels pre-dates his postgraduate studies with Milton

Babbitt.26 If anything, here Sondheim appears to have been fixated on

squeezing as much musical juice out of his motif as possible. Of particu? lar note is how, for the second movement and the intermezzo, Sond?

heim manipulated the motif to appear in a minor mode, a feat made

manageable by leaving the third degree of the scale out of the 'Ur-

version' of the motif.

The use of the minor mode in the intermezzo is only one reason the

ubiquitous motif sounds fresh. In addition to the variations of rhythm and number of notes, Sondheim continually varied which notes of the

motif receive the main stress. The variation ofthe motif that opens this

third movement consists of two amphibrachs; in the intermezzo, the

motif opens with an iamb followed by an anapaest (Example 29, left

hand). Here the motif, marked marcato and appearing in the tenor

register, uses the upward leap of a fifth and then continues with a

second upward leap of a fourth (a). As the accompaniment figure shows, it is this secondary leap resolving stepwise in the opposite

26 See SBM, 22.




Example 28. Motivic relationship in Sondheim's Piano Sonata in C

major.

lst movement, 1st theme

2nd movement

3rd movement, lst theme

| j J J J f

J

3rd movement, intermezzo and fugat< ? $ j^'

* * *

y j p n

^^

direction that receives the most thorough treatment. In the right hand, the motif in diminution continuously folds back upon itself (a). The

tenor melodie idea moves beyond the motif to incorporate an ascend-

ing scale that is reminiscent of the second theme of the third move? ment (e). The dramatic change of character from the opening section

to the intermezzo effectively obscures the derivative nature of most of

the musical material in this central section.27

The piano writing for this intermezzo finds Sondheim at his most

Ravelian. The sound world of the Sonatine and Jeux d'eau lies just

beyond Sondheim's harmonies, which continue to emulate Hinde-

mith's Third Piano Sonata. The texture, however, is vintage Ravel, down to the cascading demisemiquaver arpeggios that appear immedi?

ately before the return of the main intermezzo idea. After the melody turns to the major mode, the music puckishly dances around the key- board, almost in echo of 'Ondine' from Gaspard de la nuit (Example 30). The notation is unusual not only for its three staves but also for

the figuration in the right hand in bar 91, which, though marked stac?

cato, is phrased throughout. In the fastidiousness that marks most of

the manuscript - witness the superabundance of pedal markings

-

Sondheim wanted to make sure the reader would see the shape of the

line.

After a climax that sounds more forced than inevitable, the harmonic

rhythm slows down and the texture thins out to make way for a fugato built on the same melodie idea as the intermezzo (Example 31).

Throughout the sonata and especially in the intermezzo, Sondheim

had demonstrated his interest and skill in counterpoint, and this fugato serves as the capstone of his contrapuntal writing. It nevertheless feels like a miscalculation. It does little to develop the musical material

beyond what the intermezzo has already done. It also postpones the

27 While it is most likely a contrapuntal happenstance rather than a deliberate derivation, the alto voice in this figure could be construed as an augmentation of the d material in the second theme of this movement.



290 STEVE SWAYNE

reprise of the opening and threatens the architectural balance of the

emerging sonata-rondo form. And pianistically it is one of the more

ungrateful moments in the sonata. Beyond its obvious technical value

as an exercise in fugal writing, what might have been Sondheim's (and

Barrow's) aesthetic aim in including a fugato in the third movement?

Given Sondheim's admission that a comparison between his sonata

and the music of Hindemith is 'on the nose',28 a counterpart of Sond?

heim's fugato can be found yet again in Hindemith's Third Piano

Sonata. There, the fourth movement is a boisterous double fugue whose

second subject is taken wholesale from a fugato section in the slow third

movement. In addition, the subject entries in the Hindemith exposi- tions do not follow the standard tonic-dominant-tonic exposition of a

Baroque fugue but enter as tonic-dominant-supertonic-tonic. Simi-

larly, Sondheim took his subject for the fugato from earlier in the sonata

(the intermezzo), and the fugal answers enter at the subdominant and

the mediant. Another telling feature about Sondheim's fugato is that it

is the only place in the outer movements that has a key signature -

G minor, presumably -

although Sondheim quickly goes far afield from

any tonal base. (The Hindemith uses no key signatures and is tonally

free-ranging but is in the key of Bk) Hindemith's Third Piano Sonata also employs quartal and quintal

harmonies within its basic triadic framework. The climactic passage from the third movement of the Hindemith shown in Example 32 is

clearly rooted in A, but triads yield to more complex chords, with some

that remain in a tertian universe and others that move into a quartal realm. One does not have to look far in the Hindemith to find other

similar passages. Hindemith's influence on Sondheim's sonata has been noted before.

Although he had not seen the sonata, Banfield presciendy remarked

that it showed an indebtedness to Hindemith, surmising that Barrow's

influence on Sondheim - and Hindemith's on Barrow - would echo

through the sonata.29 And although quartal harmony has also been

attributed to Barrow's other European teacher, Vaughan Williams, the

linear-contrapuntal writing in much of the Sondheim resembles 'the

linear-contrapuntal manner of the New Objectivity (neue Sach-

lichkeit)', to use David Neumeyer's description of Hindemith's musical

language.30 Elsewhere Neumeyer referred to 'Hindemithian counter?

point - with its arched tension curves, crisp formal contours, and

melodies and harmonies of seconds and fourths', features evident

28 Personal correspondence, 19 January 2001. 29 SBM, 19. Banfield refers to the piece as a three-movement sonata, giving the impression of

a completed work rather than a projected conception. 30 Alain Frogley, 'Vaughan Williams, Ralph', The New Grove Dictionary ofMusk and Musicians (2nd edn, online version), accessed 12 March 2001; David Neumeyer, The Music of Paul Hindemith (New Haven, CT, 1986), 4. Not everyone shared Hindemith's enthusiasm for Kurth's notion of linear counterpoint; Schoenberg dismissed it as 'nonsense' and 'imitation-imitation'. See Arnold Schoenberg, 'Linear Counterpoint' and 'Linear Counterpoint: Linear Polyphony', Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg (Berkeley, 1975), 289-97.





Meno mosso (J = 104)


intrrtfyrTffrfPf tE

r-rf-?*-*?

w staccato

=F*

%e- =*t=* s

e *$fc. %%b.


100

Fugato rit. a tempo

? - *

v 'lUJJ%j

^ m p f _~._ m rT" TT

m J J i sempre legato

i v P \^=*

T f f f

P ^J^f-CJ/H/

?



292 STEVE SWAYNE

Example 32. Hindemitii, Piano Sonata no. 3, third movement, bars

134-42.

tv s i 0 ? ~f _* ~tii *v i

^

i rirr' T

?

throughout the Sondheim.31 And the use of 'counterpoint-sonata form' in both Sondheim's sonata and Hindemith's Third Sonata makes

the Hindemith connection even stronger.32 Indeed, this modelling after Hindemith - and, to a lesser degree,

Prokofiev- also helps to contextualize Leonard Bernstein's criticism of

Sondheim's deliberate 'wrong-note' writing in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962) .33 Some 12 years before Forum, Sondheim

unashamedly engaged in such 'wrong-note' writing. The passage shown in Example 33 clearly begins and ends in G minor - and note the

allusion to the opening of the third movement at bar 115 - but the

harmonic language between the tonic cadences makes no concession

to Tin Pan Alley concepts of tonality. Sondheim did not increase the

dissonance in his Broadway music in comparison with other composers, as Bernstein accused. Rather, it appears that Sondheim may have cir-

cumscribed his own adventurous language in order to make his Broad?

way music more readily accessible. Because of his compositional

exemplars, Sondheim's 'wrong-note' writing had been a part of his

musical vocabulary from his Williams days forward.

As Table 4 shows, the recapitulation of the opening section is fairly

straightforward. The most notable variants are the change in

accompaniment for the second theme and the complete elimination

of a final statement of the opening material, a characteristic more in

keeping with a recapitulation of a sonata movement. Yet another

formal novelty is the return of material from the intermezzo in the

coda, a feature also found in the first movement.

With its eclectic mix of forms, harmonic language, counterpoint and

texture, the third movement in particular provides evidence of a

31 David Neumeyer, 'Hindemith and his American Critics: A Postmodern View', Hindemith- Jahrbuch, 27 (1998), 218-34 (p. 229).

32 See Joseph Dorfman, 'Counterpoint-Sonata Form', Hindemith-Jahrbuch, 19 (1990), 55-67, where Dorfman discusses, among other pieces, Hindemith's Third Piano Sonata: 'the intro? duction of counterpoint into all sections of the sonata movement - exposition, development and recapitulation - in effect created a new and unique structure, which we shall call counterpoint- sonataform' (p. 55).

33 Sondheim: *You might be interested to know. . . that I played the score of Forum for Lenny and he criticized it because of its having "arbitrary" wrong notes, by which he meant (among other things) the tritones. You might also be interested to know that his use of the tritone throughout West Side Story hadn't occurred to him until I pointed it out.' Personal correspondence, 19 January 2001.





in

jt^j^ iE==5? 31

BP S^ m Li r *2T

^m ^m m

115

J4h^

Lr dim. poco a poco - - -

S m n S

^f

capable musical craftsman whose imagination rarely outran his

abilities. It also looks forward to the music in the professional shows

much more profoundly than the Williams shows do. One can easily see, from the strength of this sonata, why Sondheim was awarded the

Hutchinson Memorial Scholarship to study with Babbitt.34

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SONATA

If this sonata gives such clear indication of Sondheim's talent and the

direction his music would take, then why has it languished for over 50

years? The main reason is that it is housed in the Williams College archives.

34 'In memory of her son, the late Hubbard Hutchinson '17, Mrs Eva Hutchinson, of Columbus, Ohio, provided in her will for an annual scholarship of $3,000, to be awarded to that member of the graduating class at Williams "most talented in creative work in music, writing, or painting". The award, which will be known as the Hubbard Hutchinson Memorial Scholarship, is nearly twice the amount of any previous Williams scholarship and ranks with the highest in the United States. The winner of this award, who will be chosen by a committee consisting ofthe head of the fine arts department, a member of the English department, and the faculty member in charge of music, will receive the grant for the two years following his graduation, with no restric- tions upon its use. "He shall be entirely free to study, travel, or loaf, as he may see fit," the terms of the award state. In addition, he may apply for a year's renewal at the end of two years, which may be granted at the discretion ofthe college authorities.' 'New Scholarships', Williams Alumni Review, 32/3 (February 1940), 76-7. The 1951 college prospectus lists Sondheim as the recipient of the 1950 scholarship.



294 STEVE SWAYNE

Northwestern Massachusetts is both rural and remote, and the

material for the Sondheim scholar at Williams is sparse. Yearbooks and

student handbooks, stories in the student newspaper, and articles and

columns penned by Sondheim for student magazines make up the

body of research material at Williams, and these have not as yet been

gathered together. In fact, the Williams collection pales in comparison with the holdings of three other collections. Sondheim gave the bulk

of his pre-1965 papers to the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater

Research at the University of Wisconsin; certain artefacts (such as the

script for the unfinished 1952 musical Climb High that contains Oscar

Hammerstein IFs annotations) are available for research only there in

Madison. Sondheim has promised the bulk ofthe remaining papers to

the US Library of Congress, to which he has already given his sizeable

LP collection. And he has been uncommonly generous to scholars by

granting access to manuscripts that are currently in his possession and

kept in his Manhattan townhouse. Other than the piano sonata, then, there has been little reason for a Sondheim scholar to travel to

Williams, and in fact few scholars have done so.

This lack of investigation has in turn led writers to speculate about

the sonata and its importance in Sondheim's development, usually with

the result of ignoring the ramifications that emerge from the work.

Banfield, for example, failed to discuss to what degree Hindemith shad-

owed Sondheim after the sonata, as though Sondheim might have

mimicked Hindemith and Barrow while in college only to outgrow them on graduation. Similarly, not having examined the sonata, com-

mentators have emphasized the seemingly unlikely apprenticeship that

Sondheim had with Babbitt.35 Because of the proximity of his first pro? fessional musical, the 1954 Saturday Night, to his lessons with Babbitt

(autumn 1950 to spring 1952), Sondheim's musical traits - motivic

development, attention to musical structure and 'the long line',

piquant harmony - are traced back to Babbitt and not further back to

his years at Williams.

Sondheim himself has inhibited scholarly work on the sonata

through his reluctance to allow the sonata to gain wider distribution.

Not only has he rejected all requests to publish the sonata, but he has also kept a tight rein on the proliferation of copies ofthe manuscript.36 Given its proximity to the unpublished college shows -

Phinney's Rainbow (1948) and All That Glitters (1949) - the sonata has generally been viewed as a student work, and hence an immature one. Lastly, its

incompleteness suggests some dissatisfaction with the work on

35 See Anthony Tommasini, 'Finding Still More Life in a "Dead" Idiom' [profile of Milton Babbitt], New York Times (16 October 1996), H39 and passim, Meryle Secrest, Stephen Sondheim: A Life (New York, 1998), 85-7; SBM, 20-6; Craig Zadan, Sondheim & Co. (2nd edn, updated, New York, 1989), 6-7.

36 In December 1997,1 contacted the archivists at Williams College and asked for a photocopy of the sonata. I was informed that all theses required the permission of the author for photo- copying and that the archivist would be in touch with me. The following month, I received a letter from Stephen Sondheim, dated 20 January 1998, informing me of his decision not to permit a photocopy of the sonata to be sent to me. When I was finally able to view the sonata at Williams in September 2000, it had a3"x5" card appended to it: *Note: Stephen Sondheim has refused requests to duplicate his thesis and presumably will continue to do so. See 1/22/98 correspon? dence in "Theses" folder.'




Sondheim's part, although many of the compositions he began between 1949 and 1962 -

including stage pieces - were left incomplete

for a variety of reasons.

But for all its inaccessibility and neglect, the sonata is far from

insignificant. Sondheim's earliest extended composition demonstrates

a musical dexterity that is exceptional for a 20-year-old composer and

hints at greater accomplishments in the future. The musical language of the sonata already contains the sonic hallmarks that are character-

istic of the mature Sondheim. And the work provides the clearest evi?

dence so far available of whom Sondheim chose as musical mentors

and how those choices reverberate in the later musicals.

As a chronicle of Sondheim's musical development while he was at

Williams, the sonata does not stand alone. The class history in the 1950

Williams yearbook unexpectedly details Sondheim's compositional maturation. One reads of a growing dismay on the part ofthe unnamed

author as Sondheim becomes more and more serious in his pursuits. For his sophomore year, Sondheim composed the parodistic Phinney ys

Rainbow, an oblique reference to Burton Lane's Finian's Rainbow

(1947) - still on Broadway at the time Sondheim wrote Phinney's Rainbow- and a direct reference to Williams's president, James Phinney Baxter III. The author singled out Sondheim for that sophomore (and somewhat sophomoric) production: 'One of our boys, Steve Sondheim, wrote Phinney's Rainbow, which was brought to the AMT stage over

Spring Houseparties. We were sure he was a genius.'37 If the author held this opinion, he seemed less sure by the time of

Sondheim's junior-year musical. 'That spring [of 1949] we enjoyed All

That Glitters and had quite a sober spring house party, or we should say

proper.'38 Perhaps the astute reader knew that Sondheim was the

genius behind All That Glitters, but the author doesn't bother to identify him, even though the 1949 yearbook referred to the musical as a

'resounding success'.39 The reviewer for the Williams Record, though, was as sober as the writer for the Gul

In general the songs were second-rate ... Phinney's Rainbow made no

attempt to be Serious Art; it was satirical throughout, and even poked fun at its love interest. Sondheim's new music, on the other hand, seeks to mix

parody and social significance, to combine a straight romantic love affair with biting satire. To me it seems an unstable compound, and I believe that the play would have been better had it stuck to parody.40

37 1950 Gul (College Yearbook), 35. 'Much praise went to co-authors Steve Sondheim and T. S. Horton for an extremely successful and entertaining production.' 1948 Gul (College Yearbook), 122.

38 1950 Gul (College Yearbook), 35. 39 'The sophomores.. . came out with the news that they were sponsoring a dance on the week-

end of March 19.. .. This was the same week-end that Cap 8c Bells was presenting its second production of the year, All That Glitters, a musical written by Steve Sondheim. Both the dance and the musical were resounding successes, and as everyone expected, there was a slight snowfall., 1949 Gul (College Yearbook), 73.

40 Edwin N. Perrin, 'AU That Glitters Shiner for Cap and Bells, Cast', Williams Record (23 March 1949), 4.1 thank W. Anthony Sheppard at Williams College for making me aware of this review.



296 STEVE SWAYNE

What was perceived as an unstable compound at Williams would

become standard fare for the mature Sondheim.

Sondheim's senior-year project -

High Tor - had to be shelved

because Maxwell Anderson would not grant Sondheim the rights to set

his play to music.41 Strangely, there is no mention of Sondheim or High Tbrin the events ofthe senior year, although in at least one other place in the 1950 yearbook the aborted musical is mentioned, suggesting that the campus community was well aware of Sondheim's work on yet another musical.42 A student revue, Where To From Here, was substituted

for High Tor; Sondheim contributed one song, the melancholic 'No

Sad Songs for Me', to the show.43 By that time, the author seems to have

grown cool towards Sondheim; no further mention of him is made in

the class history. The student who was hailed as a genius as a sophomore is voted the second most original student on campus by the end

of his senior year.44 It appears that the genius may have become a bit

too serious - or perhaps too prickly - for his fellow students.

It appears, too, that the music for these productions became increas?

ingly sophisticated and less accessible.45 Certainly the sonata, with its

extended tonality and free use of non-harmonic notes, furthers this

trend towards greater musical abstraction and complexity. It is a

forward-looking work, not merely an academic exercise, in which the

increasing contrapuntal and harmonic complexity of the later shows is

foreshadowed.

A particular syntactical feature of the sonata's harmonic language is

the preponderance of suspended dominant chords, which presages a

trait that one repeatedly discovers in Sondheim's shows. Authentic

cadences both in the sonata and in later Sondheim often use such sus?

pended and unresolved dominants. The song 'Lovely' from A Funny

Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum provides a fine example of such

cadences. A duet between the two young lovers, Philia and Hero,

'Lovely' opens with an instrumental introduction, after which Philia

sings her verse, and then Hero reprises her music with his verse.

Example 3446 is extracted from Hero's verse. In all three cases - the

introduction and the two sung verses - the 'normal' dominant is

41 Secrest, Stephen Sondheim, 79. 42 The AMT Committee felt we ought to get familiar with the classics by going to see their

Agamemnon, and Steve Sondheim was supervising a group of amateurs in the production of another Masse musical, following Maxwell Anderson's axe of his HIGH TOR adaptation.' 1950 Gul (College Yearbook), 90.

43 'Cap and Bells sponsored and enginered [sic] Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine, William Saroyan's My Hearts in the Highlands, and a student written musical, while the AMT Committee launched the season with Faust (Part I) in connection with the world wide celebration of Goethe's two hundredth birthday.' 1950 Gul (College Yearbook), 127. See also Secrest, Stephen Sondheim, 82-3.

44 In the 1950 Gul, Sondheim received votes from his peers in a number of categories: Most Versatile, 22 (3rd place); Most Brilliant, 14 (6th); Most Likely to Succeed, 29 (4th); Done Most for Williams, 4 (last); Most Original, 32 (2nd).

45 See SBM, 16-19, for discussion of the music of Phinney s Rainbow, All That Glitters and High Tor.

46 'Lovely', music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. ? 1962 (renewed) Burthen Music Company, Inc. (ASCAP). All rights administered by Chappell & Co. (ASCAP). All rights reserved. Used by permission. Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc, Miami, FL 33014.




Example 34. 'Lovely' (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the

Forum), bars 63-80.

Win - some Sweet and warm and win - some, Ra-di-ant as

m

TTTT

X 1

v & * 4 J ? * r * t

jJ_J

TTTT

X

^^ ^ ^^ ^

mou - sand _ ships _ Would have to die of shame.. And I'm

withheld until the final authentic cadence (not shown in the example). Notice how the tenor line, counterpoint to the melody, provides the

'normal' dominant on nearly every third beat of every odd-numbered

bar. This use ofthe suspended dominant appears not only in the sonata



298 STEVE SWAYNE

but also in so many of Sondheim's non-pastiche songs that it becomes

difficult to single out examples in the mature Sondheim. The tide

number to the musical Company (1970) and 'Sorry-Grateful' from the

same musical employ this suspended dominant, as do the tide numbers

oiMerrily WeRoll Along (1981) and Into the Woods (1987). In the sonata, these suspended dominants come from the same harmonic realm as

does the quartal harmony, which in turn finds resonance in Hinde?

mith's harmonic language (cf. Example 2). The omnipresence of this

harmonic feature suggests a far greater reach for the musical language contained in the sonata than has heretofore been proposed.

It is not only the harmonic language of the sonata that extends

beyond the confines of Williams. The linear counterpoint that suffuses

the work informs later Sondheim as well. The tenor voice in Example 34 is but one example, and the instances mentioned in the preceding

paragraph also involve considerable contrapuntal writing. Hindemith

again seems like a logical point for such counterpoint, but another

influence upon Sondheim needs to be examined.

In his unfinished novel, Bequest, written while he was at Williams, Sondheim's protagonist, pianist-composer Edward Gold, is referred to

as 'Mr Rachmaninoff \47 And, as recendy as 1998, Sondheim referred

to Rachmaninov as 'one of my favorites'.48 But this lifelong love of

Rachmaninov seems to find litde oudet in Sondheim's music. The long- breathed melodies that are a Rachmaninov trademark are rare in Sond?

heim's work, and the sumptuous harmonies are also absent for the

most part. Thus it is all the more curious that Sondheim should have

said of Rachmaninov (and other composers), 'the way the tune sticks

in your head has less to do with melodic line than what did they do har-

monically underneath'.49

Yet Rachmaninov was also a master contrapuntist, whose works are

overrun with complex inner voices that play with and against the

melody and harmony. While the melodies routinely draw comment,

very often these melodies are accompanied by extended counter-

melodies, with the result that Rachmaninov's harmonies are often

arrived at through linear means. Undoubtedly, Rachmaninov's

appreciation of and skill in counterpoint are traceable to his years at the Moscow Conservatory and to his teacher, Sergey Taneyev, who

taught counterpoint there and who wrote a treatise on counterpoint.50 But Rachmaninov was attuned to counterpoint throughout his life. In

a 1909 interview, 'Modernism is Rachmaninoff's Bane', he decried

Elektra and praised Die Meistersinger, in part because of the ways in which

counterpoint is handled: 'To what end all this polyphonic wilderness

[in Elektra] when the result is incomprehensible? ... How infinitely more effective is the counterpoint at the close of the second act [of

47 Stephen Sondheim, Bequest (unfinished novel), 10 (at Wisconsin). 48 Swayne, 'Hearing Sondheim's Voices', 345. 49 Ibid. 50

Sergey Ivanovich Taneyev, Podvizhnoy kontrapunkt strogogo pis'ma [Convertible counterpoint in the strict style] (Leipzig and Moscow, 1909; Eng. trans., 1962).




Meistersinger] than all that of Salome and Elektra.'51 In a sketch for an

unnamed piece, contrapuntal issues concerned Rachmaninov from the

start.52 And the noted Rachmaninov scholar David F. B. Cannata

argued that contrapuntal writing 'was crucial to the tonal coherence of

Rachmaninoff's symphonic structures'.53 It is the activity of the inner

voices that gives Rachmaninov's music its rich texture; they are the

'harmonically underneath' musical matter that Sondheim so readily imitates in his own work that sounds nothing like Rachmaninov. Here,

then, an important connection exists between Hindemith, Rachmani?

nov and Sondheim. In the sonata, Sondheim engages in musical gestures that at times show a greater indebtedness to one composer than

another. (See Example 8 for a more Rachmaninovian imitation.) But

in his commitment to counterpoint, Sondheim imitates both Hinde?

mith and Rachmaninov, using harmonic language that, in the main, is

beholden to neither composer. In addition, Sondheim's use of the term martellato resembles Rach-

maninov's usage. In the final bars of the latter's Second Piano Con-

certo, the music is marked 'Risoluto' and contains an additional

marking for the solo instrument, with its triplet figuration (and melody in the thumbs, as it were), of martellato. Sondheim played the first, not

the third, movement of the concerto,54 yet where the term appears in

his own first movement it accompanies triplet figuration, and in the

third movement it signals the sonata's peroration. Given that some of

Sondheim's figuration cannot easily be 'hammered out' - see Example 15 with its slurs - one wonders if Sondheim fully understood the term.

He probably appropriated the widely known but rarely used term from

a score he knew, and this unusual notation in Rachmaninov would

seem the likeliest source.55

The sonata, then, provides evidence of the influence of Ravel, Satie

and Rachmaninov, composers who have already been linked to Sond?

heim, and Prokofiev and Hindemith, composers not usually associated

with Sondheim. Hindemith's presence in fact is such a pronounced factor in this early work that it is difficult to imagine that Sondheim

could have completely jettisoned Hindemith's sound world in forging his own. When asked what he was listening to at the time he wrote the

Concertino - a work that followed the sonata by mere months - Sond?

heim remarked, T'd say I was in my Hindemith phase, especially "The

Four Temperaments".'56 How long did this phase last?

51 As quoted in David Francis Buder Cannata, 'Rachmaninoff's Changing View of Symphonic Structure' (Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1993), 33.

52 Ibid., 51. 53 Ibid., 97; see also 98,101,104, 191 and 198-201. 54 See above, note 6. 55 Rachmaninov also used the term marteUato in the Variations on a Theme of Chopin, op. 22 (see

Variation 10), and in the third movement of the revised version of the Fourth Concerto, op. 40 (see four bars before Figure 47, where the term is spelt martelato). This information comes courtesy of David F. B. Cannata, who added that 'the term is indeed unusual' in Rachmaninov (private correspondence). 56 Anthony Tommasini, 'A Ldttie Classical Music from Sondheim's Youth' [review of the Concertino], New York Times (17 May 2001), B5. For more on Sondheim's choice of The Four Temperaments as a significant work, see Steve Swayne, 'Sondheim's "Hindemith Phase"', unpub? lished paper delivered at the annual meeting of the Society of American Music, Lexington, Kentucky, 7 March 2002.



300 STEVE SWAYNE

Example 35. 'Witch's Lament' {Into the Woods), bars 1-6.

Rubato

/

yt j j j j > ^ jj, j

This is the world I meant. Could-n't you lis - ten?_

m s_r _____

S_i

f /J 3 J

JQ JJ. 3 J 1 J

In tempo (J = 100)

-EEEfe

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Space does not permit a full discussion of Hindemithian echoes in

the mature Sondheim. But by way of example, the central sections of T Know Things Now' and 'On the Steps ofthe Palace' (Into the Woods) bear sonic traces of Hindemith. The opening ofthe 'Witch's Lament', also from Into the Woods (Example 35),57 has a distant relationship with the opening ofthe third movement of Hindemith's Third Piano Sonata

(Example 36). Note in particular the move from one chord to another

by means of linear counterpoint as well as the presence of pedal notes in each example. In drawing this comparison, I am not suggesting that

57 'Witch's Lament', music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. ? 1998 Rilting Music Inc. All rights administered by WB Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission.




Example 36. Hindemith, Piano Sonata no. 3, third movement, bars

1-8.

Mafiig schnell (J = etwa 84)

frra ?j J7i ,q.

g>P?gi u

r THr r^m

Sondheim consciously borrowed from the Hindemith in writing his

song. Rather, I wish to show how Sondheim transmuted Hindemith's

language into a musical language that is both distinctly Sondheim's and

yet remains traceable to Hindemith.58

One composer conspicuously absent from the sonata is Copland. In

his article on Sondheim in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, Banfield

made a claim he was to repeat in his later book: 'Sondheim's musical

language, in which melody and harmony are closely argued, retains

strong affinities with Ravel and Copland, while making sophisticated use of jazz and dance idioms; it is intensely personal, often bittersweet, in its expression.'59 Sondheim, however, has stated that 'Copland hasn't particularly influenced me. He's influenced every American

writer. But. .. Copland doesn't influence me particularly'.60 The sonata supports Sondheim's assertion that Copland's influence

on his musical language is minimal. The metrical east of the move?

ments does not resemble the metrical shifts so often found in

Copland's music. The thickness of the harmonies runs counter to the

58 In speaking of influences on Hindemith, Forte mentions, among others, 'August Halm and, perhaps more important, Ernst Kurth, whose psychological approach - as well as his notion of "linear counterpoint" - was very influential upon Hindemith's generation' (p. 64). And of Hindemith, Aaron Copland said: 'He wrote a kind of linear counterpoint that infused new life into ancient contrapuntal procedures.' Aaron Copland, Our New Music: Leading Composers inEurope and America (New York, 1941), 111, as quoted in Neumeyer, Hindemith-Jahrbuch, 27 (1998), 227.

59 Stephen Banfield, 'Sondheim, Stephen (Joshua)', The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (London, 1992), 450-2 (p. 451). In discussing 'Pretty Litde Picture' from A Funny ThingHappened on the Way to the Forum, Banfield wrote: 'This song is close to Milhaud's style, itself only a few steps away from that of one of Sondheim's primary mentors, Copland' (SBM, 106).

60 Swayne, 'Hearing Sondheim's Voices', 331.



302 STEVE SWAYNE

leanness of texture usually associated with Copland. Even the act of

employing traditional forms as scaffolding differs from Copland's characteristic slow-fast-slow alternation in large-scale compositions. Elsewhere I have written about Sondheim's motivic development as the

most likely connection that exists between his writing and Copland's,61 and indeed this sonata bests Copland in generating reams of musical

material from the humblest of motifs. One would expect that this early work would clearly show the springs from which Sondheim imbibed to

create his own musical language. Copland's spring, Appalachian or

otherwise, is notably dry here.

Thus the sonata presents a challenge to the way musicologists tell the

story of the emergence of Sondheim's music. In terms of mentors, Ravel remains; Copland is absent. Rachmaninov reappears, as does

Satie. Hindemith and Prokofiev now enter into the account much more

prominendy than before. (And to those critics who complain about the

unhummability of Sondheim's music, it can be noted that it is also hard

to hum Hindemith or Prokofiev.) Add to this melange George Gersh-

win and Harold Arlen - composers Sondheim mentions elsewhere as

seminal influences - and one begins to understand the musical lan?

guage Sondheim has created and why he is considered sui generis in the

realm of the American musical theatre.

Moreover, the similarities between mature Sondheim songs and the

sonata are evidence that his musical voice was fairly well established by the time he graduated from Williams. When I asked Sondheim specific?

ally about Climb High, the apprentice musical he was writing when he

was studying with Babbitt, he answered:

I probably showed [Babbitt] songs from Climb High (1952), because I was

writing it at the time, but I don't remember doing so, and certainly the work was independent of any work I did with him. It had nothing to do with him. I did not write anything studying with Milton. We analyzed, is all we did -

analyzed and talked, analyzed and talked.62

And Babbitt himself corroborated Sondheim's recollection ofthe inde-

pendence of Sondheim's musical language from the lessons when he

wrote:

He never worked on any of his shows with me, but I saw many of the songs, including the celebrated Tm In Love With A Boy' [from Climb High]. I

thought them to be very accomplished and knowing.. . . Steve was, and is, a singular creator, and I would be proud of him if I thought it was relevant or proper to be 'proud' of one's students. But I am delighted by his success and enormously impressed by his achievement, whether I made any contribution to it or not.63

It thus appears that Sondheim's lessons with Babbitt polished an

already considerable gift more than they taught the young composer skills and concepts that he did not learn while at Williams.

61 See above, note 13. 62 Personal correspondence, 21 March 2001. 6S Personal correspondence, 12 June 2001.




Unlike some ofthe student composers who followed him at Williams, Sondheim provided no dedication for the sonata. A look at these later

dedications, though, shows how important and imposing a figure was

Robert Barrow, the Yale graduate and disciple of Hindemith.

To Professor Robert Barrow, for his patience and assistance above and

beyond the call of duty throughout my college career, and, most of all, for his stealthy masterminding of these 'artworks'.

To Robert Barrow, through whose painstaking assistance, fatherly concern, and gentle prodding, four years at Williams were made much more fruitful and rewarding.

The composer would like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Professor Robert Barrow without whose constant instruction and sugges? tions this composition would have been impossible.64

If Sondheim neglected to mention Barrow back in 1950, he made up for it in the 1973 cover story for Newsweek magazine. Fresh from his

success at having three Tony-winning musicals running simultaneously on Broadway- the first composer in the history of Broadway to achieve

such a feat - Sondheim made it clear how much he owed his principal

composition teacher. 'Before Barrow, I waited for all the tunes to come

into my head. But he took all the romance out ofthe music. 'You learn

the technique," he said, "and then you put the notes down on paper and that's what music is!" I adored it.'65 The sonata gives ample evi?

dence that Sondheim learnt the technique and that Barrow was indeed a formidable teacher whose Hindemithian shadow fell on Sondheim

well beyond 1973.

And now, outside its importance to musicologists, what fate awaits

Sondheim's piano sonata? One can only hope that Sondheim will

relent and allow the sonata to see the light of day. As the work of a

young composer, it remains a profound testament of Sondheim's talent

and compares favourably with juvenile and unfinished works by other

composers. Mendelssohn's four-movement E major piano sonata, for

example, written when that composer was 17, has entered and

remained in the repertory. Perhaps Sondheim will yet discover the

completed second movement among his manuscripts; perhaps he or

another enterprising composer will realize the sketch.66 If not, unfin?

ished piano sonatas by Schubert and Janacek grace concert pro-

grammes from time to time. Given Sondheim's popularity, there is

every reason to expect that the sonata would find a welcome among pianists.

64 See Table 1. The comments are taken from the composition theses of Robert Kelton Goss, David Gregg Niven (both class of 1957) and Robert J. Stern (class of 1960), respectively. 65 Charles Michener and others, 'Words and Music - by Sondheim', Newsweek, 81/17 (23 April 1973), 61.

66 For the time being, Sondheim is maintaining his stand not to publish the sonata. T fear the lost second movement will never be found and, despite your ingenuity in filling it out, it's simply not what I would have written. Please forgive me.' Personal correspondence, 26 June 2001.



304 STEVE SWAYNE

In many respects, Sondheim's C major sonata resembles another C

major work by another adolescent composer. Like Sondheim, Georges Bizet was destined to write for the stage. By the age of 17 he had already

spent seven years as a student at the Paris Conservatoire. In 1855, he

had earned some money by arranging Gounod's First Symphony in D

major for piano four hands; Gounod was among Bizet's teachers at the

Conservatoire. What Bizet learnt from the Gounod he poured into his

own four-movement Symphony in C major, a work destined to remain

unperformed and unpublished until some 80 years after its creation

and some 60 years after Bizet's death. There are, to be sure, some mis-

calculations in the symphony; the fugato at the centre of the second

movement sounds strained, for example. But such a miscalculation is

easily forgiven when put next to the prophetic oboe melody of that

same movement. Winton Dean wrote that '[t]he Symphony shows

more than promise; it stands on its own feet as a work of precocious

genius'.67 Sondheim spent far less time than Bizet studying music and spent it

in a far less disciplined environment than the Conservatoire. In the

sonata, one can clearly see the fingerprints of his teacher and his

musical influences. All the same, in the sonata Sondheim turned out a

work of precocious genius. Let us all hope that we will not have to wait

until 2030 for this work to enter our repertory.

ABSTRACT

Stephen Sondheim composed a three-movement piano sonata for his thesis in music at Williams College and submitted the two outer movements upon graduation. Sondheim has since been unwilling to publish or disseminate the

work, and a college stipulation has prevented reproduction of the thesis. The sonata shows the influences on Sondheim's emerging musical style - predominandy Ravel, Rachmaninov (influences previously established by scholars), Prokofiev and Hindemith (influences less well established) - and demonstrates that his compositional language was significandy developed by the time of his graduation. Similarities abound between the sonata and the mature musicals ofthe 1970s and beyond. In addition to providing examples from the

completed movements - a feat made possible by Sondheim's decision to grant limited permission to reproduce the sonata - the article examines a two-page sketch for the second movement, a manuscript that had remained in Sond? heim's sole possession until October 2000.

67 Winton Dean, 'Bizet, Georges', The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London, 1980), ii, 749-63 (p. 751).



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