I don't like to boastOkay, I *do* like to boast. My brilliant and glamorous friend Rebecca Paller, curator at the Museum of Television & Radio, along with her colleague Jane Klain, has put together Good Thing Going: Celebrating Sondheim at 75. Screenings take place Tuesday through Sunday at 14h00 and Thursdays at 17h00 through early July. For more information, visit the Museum's website or call 212.621.6800. (For information on Los Angeles screenings, call 310.786.1025.)
Becky writes:
Marilyn Horne and Eileen Farrell are "game"—dressed in 1940s attire—and having a great time performing "You Could Drive a Person Crazy" with Carol Burnett. Also, Milton Babbitt's comments about Sondheim are quite interesting in the German documentary: "He came to me privately—to be very frank, I have no idea why!—he wanted to start from scratch." Sondheim on Babbitt: "We would often start our teaching sessions by analyzing a Kern song or a Rodgers song and then move on to Bach and Beethoven." Babbitt, who realized Sondheim had a tonal gift and did not attempt to sway him to twelve-tone music: "He can do anything with words—any kind of verbal games; he was verbally oriented in the most extraordinary sense."
Of all the programs, I'm most fond of the 1976 Camera Three "Anatomy of a Song." There's something extremely moving about Sondheim sitting at the piano and describing how he composed "Someone in a Tree." I first watched this on a Sunday morning in my dorm room at Indiana University, and all these years later this program still moves me to tears…
Right now, New York is madder than ever for Sondheim. A few links:
Michael Buckley's Playbill article, in which Becky is quoted
Sondheim at 75 on WNYC's Soundcheck
"Wall to Wall Stephen Sondheim" at Symphony Space, on WNYC, and on XM Satellite Radio
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