Fred Child
Welcome to David Geffen Hall in New York City. I'm Fred Child, live From Lincoln Center. The New York Philharmonic is warming up and tuning up. Guest vocalist Katrina Lenk will make her New York Philharmonic debut in just a few minutes, and conductor Alexander Gemignani also making his debut. Let's begin with music from 1962.
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Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Bernadette Peters.
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Hello...
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and good evening and welcome to our celebration of the music of my friend Stephen Sondheim.
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The occasion is particularly specialpecial for e as I was lucky enough to be cast in 4 of his Broadway musicals, many of which are being represented on this stage tonight. As you may know, the New York Philharmonic is no stranger to Steve, having given concert productions of "Follies," "Company," and "Sweeney Todd," but this program is different. Though he is both a composer and a lyricist, tonight we are going to focus specifically on his music. There will be no Mrs. Lovett singing "Shepherd's pie peppered with actual shepherd on top" or Joanne in "Company" warning Bobby that his new girlfriend is "tall enough to be your mother." Not even a witch...
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cackling to a baker and his wife that... There's no more fuss, and there's no more scenes And my garden thrives, you should see my nectarines But I'm telling you the same I tell Kings and Queens Never, ever, ever mess around with my greens Especially the beans No, none of that. Ha ha ha!
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Aside from two songs sung by the brilliant Katrina Lenk, it's the New York...
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Philharmonic's night to shine, and the orchestra will be playing orchestral suites and overtures, as well as symphonic treatments of some of Sondheim's most beautiful songs. For example, here is a suite from Steve and James Lupine's "Into the Woods" without interference from a witch, arranged and orchestrated by Don Sebesky.
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Whistling
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Whistles two notes
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Now we are going to hear the premiere of a new orchestral suite from Steve and John Weidman's "Assassins," a sort of surreal, vaudeville revue featuring 9 of the assassins who, across a span of 100 years of American history, tried to kill the president of the United States from John Wilkes Booth to Lee Harvey Oswald. The score uses styles from various periods of American music. The suite has been arranged and orchestrated by Michael Starobin, the original orchestrator of the show.
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Ladies and gentlemen, "Assassins."
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Ladies and gentlemen, the orchestrator of "Assassins" is with us tonight--Michael Starobin! There he is!
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One of my favorites of Steve's scores is the one from "Company"...
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a show he wrote with George Furth. Like "Assassins," "Company" is a revue of sorts, although it has a story. It takes place in the early 1970s, and instead of being about politics, it's about the difficulty of maintaining relationships in a society becoming increasingly depersonalized. It has two central characters-- Robert, a man unable to make an emotional commitment, and New York City.
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The iconic song "Being Alive" at the climax of the show was not the original one written for that moment. It was the third, but as I'm sure you know, musicals are not so much written as rewritten. Here is an orchestral version of one of the songs that preceded "Being Alive," a rhapsodic love song that the hero Robert sings about Amy, the girl he thinks he loves. It's called "Multitudes of Amys," here arranged and orchestrated by Don Sebesky.
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The 1970s were a prolific time for Steve-- "Company," "Follies," "A Little Night Music," "Pacific Overtures," and then to finish out the decade "Sweeney Todd." In New York alone, this musical has been performed on Broadway, at City Opera, twice right here on this stage with the Philharmonic, once with actor-musicians, and most recently downtown at a theater converted into a pie shop. No matter what the scale or the venue, "Sweeney Todd" is spectacular. Here's a suite of the score, again in an arrangement and orchestration by Don Sebesky.
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In 1973, Steve and Hal Prince decided they wanted to do a romantic musical. Together with Hugh Wheeler, they chose to adapt Ingmar Bergman's romantic comedy "Smiles of a Summer Night" and called it "A Little Night Music." In order to keep the sense of romance afloat, Steve composed the score entirely in variations of triple meter-- waltzes, minuets, polonaises, and so forth. The show contains Steve's most popular song "Send in the Clowns," and I was lucky enough to get to sing it in the most recent Broadway revival.
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Here is one of the orchestral waltzes from the score, "The Night Waltz," orchestrated by Steve's long-time collaborator Jonathan Tunick.
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Next up is a piece from Steve and James Goldman's breathtaking "Follies," a show about former "Follies" showgirls attending a reunion at the theater they once performed in, which is about to be torn down. The score is in part pastiche, filled with homages to great composers from between the two World Wars, including Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and George Gershwin. We are going to hear the overture, which serves to introduce the themes of each of the characters as they arrive at the reunion, once again orchestrated by the great Jonathan Tunick.
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Steve often says that one of the things he loves most about the theater is that it allows his shows to be reconceived in fresh ways. "Sweeney Todd" in a pie shop or played by a small cast of actor-musicians or, as in London last year, a revival of "Company" by the imaginative director Marianne Elliott, which swapped some of the genders of the characters. Happily, it's coming to Broadway this season, and the leading role of Bobbie, now female and spelled with an i-e, will be played by the dazzling Tony-Award-winning Katrina Lenk. She is with us tonight to sing two of Steve's great songs from "Follies." Ladies and gentlemen, Katrina Lenk!
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The sun comes up I think about you The coffee cup I think about you I want you so It's like I'm losing my mind The morning ends I think about you I talk to friends I think about you And do they know? It's like I'm losing my mind All afternoon, doing every little chore The thought of you stays bright Sometimes, I stand in the middle of the floor Not going left Not going right I dim the lights And think about you Spend sleepless nights To think about you You said you loved me Or were you just being kind Or am I losing my mind? I want you so It's like I'm losing my mind Does no one know? It's like I'm losing my mind All afternoon, doing every little chore The thought of you stays bright Sometimes, I stand in the middle of the floor Not going left Not going right I dim the lights And think about you Spend sleepless nights To think about you You said you loved me Or were you just being kind? Or am I losing my Mind?
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Leave you? Leave you? How could I leave you? How could I go it alone? Could I wave the years away With a quick good-bye? How do you wipe tears away When your eyes are dry? Sweetheart, lover, could I recover Give up the joys I have known? Not to fetch your pills again
Every day at 5
00 Not to give those dinners for 10 elderly men From the U.N. How could I survive? Could I leave you And your shelves of the world's best books And the evenings of martyred looks Cryptic sighs Sullen glares from those injured eyes? Leave the quips with a sting, jokes with a sneer Passionless lovemaking once a year? Leave the lies ill-concealed And the wounds never healed And the games not worth winning And wait, I'm just beginning What, leave you, leave you How could I leave you? What would I do on my own? Putting thoughts of you aside In the South of France Would I think of suicide? Darling, shall we dance? Could I live through the pain On a terrace in Spain? Would it pass? It would pass Could I bury my rage With a boy half your age In the grass? Bet your ass But I've done that already Or didn't you know, love? Tell me, how could I leave when I left long ago, love? Could I leave you? No, the point is, could you leave me? Well, I guess you could leave me the house Leave me the flat Leave me the Braques and Chagalls and all that You could leave me the stocks for sentiment's sake And 90% of the money you make And the rugs and the cooks Darling, you keep the drugs Angel, you keep the books Honey, I'll take the grand Sugar, you keep the spinet And all of our friends and-- Just wait a goddam minute Oh, leave you? Leave you? How could I leave you? Sweetheart, I have to confess
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Could I leave you? Yes Will I leave you? Will I leave you? Guess
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Before we say good night, I think we should thank our conductor Alexander Gemignani, making his New York Philharmonic debut.
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Every day at 5
And above all-- what other word can I use-- the monumental New York Philharmonic!
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For our finale, a suite from one of the most exhilarating pieces of theater ever, and I don't say that just because I was part of it.
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Every day at 5
It's Steve and James Lupine's "Sunday in the Park with George."
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Inspired by the French pointillist painter George Seurat's painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte," the show is about the wonders of creativity, and there's a lyric in the show which reflects how I feel about Steve and his work-- "Anything you do, let it come from you, "Then it will be new, Give us more to see." "Sunday in the Park with George" arranged and orchestrated by Michael Starobin.
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Child
A medley of highlights from the music Stephen Sondheim wrote for the 1984 musical "Sunday in the Park with George," coming to you live from Lincoln Center, where Alexander Gemignani is conducting the New York Philharmonic. Tonight's program, a celebration of Stephen Sondheim, who was all of 27 years old when he rocketed to fame in 1957 as they lyricist for the groundbreaking classic "West Side Story." Sondheim won a Pulitzer Prize in 1985 for "Sunday in the Park with George" and has collected multiple Grammys, Tonys, Drama Desk Awards, and more. Conductor Alexander Gemignani now back on the podium, and I think we're heading toward a Sondheim encore.
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Child
An encore from the New York Philharmonic as they're celebrating Stephen Sondheim. That's the overture from "Merrily We Roll Along," the 1981 musical by Stephen Sondheim. Our conductor Alexander Gemignani making his New York Philharmonic debut tonight with, by the way, tips from his dad Paul Gemignani, who was the musical director for Stephen Sondheim for 45 years. Join the conversation on Twitter, using #LFLC. You can also watch a conversation between Paul and Alexander Gemignani at pbs.org.
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