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One difference between poetry and lyrics is that lyrics sort of fade into the background. They fade on the page and live on the stage when set to music.
Stephen Sondheim
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Stephen Sondheim
Age: 94
Born: 1930
Born: March 22
Author
Composer
Dramaturge
Librettist
Lyricist
Musician
Poet
Screenwriter
Songwriter
New York City
New York
Stephen Joshua Sondheim
Poetry
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Fade
Differences
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Music
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More quotes by Stephen Sondheim
Everyone would like to be on Broadway, cause if a show works, you make a great deal of money and it allows you to write other shows.
Stephen Sondheim
Lemuel Ayers had had a huge success producing and designing Kiss Me, Kate. He wanted to produce this as a musical. I got the job. It was a professional score.
Stephen Sondheim
If people have split views about your work, I think it's flattering. I'd rather have them feel something about it than dismiss it.
Stephen Sondheim
White. A blank page or canvas. So many possibilities.
Stephen Sondheim
White. A blank page or canvas. The challenge. Bring order to the whole Through design, composition, tension, balance, light, and harmony.
Stephen Sondheim
Generally, the best recording is the original cast, because that's the way the piece grew: integrally, with them.
Stephen Sondheim
When you trance out properly, when you're completely in that world, there is no other world, so there's no conflict.
Stephen Sondheim
All the best performers bring to their role something more, something different than what the author put on paper. That's what makes theatre live. That's why it persists.
Stephen Sondheim
Everyone I used to play with has either given up or is dead.
Stephen Sondheim
A song is such a short form ... that 'the slightest flaw seems like a mountain.' And so every song needs to be revised 'til it's close to perfection... But achieving perfection takes a lot of energy.
Stephen Sondheim
Any moment, big or small, Is a moment, after all. Seize the moment, skies may fall Any moment.
Stephen Sondheim
My personal life and my artistic life do not interfere with each other.
Stephen Sondheim
Bit by bit, putting it together... Piece by piece, only way to make a work of art. Every moment makes a contribution, Every little detail plays a part. Having just the vision's no solution, Everything depends on execution, Putting it together, that's what counts.
Stephen Sondheim
The truth is that I don't like rehearsals. I get embarrassed hearing my own work. I assume that the cast is embarrassed to sing the stuff.
Stephen Sondheim
You move just a finger, say the slightest word, something's bound to linger-be heard.
Stephen Sondheim
I don't listen to recordings of my songs. I don't avoid it, I just don't go out of my way to do it.
Stephen Sondheim
Now, this one might be a little stringy, but then again, it's fiddle player. That isn't fiddle player, it's piccolo player. How can you tell? It's PIPING hot! Then blow on it first!
Stephen Sondheim
Sometimes colleagues in performance are absolutely astonishing.
Stephen Sondheim
I really don't want to write a score until the whole show is cast and staged.
Stephen Sondheim
I'm a lazy writer. My idea of heaven is not writing. On the other hand, I'm obviously compulsive about it.
Stephen Sondheim
