Talent | Sondheim's Friends: The Broadway Musical Giants

[Music] In the mid-1950s, when Steve was writing Saturday night his first professional show, he met the roommate of his two close friends, a young composer who soon after wrote the dance arrangements for Gypsy. Later, this composer met a lyricist named Fred Epp, and together they conquered Broadway with their musicals Cabaret and Chicago. Steve loved nothing more than celebrating other people's talent, and Steve's admiration for this composer was boundless. So now, Peter Jones and I are proud to present Fred Epp's perfectly marvelous collaborator, Mr. John Kander. [Buzzer] When Fred died in 2004, Steve had me over for dinner, which was not a usual thing. It was just the two of us. And he was very supportive and compassionate, and then, as I left Ziggit Bayern, we embraced. He said, "You know, I write lyrics too." And even saying it and remembering it moves me to think of his sensitivity and kindness at that moment. He never once called you John to me. Never. You were always Johnny. Ah, always Johnny. He was very fond of you. I think we sense that about each other without having long conversations about it. What is it that brings people into that kind of relationship? I don't know whether it's trust, if it's common interest? You were the whole package because he felt very comfortable with you as a person and as a composer. He could respect your talent and respect you as a person. That's my take on it, knowing him the way I did. Welcome to Loving You, the Untold Son type, a podcast made by Steve's friends with Steve's friends. Hosted by me, Martin Mills and me, Peter E. Jones. 1962, Broadway, welcome to New Musicals. A family affair by John Kander and his roommates James and William Goldman, and a funny thing happened on the way to the forum with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. In those days, virtually all new musicals had their previews out of town in New Haven, which is where John met up with Steve. I was there when Steve was doing forum in New Haven and I went to see it. It was just terrific and I loved the score. The show originally opened with a song called "Love Is in the Air". We were having lunch the next day and I was going on about that song and he said that there was pressure on him from Robbins to write a new opening and I went berserk like, "Don't let them do that to you. Steve's stick with that song. It's a wonderful song." And of course, he didn't and he proceeded then to write. Perhaps the greatest opening of any musical comedy that's already been written. Call comedy tonight. My advice, of course, was thankfully discarded, but I do remember the confidence with which I implied that if you cut that song, you'll destroy the show. I played that score a lot because I admired it so much. More so than his brands on all of whom were happy to tell me what a terrific lyricist Steve was, but they didn't admire his music all that much, which really shocked me because the score of forum is unbelievably supposed to get it. And equally John Steve loved your work because your song "Home" from 70 Girls 70 is on Steve's list of songs I wish I'd written. Yes, it is. It's a good song. I was delighted that he felt that way. I've got another league over his in Puerto Rico. Chuk, chuk, chuk, chuk, chuk, chuk, chuk, chuk, chuk, chuk, Home to me is post-opened, only I'm the reading of the band's song, speaking of the chair. I think I know why he would like it. The craft of the song is two musical ideas and two lyrical ideas playing in counterpoint to each other. And lyrically, it's very sophisticated in that way. I like that he liked it. Oh, he loved it. That was one of the songs he played that night, by the way. The study night, yes. Then we were pulling out all the acitates and real the reels, and he was just so excited to play for me the special songs he loved, and that was one. PJ, let's shout about this night you just mentioned in Steve's study. You and Steve were listening to recordings of his favorite songs written by other composers, all of which featured on Steve's list called Songs I Wish I'd Written. But what exactly is this list and why did Steve publish it? For Steve's 70th birthday in 2000, the list Songs I Wish I'd Written, parentheses at least in part, was published in New York Times magazine. The main thing in the magazine was an article written by Frank Rich. Frank was for many years the chief drama critic at The New York Times. So along with the article, there came Nendendum, which was this list of songs Steve liked. And the title of the list was Songs I Wish I'd Written at least in part. And it's a really fun list because as well as what I call the usual suspects, like Gershwin, Cole Porter, and one of Steve's favorite composers, Harold Arlen. There are many pieces by more obscure writers, from shows which closed in previews out of town and didn't even get to Broadway. But this evening in the study happened several years before the list was published, yes? Within the first three months or so that we met in 1991, this evening in the study seemed like it went on all night, it didn't. When that kind of thing is going on and you're getting excited and you're really into it and you're pulling one thing out after another and playing this and demonstrating that, the time just flies. And that's what was happening, especially when the wine glass is keeping refilled. Now what tapes did I put on that? That one. The show is called Kelly by the heavyweight boxer. I don't know it. Oh, you'll love it. There's a big carousel bench scene type number that's seven minutes long. Oh, that screeching is the composer. Moose Charlotte. The guy that wrote Peter Pan songs with Carolyn Lee. Yeah. Oh, that's just bliss. Ah. I think we need to clean your tape heads, if you say so. All right, back to the records. Donnie Broke, New Girl in town, Make a Wish. Make a Wish. Oh, I love this. He Martin. Trolley song, he Martin. I know this one either. I love this one. There's a few Martin songs on the list called I Want to Be Good and Bad from a show called Make a Wish. Steve said, oh, I love Make a Wish. I had to buy another copy. I wore out the LP. Pour some more wine. Find something else to put on. Hard, hard, hard. Hard, hard, and I think no, careful. That's a 78. Do you know how to play a 78? Sorry, I have. Hmm. Wow, wow, wow. Yeah, oh, listen to this. Listen to her. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that just wonderful? Oh. One thing leads to another. It just kept going and I have to say, I think that was part of how we started falling in love with each other. Was that even? Ah. Isn't that swell? Did you already know any of these songs that Steve liked? Yes, often his response was, how do you know that? How can you possibly know that? That sort of thing. And some of them I was introduced to buy Steve. I said something like, I love how does the wine taste. That's from we take the town. How do you know that? Well, you've got to hear silverware. There were many examples like that where I would know one of the songs or a song from the same score as the one he wanted me to hear. And it would be a back and forth type of thing like that. I know of course with time things become a rather golden, but it was a real evening of the meaning of minds and hearts, shall we say. A young person being a blank slate was always important to Steve because he was such a teacher. But in this case, the blank slate had a little residue on it already from its own experience. To me, this list reveals not just Steve's wide-ranging knowledge and taste, but also how much he really championed and loved, celebrating the talent of other writers. That generosity was keenly felt by so many people, especially those composers on the list who were friends of Steve's. Oh, there are a few friends on that list besides John Candor, like a mulpian shy, for example. Yes, I think. I've just found travel. Oh, you're kidding. This is Travel by Mopian Shire, which is also on Steve's List. ♪ Take me where you want to go ♪ ♪ Make it anywhere at all ♪ ♪ Follow any winds that blow ♪ ♪ Any course that seems to call ♪ Richard Maltby is the lyricist, David Chyre, the composer. And I think David Chyre, as a composer, influenced Steve as much as David might think Steve influenced him. And like John Kander, Richard Maltby and David Chyre were around at the very start of Steve's career, especially when Steve was writing for him and struggling for recognition as a composer. Yeah, and I'll bet that Richard and David can tell us many stories of what went on in those days. And how much Steve really championed their words? Right, well, let's start by talking to Richard. ♪ Onward, outward, day by day ♪ We had a really sort of storybook friendship with Steve and we sort of got drawn into that circle, which is pretty high-powered and sort of terrifying. I mean, dinner at Hal Prince. Oh, yeah, yeah. But we would get together. We would have these evenings. We would go to Steve's house. We would have dinner. And then we would go upstairs and we would play. You know, we'd play what we were working on and he'd play what he was working on. He'd play waiting around for the girls upstairs or pretty little picture. He was in those days miserable because nobody would take him seriously as a composer. Do you know the one for him opened the reviews? Didn't mention that there was a score? Absolutely. Didn't mention that there was a score at all. They didn't say his music wasn't good. Didn't mention that there was anything. Yes. He got anyone can whistle, but it was a flop. And so therefore everybody thought that was just proof that he couldn't be a Broadway composer. So that just completed the horror that Steve was feeling and then company happened and the world shifted. And so on a certain kind of level, we were peers. We were writing, starting out. And he was, as a composer, still starting out. Let's leave aside that he'd already read my side story in Gypsy. But still, that's what we were doing. And they were wonderful evenings. There will be one for us. There will be one. There will be one. There will be one. Oh, ladies. And it's a marathon. It was wonderful because we could really see how his mind worked and how he shaped an idea. And he would play things in various forms of something that he thought was finished. And then it would have a different stanza the next time we got together. They were magical evenings. And the song "Travel" played a key role in your friendship with Steve. David, what's the story behind this number and what's its special link to Steve? Well, this song came from a musical that we were writing that never got on an adaptation of a Roman god novel called "The River." But there was this song in it called "Travel." And that was one of our signature numbers at the Prince Party. The Prince Party is very exciting because the evening always ended with whatever composers were there taking a turn at the piano and playing some songs of theirs. And our favorite song, "Travel" was "Travel." Through the years, there was a point that when Steve was getting older, and when we played "Travel," he would actually start to cry. ♪ Travel off to capture the center of your adventure ♪ ♪ Full and strong and all the greatest joy ♪ ♪ To come along and take me where you want to go ♪ ♪ Where he destiny is born ♪ ♪ Take me where you want to go ♪ Richard, you and David became friends with Steve in 1961 when he saw your new musical. We met because we had written "The Samp of Life" and it played at the Sheridan Square downtown. And it got nice reviews. I mean, pleasant enough reviews. Not enough to make anybody want to go to see it, but it was, you know, I said of a pleasant pat on the back. But one day, Steve came. We didn't even know he was there, but he came, and then several days later, he came back, and he brought Jerry Robbins. And then a couple of days after that, he came back again and brought Hal Prince. And then came back a fourth time with Lannier Bernst. The Fist to say he was impressed then. He was impressed. Well, you know, I've thought back to it. Those are the days of, you know, Julie Stein and that was the conventional sound. I've listened to the score of "The Samp of Life." What David was doing at the piano is just absolutely breathic, nothing in the world at that time. It must have been absolutely dazzling. I wrote Steve a note saying, was he just bowled over by David's piano plays? That's what it came back. And he said, "Yes, I was, but I also like the lyrics." And then he proceeded to quote one of the lines from the song, and I thought, "Steve's son, I'm nozzoliric from the Samp of Life." It was, while plucking the plums out of the tree, flip a few pits back to me. I can't imagine why anybody would want to quote that line, but Steve says he thought of it every morning. David, you quickly developed a working relationship with Steve and even inspired one of his most famous characters. And all this came from the Samp of Life. I did a lot of things for Steve after that. Anyone can whistle, I went out of town with a second rehearsal pianist. I also worked on evening primrose with him, the television musical that he wrote. I was, again, a kind of underscoring assistant and pianist. But I also worked on company. They went out of town to Boston. And I had just married my first wife, Tally Shire, and Hal Carlson said, "Listen, the dance music for one big number isn't right. And since you, the only one is, or I know, who sounds like Steve, or can sound like Steve, because, of course, he influenced me incredibly." He said, "Would you come to Boston and write a dance number?" - Tick talk. - Tick talk. - Yeah, tick talk. - Tick talk. Well, David, I think he called you because you had worked with Steve a couple of times before. You worked well together. He liked you. Also, I was one of the people that, how his wife, Judy, was always trying to fix up. We were going to parties at the Prince's house after we had been discovered at Sapp of Life. And she was always fixing me up with people, and nothing happened. - David, there's someone we want to meet. You'll love her. - How told me that there were kind of thrones when I came up to Boston with a wife, because I was one of the models for Bobby, maybe. The guy who was always there kind of never got married. But that was very exciting to be out of town with this show. Steve disappeared for a day or two, and summoned us all up to his hotel room and played us being alive. And I was in the room. I was someone in the tree, someone in the room. And Richard, while David was in Boston for company, witnessing the birth of being alive, you had your own contact with Steve about the same number. - We had written a show called Love Match. It was about Albert and Victoria. And Albert sings this really wonderful song called "To Be Alive." - No one, when any man is one life is the room. - Let something good survive. - It was one of David's really splashy compositions. So Steve called me up. He's in Boston. He said, "I've just written a song called Being Alive." And that title is very similar to you. "Do you mind terribly if I use it?" I said, "Sure, Steve, you can use it." (laughing) When he died, everybody produced those notes that he sent. And it was a wonderful realization that what we had felt was shared by so many different people. But everybody had a life-changing note from Steve. And at the end, just in the year before he died, I was feeling that sense of what is it all out add up to. And Steve noticed, I guess, that this was Richard in trouble. And so he rolled up his sleeves and wrote a really long note about how I should be proud of what I've done. That is Steve. Steve has this deeply sentimental side that he tries desperately to hide and unsuccessfully. - Richard, I know that Steve had contact with your children growing up. And children meant a great deal to him. Can you remember a time when he showed that sentimentality with them? - I have the experience with my daughter. We had a house in Connecticut. And every time I put on a show album, they go, "But occasionally I would put in Sunday in the park." And my great surprise, they didn't say, "We'll take that out." So I would play a lot. One day they were out playing and my daughter was singing one of the songs from it. And I thought, "That's really surprising." I said, "Do you know that show?" There's a video of that, would you like to see it? And she said, "Oh yeah, I would." Steve took down the road from us in Roxbury. I asked him and he sat over the video with a little note and I'm really devoured. I said, "You got to write a thank you note right now." So she wrote a thank you note. She said, "I think Dot made a mistake." She should have understood that George was supposed to make art and not take her to the follies. - Oh, that's wonderful. - I mean, if there ever was a note that was gonna produce a response from Steve, and he wrote this lovely, lovely note about how life produces difficult choices. You know, it was really, really sweet. - How old was Emily at the time? - Eight or nine. - Separate to the musicals which you and David have written together, you've each had individual careers. Richard, your attorney winning director, and David, your an Oscar winning film composer. So after you moved to Hollywood in the 70s, David, how often did you get to see Steve? - I used to have dinner with him every three, four months or five months. It was always a treat. Then as he got more and more famous and world class, we should kind of stop having that also. I was spending half my time in LA. Steve was never happy about that. I think that's one of the things that caused us to become more distant. He once said to me, "Are you spending a lot of time writing "on that music in Hollywood "when you should be writing musicals?" That kind of brought me down a little and Steve loved your film music. - Well, eventually I sent him a compilation of my film works so I could hear that it had some musical substance. And the next time I read it, I knew him, he said, "Well, now I know what you were doing in Hollywood. "I was using kind of a smile like, "Okay, I'll let you have that." And of course, David, it's thanks to you that Steve found a key collaborator. So when Steve was about to choose the orchestrator for company, he actually called me up and said, "Listen, "I have to choose between Jonathan Tunic "and Don Walker to orchestrate company." Could he have figured that before he could even finish the sentence, I said, "Tunic, go with Tunic." And he remembered Tunic from the show we did. ♪ You with that hang of ♪ ♪ Start on a brand new page ♪ ♪ What will be bang of ♪ ♪ In this computer age ♪ ♪ You'll say to somebody new ♪ ♪ How do you do I love you? ♪ - We were a musical called, "How do you do I Love You?" Which was not successful. I got a review out of town, a first professional review. The title of the review was, "Goodbye, I hate you." (laughs) Anyway, Jonathan Tunic orchestrated that show. And Steve was kind of impressed with Jonathan's orchestrations. So in a way, I started one of the great collaborations in musical comedy history. And because I'm kind of self-deprecating, I said, "That made me turn out to be my biggest contribution to the work of musical theater." ♪ Be sending to the river sending ♪ ♪ I will always be here ♪ ♪ Travel, take me where you want me ♪ And now, presenting Jonathan Tunic, another great musician who's talent Steve loved. As Steve's orchestrator, Jonathan transformed Steve's handwritten piano accomplishments into full orchestral scores for almost every songtime show over 53 years. PJ and I now invite you to join our chat with Jonathan at home in his study. Nearby are his Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards. Steve himself described Jonathan as the best orchestrator in the history of theater. Well, Jonathan will start at the beginning and see where we go, how's that? - Okay, by the way, the old cliche, the best place to start at the beginning, I found that to be totally untrue. The best place to start is where you'll land and work you way towards the ends. And Steve thought so too, towards the end of his life, Steve started talking about starting a song by writing the ending. And I said, "Hey, you know, we've never talked about this, but I do the same thing." - Yeah, he always wanted to know where he was going. - I always thought of it as the horse wants to head for the barn, so if you wanna build up momentum, build the barn, and then the horse will go to it. - Exactly. - Well, the absolute beginning was a friend of mine came over with a recording and he said, "You gotta hear this, this is really terrific. You're gonna like this." And he showed me the cast album of "Foreign." Which I'd heard of, I'd seen the advertisements in the paper and then some such, but I hadn't seen the show and I hadn't heard the music. And I looked at the cover and I said, "Oh, Stephen Sandhine." He's the guy that wrote the lyrics for "West Side Story" in "Gipsey." And now he's writing music and I quite unfairly jumps to the conclusion that he was a duffer as a composer. Another lyricist who picks out tunes on a toy's all-of-phone. - Comparing the Bob Marrow, now that's. - I'm not naming name. (laughing) - I did. - And besides there are others, I made up a joke. Jerry Herman dies and his estate puts his piano up for sale and takes out an ad in the Times. Piano for sale. Black keys never used, but I typically digress. So my friend brought over the album of "Foreign." All I had to hear was the first five seconds of the overture before I was bouncing off the ceiling with excitement. I said, "This guy can write music." I wanna work with this guy. (laughing) We had a mutual friend, the composer David Chyre, who by the way, I consider the greatest composer of my circle. I subsequently met him when David set up a dinner. There was an old-fashioned restaurant then, just opposite Lincoln Center called "Vorists." We traded collect compliments. (laughing) One another's work. Then I heard that he was writing a new musical and it turned out to be company. I don't think the name had even been invented yet. And I did something that I had never done before and I've never done since. I called him up and asked for the job. He said, "Actually, I've been thinking of you for it. I need another week or so to make up my mind and I'll get back to you." And he was as good as his word. He got back to me and said, "You've got the job." And that was it. Jonathan, do you remember hearing the score of company for the first time? Yeah, that would be after the famous Italian dinner. So I tell that one. Please, share. Once Steve had engaged me to do company, he invited me to dinner so we could just talk about the show and get acquainted in general. I met him at a little neighborhood Italian restaurant around the corner from his house. And we sat down. He ordered a scotch. I ordered a scotch. We sat and talked for a while about old movies and radio shows and comedians. He ordered another scotch. I ordered another scotch. We talked about Broadway musicals. We talked about Revelle. We talked about this and that. He ordered a third scotch and I said, I'd better stop it too. If I have any more, I'll get so drunk that I'll do something embarrassing and you'll decide not to hire me after all. And he said, I understand. No one can keep up with me. I just love to drink the first understatement of many to come over the next 40 years. And he proceeded to order during the course of the meal. I wouldn't be surprised if it was 10 scotches. We had a great time getting alone famously. And he showed no sign of inebriation. And as a result of my having turned down that third scotch, Steve maintained for the rest of his life that I don't drink. And we'd go out to dinner. He would start to order a drink. And well, you have, Jonathan, oh, you don't drink to me. So anything less than three scotches was a tea totaler. I suppose that would be the same occasion that we proceeded to his house and he played me what he had of the score. And we'd been the first of many times I found myself sitting to his right on the piano bench as he played and sang, grumbling out the song, usually an octave below pitch, these amazing songs. And being, if not, the first one of the first people to hear them. That's a whole core all thing that I can't quite get across, but it's all a voice we build in. You can imagine how exciting and invigorating it be to hear material of this quality for the first time, just the structure of the rhyme schemes. And just the jokes, but the one I always remember is from Swini Tzad, we got to the line, what is that? It's fop. And I almost fell off the piano bench. That found that's so down and out funny. The selection of the word "fop." It just belonged there. - Did you find that his process with you, going through a score for orchestrating, was different than other composers you worked with? - That's interesting. And my first reaction is to say, no, except, he knew more about what he had written than almost anybody else that I worked with. One exception being Bert Bakkerick. He knew what he had written. But typically, I'd be working with a composer and I'd be thinking, well, what do you mean by all of this? What are we trying to say here? And I have to couch the question very politely. I remember a question that I found myself asking constantly, not of Steve, but of certain other composers. A lot of them. Do you want me to write what you played? What do you want me to write what you wrote? You never had that with Steve. I mean, he was totally literate. He played what he wrote. The questions were infrequent and they tended to be precise. Well, I remember in Folly's, the principal came up of everybody's lying. And once I understood that, I didn't have to ask any more questions. - So he would discuss with you the dramatic thrust of the music. Instead of saying, I want clarinets here, he would say, should be rude. - Hardly ever mentioned the name of an instrument. There were, of course, the obligatory instruments by which I mean the ones that are referred to on the stage. Aside from that, I don't think he ever mentioned the name of a musical instrument to me. He once told me at Swini Todd rehearsal that he really liked the bass trombone. He says, I love that farting noise. And with Steve, he was so precise. So if I had a question, I would really ask it. Whereas with somebody else, I would just fix it. One of the very few times, Steve got really pissed off at me. He didn't happen often, but it's sure to this time. I had written a horrible wrong court and heard it at rehearsal and it fixed it. But the copyist hadn't put the fix in the parts yet. So when the band played it at the orchestra reading, they played this awful dissonance and Steve said, what's that? What's that? And he said, it's okay, Steve. I already fixed it. I was hoping you wouldn't notice. I was kidding, right? And he took serious offense at the idea that I would think that he wouldn't notice. I didn't even mean it. I was like, I hope I got away with that one, because it's so obvious. And it took quite a bit of calming down to get him to-- No, as humor says, he always was. There were times where the humor escaped him. There's a reference in passion, which I maintain is the most personal of his shows. Where it describes Foska as having her nerve endings right beneath the surface. That was him. He could be ultra sensitive to just the slightest. He might let it go by. He might not notice. I mean, about not noticing. I mean, this is the guy who would sit next to me at numberless orchestra rehearsals with the paper in front of him, letting the most appalling mistakes go by. However, to me, certainly professionally, he was responsible for my becoming well-known in my field and just being associated with a composer not only of his success and prestige, but of his quality. He was an important factor in my own success. Then, of course, working with a composer of his depth and importance improved me. Did anybody hear my Tony speech? This one, for merely. Yeah, there haven't been a lot of them. I made the speech all about Steve. And I believe it's been reported that I struck the all-time record for the shortest Tony speech. And I said I'm particularly happy to be running this award because it's my only Tony award for a Sondheim musical, which is, you know, all the important shows were before I was eligible. By the time they instated the Tony Award for orchestrators in 1997, all the important shows were done, right? So I said, thank you, Steve, my old friend and teacher. [APPLAUSE] And I lost. I think the whole thing's of 10 seconds, maybe. If that, there's a rule. Make them cry, make them last get us. And of course, Jonathan's first Tony in 1997 was for a musical written by another friend of Steve whose talent he loved and celebrated, Mori Yestern, composer lyricist of nine, grand hotel, and Titanic. Mori's piece, New Words, was on Steve's list of songs he wished he'd written. In fact, Steve loved New Words so much that he sent Mori a number of emails. [MUSIC - "SOLY SON"] We call it love, my son. [MUSIC - "SOLY SON"] Dear Mori, having just sobbed my way through your performance of New Words, I have to once again thank you for writing it. If there's a better lyric moment in the history of lyric writing then it gets harder, it will have to be proved to me. Thanks for writing it and playing it. You look great incidentally. Happy holidays, Steve. Well, you see, that's a generosity, because others have been generous to him. I think that Steve has written as many great lyrics as anybody ever had, but that was his heart, offering something to me to encourage me. And then he could generate it to me, but he never stopped. It really made him weep. And he also adds here, I'm still sobbing. No song I've ever heard has pierced my heart the way this one does. I'm not sure why, though I have my ideas. May whoever is in charge bless you for it. What a lovely man. I hear tell that his family situation was complicated. Yeah, and I think that what we're supposed to do is to turn adversity into something creative and wonderful. And that's precisely what he did. Just he could simply write in that key better than anybody ever and gave it to the world. So he's in a man of his time, reflected his time, why he became our prophet, and will always be. He didn't just catch the wave. He was the wave. And, Murray, how do you remember Steve as a friend? I think what comes to mind for me is his extraordinary generosity. No, not every writer is able to appreciate wonderful work of somebody else without feeling, in some cases, reduced by it and saying, well, am I that good? We all go through that, right? His extraordinary love of other people's talent and the energy that he put into all during his life to try to aid it, to be kind to it, to support it in every way. And everybody thinks that Steve is actually as complicated as his music is, and that all of the, what might be called, conflicting, negative, anxiety, provoking aspects of his work, characterize him. He was a booby. He was the sweetest man in the world. He had extraordinary modesty, really extraordinary modesty, for somebody who was not gifted at every right to feel imperious and could know quite the opposite. Humility, genuine humility. And I think I recognize that because I think that on that level, one should have and one does have humility, humility against the form. The form is-- Beethoven, it's Mozart, it's G&S, that's the form. Those are the giants. And Steve had that. And Murray, on the note of giants, in your emails to Steve, you discussed one of the most important American classical composers, Aaron Copeland, who also has a song on Steve's list. There was a little sheep in South America, crying over land that lies along. Steve writes, "Your mention of Copeland forces me to full go my modesty and tell you that shortly after he died, his nurse caretaker, mail, wrote me, asking me to meet with him as he had a photograph to show me. He did indeed come over for a drink, bringing a picture of him and Copeland sitting on a couch in Copeland's house, the two of them smilingly holding a loft for the camera, a cover of the LP of Steve. Sunday in the park with George. The guy who was a showbuff had wanted Copeland to hear the album and played it for him. After it was over, Copeland apparently said, this is remarkable. Who is responsible for this? Proudest moment of my life. - Responsible. - Wow, Steve. - I'm so glad you read that because the public perceives icons as icons. - Not people. - There is one of the legendary great, great artists of our time letting us know or letting me know that he's just like everybody else, human being. And that Aaron Copeland thought that something that he had written was responsible. That is an extraordinary word. I've heard masterful, I've heard Talil's fellow, but responsible and that Copeland would use that word, the idea that you have to be responsible to your art. You don't waste yourself. You don't write under your own capacity. You keep striving. And what a great word to describe Stephen Sondheim's work. Responsible. He doesn't pander. He is not trying to make money. He's responsible to explicating in his way, the subtleties, the manifold variety of the human condition in the most complicated way and even if it's painful. And you can feel it. I think that's his greatest contribution. We know that prior to company, Steve struggled to gain artistic recognition, but would you say that ultimately, Steve helped redefine what great art could be and who could be considered an artist? One of the really great contributions that Steve made was finally a 10-pan alley guy who wrote a popular music for the masses could really be thought of as an artist. He broke through that. We never really thought of learner and lowest artists, but Steve was neurotic in a sufficient direction that what he created became obvious and was raised to the level of any accomplishment in any form of art ever in history. He did that simply with the quality of his intellect, his emotions, his heart, his technical ability, his musical gift, his patience, and his genuine warmth as a human being. Generosity, modesty, incredibly hard work, and absolute painstaking demands for the best that he could possibly be to achieve it sometimes, torture himself just to achieve what he felt was his standard. Beautifully said, thank you. I can't believe it just came out of my mouth. Yeah, but that's Steve. Yeah. [MUSIC - "Below to the World"] [MUSIC - "Below to the World"] PJ, we've now heard much about Steve's love and support of other people's talent. And his list of songs I wish I'd written is a perfect example. But there's one song on the list which has never been published and which almost no one in the world has ever heard. And it's one of yours, "Music and lyrics" by Peter E. Jones. Blue-Ello. From an adaptation I was working on, of a famous novel called "Bittenplace." "Payton Place" is a musical which you wrote in 1994 during your romantic relationship with Steve. Sadly, the show was never produced, but as a composer lyricist, Steve believed in your talent right from day one. His support has clearly meant a great deal to everyone we've spoken to in this episode. But as his former partner, what a Steve's love of your work and your talent meant to you. Well, a strange question to ask me, Martin, because when I first met Steve, that would have been the most important thing if he had said you're fabulously talented and I'm going to support you in any way I can. That isn't how it played out as we'll find. But ultimately discovering that he loved something very specific that I had done and did believe in me as a composer. Met the world. It's just that the timing, losing my timing this late, and for me it was having no timing this early. Things didn't time out the way it would have in a storybook situation, I guess. Considering your history with Steve, the fact that you're included in songs I wish I'd written is, I think, quite significant. Yeah, it is. And you know, at the time the list came out, it's significance escaped me. I don't know if I was just too busy with trying to keep up with what I was doing at that time or I just couldn't take it in, but it's only just now that I've really started to understand what it means, why he did it, why he chose it. We could, of course, discuss that significance here and now. However, to fully understand it, we need to learn more about you and indeed more about Steve. Yeah, well, the only way to understand our relationship is to understand Steve, you know. All this, including the significance of Blue Ellow, we'll have to share it over time here. But to do that, we have to talk to more people, Mopey and Shire have known him for about 60 years, and John Kander was friends with him for 70. Yes, because not only did Steve love John Kander's talent, but in fact, John's entire career was kick-started by working on West Side Story and Gypsy. But Steve and John were friends even before that, when Steve was writing his unproduced show Saturday Night, and John was just a young hopeful, living with his roommates in mid-1950s New York City. I had for a number of years a nine-room apartment with my two best friends, James and William Goldman, I've been known since I was 10 years old, and Billy met Steve first and I remember brought him over several times to the apartment, and I remember listening to bits of Saturday Night, and I think that was one night when we played Russian spy, and I just want you to know that you don't want to hear any more about that evening. You sure? Well, I'm most intrigued. It takes a number of people in a lot of space to play Russian spy. It's sort of like playing murder. The actual rules that there were no rules. Then he would end it up with a pile of bodies on the floor. Mary was there at Henry Roachitz, and anyway, it was a noisy, funny, violent evening. I was working by then playing and coaching singers and conducting, and Jim was writing plays, and Billy was writing novels, and the three of us had the nerve to think that we were going to be able to survive in the world that we eventually did. And Steve was a part of that generation. So yeah, we were all at the beginning of the most serious part of our lives, I think. Having met Steve socially, how did you then get the job writing dance arrangements for Gypsy? It goes back to the opening of West Side Story in Philadelphia. That evening, I somehow were ended up at this great big opening night party at the Belle Pue Stadt for a hotel, which had an enormous bar in the center of it. There were like six deep in front of the bar of people trying to get a drink, and I'm not very aggressive, and I was raising my hand like that. And this little short, oldish man in front of me saw my distress and said, "What do you want when I order my drink?" All order you is. It turned out his name was Joe Lewis, and he was the pianist for West Side Story. So a year later, when he was taking his holiday, he said, "Do you want a sub for me?" "I'll be gone for three weeks," and I said, "Sure." And so I went into the pit, and it was during a period where they were putting a lot of replacements in. It's a Ruth Mitchell, who was the stage manager. God used to me, because I was playing all those rehearsals and playing some auditions at the time. And she came to me and she said, "We're starting auditions for a show called Gypsy, and I need somebody to play." "Would you be interested?" And I said, "Sure." I said, "Sure, a lot." Anyway, for six weeks, I was playing the auditions, and Jerry Robbins got used to me. People get used to me. And said, "Literally, would you like to do this show with me?" And I said, "Do you want me to?" And he said, "Yes." And I said, "Yes." And that was how I ended up doing dance music with Gypsy. And by that time, as everybody in our business knows, once you sort of make your mark as a professional, you can reach anybody. But I'm not a very competitive person to begin with. So if I had the option to get my own drink at the Openly West Side Story, I would probably never have had a career. What was Steve like as a young man working on Gypsy? Julie Andrews told us that he could be very shy. Did you sense that, too? Well, that's something hard, because I. I was shy myself. I think getting to know Steve was a slow process. It wasn't like all these two guys are destined to become great friends. But I never forgot the kind of raw impression that I had of him when he was performing. That was the most naked Steve I had ever seen. I was not privy to private personal conversations with him. But it was sort of indication that there was somebody there who was more interesting than I realized. And this performance was when Steve and Julie Stein demonstrated roses to her. It was a day I'll never forget, because I don't think any of us knew what we were going to see. This was just like eight of us in this room. Julie came outside at the piano and Steve came out with some notes and began to perform this thing, which none of us had ever heard. And it was overwhelming. And it was still to this day the ultimate version of that piece. There was no end to it then. The piece did not have any final hyno for me. But Steve's incredible performance. I'll never forget his logs alone. You really watched a person disintegrate in front of your eyes. It is still the ultimate, unreachable performance of that piece. Anyway, we saw each other occasionally and in a very friendly way. And I think we're supportive to each other. We got to know each other. I think just by hanging around together and then I think we grew over the last 15, 16 years of our lives to really like each other. I know that I felt that way toward him. Do you think that some of it, too, is the fact that the years of being busy working the business and trying to make one's mark, the two of you had done all that. So now here is a time where the two of you can just meet each other on the terms of I'm still here. That's likely true. We became really quite warm friends. We started seeing each other somewhat more socially and he came up to the country several times. We had a semi-serious conversation once when he was over here. But he wasn't writing. And I was sort of needling him about it because the idea of not writing seems like denying yourself pleasure. And he made a comment that surprised me who would want to hear his writing today, younger people. I think my response was basically, "Fuck that. That's not why you're writing." Then you know that's not true. We write because it's more fun to do it than not to do it. We talked about that a couple of times and clearly he got out of that period because he was in the middle of writing something when he died. I'm sure I'll think of a lot of stuff when we hang up here. I'm not the world's most public person. So this is not easy for me. - Well, we really appreciate it. Thank you. - We really do because you're one of the few people who have been there that long with him. So we're so appreciative that you were able to talk. - It means a lot. - Thank you guys and thank you for asking me. I'm pleased to have done it. And I do what just as a final thing. And I may have misread Steve, I don't think so. But he grew more content with his life. And that made me feel good. I'm feeling very, very warm memories right now. And I'm gonna go take a walk and go sit under the tree that we last did that with. Don't think of me, guys. ♪ I'm like my best ♪ - In this episode, traveled by Mopian Shire was sung by Chloe Hopcroft, Nick Myers and Kit Pacupom. New words by Mori Yaston was sung by Lauren Jones, and the Golden Willow Tree by Aaron Copeland was sung by Bruce Graham. The songs were produced by Chris Traves with musical direction by Gareth Valentine and piano accompaniment by Sam Young. - Home! - And now for our cast. Stephen Sondheim was portrayed by Alistair McGowan featuring Eddie Andrews as Young PJ. The Prince Party pianist was Steve Ross, who played Bach and Harnock's matchmaker matchmaker. Judy Prince was played by Rebecca Redoubt. In Russian spy, Young Steve was played by Nathaniel Hodgkis, young Johnny by Taran Jerem, young Billy by Jude Peters, young Mary by Melissa Redmond, and young Jim by Mitchell Walsh. Dramatic reenactments were written by Martin Mills and produced by Peter E. Jones. The music of Stephen Sondheim was played by Colin Maloy, and comedy tonight was played by Gareth Valentine. Sondheim instrumental tracks were provided by Broadway studio orchestra. Home by Candor and Eb was sung by Mildred Nathwick, and the original Broadway cast of 70 Girl 70. The vamp of "How Does the Wine Taste" was composed by Harold Carr. I'll never go there anymore by Moose Charlotte and Eddie Lawrence was squeeched by Moose Charlotte on the original composer's demo tape. The overture to make a wish was composed by Hugh Martin, and hard-hearted Hannah by Milton Ager, Jack Yellen, Bob Bigelow and Charles Bates was sung by Bell Baker. From "Multi and Shire" was the sap of life. A hero's love was played by David Shire. To be alive from love match and the title song from "How Do You Do I Love You" was sung by Richard Maltby Jr. and played by David Shire. Marlowe's theme from farewell my lovely, and "Salt Session" from Saturday Night Fever were composed by David Shire. The excerpt from "Blue L.O." by Peter E. Jones was sung by Lauren Jones and Shane O'Reardon. Final mix and mastering is by Chris Traves. Songs I Wish I Written Credits were read by Jonathan Christopher and I am Marron James McCullough. [SIRENS] Loving you, "Veontalt's on Time" was produced by Martin Mills and Peter E. Jones. The executive producer is Jason Caffrey of Creative Kin Limited. The mix engineer is Phoebe Murdo. The podcast's original score is composed by Peter E. Jones. The series is written, devised and directed by Martin Mills. [MUSIC PLAYING]