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the allure of being a Broadway corn-
poser. Sondheim had moxie, but he
also had plenty of talent. He found it
was easier to break into the business
by being a lyricist rather than a corn-
poser. At the green age of 25, Sond-
heim wrote the lyrics to "West Side
Story" followed in short order by the
words to "Gypsy" and "Do I Hear a
Waltz?" Early on, he worked in the
storied company of Leonard Bern-
stein, whose ego Sondheim couldn't
abide; Jule Style, an affable composer
whom Sondheim liked; and Richard
Rodgers, whose personality clashed
with Sondheim's like polka dots and
stripes.
By 1962, Sondheim finally made a
splash as both a lyricist and composer
with the uproarious A Funny Thing
Happened on the Way to the Forum.
Although the music was frequently
formulaic, the words sparkled with
wit. In "Corriedy Tonight," Sondheim
brilliantly rhymes "tunics" and
"eunuchs" and "cupidity" with
‘`tumidity." Only Cole Porter's lyrics
are on that high plane of urbane
humor.
As a composer, Sondheim grew by
great strides. His music evolved,
becoming rhythmically more complex
and harmonically bolder.'' No other
Broadway composer has shown such
breadth and daring. Secrest traces

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11

Sondheim s maturation as a composer,
from the Asian impressionism of Pacif-
ic Overtures to the almost operatic
Sweeney Todd and Passion, but her
musical analysis is sometimes sketchy.
Directors Hal Prince and Arthur
Laurents are major players in the
book, as is choreographer Jerome Rob-
bins. But what's missing are the people
in Sondheim's private life. Although
we learn that both Lee Remick and
composer Mary Rodgers fancied
Sondheim romantically, there is pre-
cious little information about the men
Sondheim was emotionally involved
with. Only near the end of the book is
there a discussion of Sondheim's cur-
rent love, a young composer named
Peter Jones.
Although Secrest doesn't mine the
psyche of her subject as thoroughly as
one would like, her book is still a
solid, interesting work. She obviously
admires and appreciates Sondheim's
varied output, but she's a little too
flummoxed by his Byzantine personal-
ity to make sense of him.
We may never know the man
entirely, but in the end, it's his music
that matters most. Stephen Sondheim
is 68, but he is the most modern com-c—/
poser writing for Broadway today. It's
not going out on a limb to predict
.that, long after the elephantine specta-
cles of Andrew Lloyd Webber have

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