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Posted 06/10/02
When he first took a class about the works of Stephen Sondheim in the late 1980s, Steve Swayne couldn't have known it would lead to an ongoing correspondence with the musical theater legend — nor that he would have the chance to premiere an early work by Sondheim.
Swayne's interest in the composer, however, has resulted in these unexpected opportunities in recent years, as well as earning him a Mellon Career Enhancement Fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. The grant, which was awarded earlier this year, will support Swayne's work on a book that examines the musical roots of Sondheim's work.
Now an Assistant Professor of Music at Dartmouth, Swayne was working on his thesis about Sondheim when his correspondence with the composer began. Swayne wanted to look at an unpublished 1950 piano sonata that was Sondheim's honors thesis at Williams. The Williams archivist told him that she would need to contact the author, and to Swayne's surprise, he soon received a personal note from Sondheim. Eventually, Swayne had the opportunity to study and make a private recording of the previously unheard sonata for the composer.
"The sonata is such a strong and mature work that I knew Sondheim would enjoy hearing the piece for the first time," Swayne said.
Sondheim's response was gratifying.
"Your recording of the Piano Sonata leaves me surprisingly unembarrassed about the work," the musical playwright wrote to Swayne after receiving the recording. "I guess I really was trying to write tunes even then."
An expert in American music, Swayne is interested in the way Sondheim uses music as a dramatic tool. His book will examine how the composer's musical roots, including a solid classical music background and the dramatic techniques of musical theater, combine in his mature works.
"Sondheim was one of the first musical theater composers whose music works the way opera music works," Swayne said. "It tells you in musical terms the thoughts and actions of the characters."
Although Sondheim's creations have been critical and popular successes, Swayne notes that his songs are not as familiar as those by other musical theater composers like Cole Porter or Ira Gershwin.
"Some people have criticized Sondheim for not being very 'hummable.' But that misses the brilliance of what he does. You can intuitively feel the drama that is packed into his songs. When you come to a Sondheim show, you have to listen to the music differently," he said.
Now Sondheim is known for writing the music and lyrics for award-winning favorites such as Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George, Sweeney Todd and A Little Night Music, as well as the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy. However, his first attempts at musical theater during college were "undistinguished," Swayne said.
"As he matured, his music became more sophisticated, more like the sonata," he said.
In addition to supporting his work on the Sondheim book, Swayne will use his Career Enhancement Fellowship to resume his study of Russian music as well.
At Dartmouth, Swayne teaches courses in 19th- and 20th-century art music, opera, American musical theater, Russian music and American music. An accomplished pianist, he has four nationally distributed recordings currently in release and a recent performance with the San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas to his credit. Swayne also has taught at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and at the University of California, Berkeley.
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