Steven Sondheim and His Views On Rhyme

Did you catch it?

Did you catch the mistake in this blog title?

The accents are off when matching "Sondheim" with "on rhyme."

Steven wouldn't like that. He would call it a scansion error. Unacceptable.

The placement of accents and rhyme schemes must be correct. You don't mix SOND-heim with on-RHYME. That's trochee with iamb. It should be trochee with trochee  or iamb with iamb in this title. A skilled wordsmith would select a different word to fix the accent error.

In his two-volume book on  Broadway Musical writing--called Look, I made a Hat and Finishing the Hat--Sondheim also poo-poos all the newly accepted partial rhymes that don't have the same consonant end.


The kind of fake rhymes that permeate today's pop. The inner vowels rhyme only, not the word endings.

That's a lyric-writing no-no, too, in his book.

I think he has earned the right to state his benchmark. He's only been creating the medium for 50 years! He may very well be the Prince of Poetry; Earl of Alliteration; Lord of laundry list lyric writing; and the Master of meter.

Who doesn't know West Side Story; Sondheim's  classic remake of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet of a love mis-match among opposing 1950's New York gangs? I think Shakespeare would have approved of Sondheim's updated version, and applauded the music.


Sunday in the Park with George was my favorite. Written after Seurat's painting called Sunday in the Park. Bernadette Peters gave the perfect sardonic interpretation of Steven's score.

We heard Bernadette live at a show in Vegas. Our first vacation attempt at that desert city. Bernadette did not disappoint, but Vegas did. All the neon lights in the world could not light up that dark place. It was our one and only trip.

Notice the great satire in the superimposed overlay on the iconic painting.

Just last week I was offered a job to accompany "The Assassins." But previous commitments prevented me. Maybe another opportunity to play this great musical writer's works will come my way.

There is nothing like banging out the piano part of  a "Comedy Tonight" showstopper or languishing in the lavish keyboards of "Send in the Clowns."

Sondheim's lyrics are only rivaled by his masterfully written music.

Take a walk through his life of libretti and songwriting and next to greats like Roger Hammerstein and Leonard Bernstein, Roger and Richard Sherman.

Some of his musicals you'll read about:

"A  Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum"(1966)

"A Little Night Music"

"Sweeney Todd"


To list his entire credits would take several blog entries, so pick up the books and see for yourself.


It will be a walk in the park and you won't trip on any rhyming divots. I promise. Sondheim will be the first to point them out.