Revitalising Your Repertoire: songs by Sondheim
There’s nothing quite like singing Sondheim! His songs are thrilling: rich, metaphor filled, character driven acting pieces that are a rewarding challenge to learn and master.
We’re going to highlight some Sondheim songs that will work well in auditions and won’t be too difficult for an audition pianist to master. In preparing these songs make sure you spend time slowly learning the prescribed melodies and rhythms - they can alter very slightly when you least expect it. Paying attention to these details will go a long way to giving a great rendition of these songs.
If you didn’t get to see the Sondheim 90th Birthday celebration on YouTube yet - we highly recommend it. There’s some great examples of his work being done simply and beautifully - proving the songs work well out of a theatre setting like an audition room. We’ll feature a couple of performances, but here’s the full performance:
No One Is Alone
Sung by a group of characters towards the end of Into The Woods, this song also works very well as a stand alone solo for any singer. This is easily cut into different lengths depending on what you require - pick the lyrics that mean the most to you! There are small breaks between phrases - make sure that the ideas and lyrics are still connected when they need to be.
No Sondheim blog would be complete without an appearance by Bernadette Peters, so here she is in concert:
And here’s Norm Lewis with a slightly different take:
The sheet music is widely available. Just click here.
The Flag Song
This song was once the opening number to Assassins before it was cut. Its lyric feels strong and contemporary. It’s a great song for a baritone (nice top note at the end!) However, as it is a song of unification, also one that could be sung by any character and voice type. Here’s one of our favourite singers Brian Stokes Mitchell doing a great rendition:
Sheet music can be found here.
What More Do I Need?
This is a great song with a simple lyric that is nice to sing and fun to perform. Another song originally sung by a group of people in the show Saturday Night, it works just as well solo for any singer and is easy to cut.
Here’s the glorious Kelli O’Hara (boy do we love her voice!) doing a great rendition for the Sondheim 90th concert:
Here's the sheet music.
The Boy From…
A great little comedy number (get your Spanish pronunciation ready). This one originally came from a review, so it stands out of context well for an audition. This one is easy to cut down too.
Here’s Faith Prince having a lot of fun in cabaret:
Anyone Can Whistle
Another great versatile song that is short for an audition and suitable for a wide variety of singers. The melody is deceptively simple, but be careful as there are some intricate interval leaps (look out for the ‘easy’s and ‘what’s hard’)
Here’s Lea Salonga in concert:
And just because we couldn’t have a Sondheim blog without Patti LuPone, here is her simple moving version:
Here's the sheet music
Want more? Check out our first blog of Sondheim songs here.
If you’re ever looking to splurge on some Sondheim sheet music collections, or after some more inspiration, there are some great compendiums of his well known (and lesser known but equally interesting) numbers. Check out the “All Sondheim” series, as well as the “Sondheim for Singers” series, readily available online.