From this interview:



I wonder what this anecdote is supposed to mean:

According to one report, Sondheim finally approached Andrew Lloyd Webber in friendship at a party a few years ago. Lloyd Webber said to him: "There is not a line of your music I wish I had written."

Is it a friendly remark among collegues? Or a bitchy attack? I suppose it depends on the context, and I choose to interpret it as a friendly remark.

Besides, his Requiem was written twenty years ago. These days, "the next piece" he writes is yet another crappy show, like TBG and TWIW. What appalls and drives this Sondheim-type critic crazy is that his late shows lack coherent dramaturgy and have crappy lyrics- which makes him just too easy to pidgeon-hole. It doesn't matter how intensely hummably tunes he achieves to compose, the shows remain bad.

I miss the ALW of the early days, when he actually was inventive.

Thoughts?

I don't see how it could be interpreted as a friendly remark. But I'd like to know from whence this 'report' comes and whether it is true or can be put down to theatrical myth. It sounds more like the latter to me and that's how I'll interpret it until I see this 'report' or a more reliable reference to it than The Daily Mail with my own eyes. (This isn't a dig at you, Hans, but at The Daily Mail and its sloppy journalism.)

I'd say it more sounds like a joke.

I have seen Webber answer a question about who's musical catalogue he wished he could say was his own, and he said R&H.

It is true that a lot of people hate Andrew Lloyd-Webber on principle, because of what he is seen to represent:
lowest common denominator populist entertainment.

It is true that Andrew Lloyd-Webber is more concious of wanting to please the public and for his musicals to be commercially as well as critically successful..... whereas with someone like Stephen Sondheim I think he cares more about being true to the concept of the musical itself, rather than pleasing audiences or even critics. I think I remember someone interviewed for the documentary "Broadway: The American Musical" saying about Sondheim:
"He doesn't care what people think - that is the greatest strength and also the greatest weakness of Sondheim musicals"

Still, it's extremely disingenuous of ALW to play the "critics don't like me because they don't understand me" card.

Andy, it could just as easily be because they don't like a musical you've written as a matter of personal taste. Or maybe the musical you've written really is a piece of shit?

This also seems hypocritical to me, since certain of ALW's projects - such as "Aspects Of Love" and "The Beautiful Game" - seem to have been written specifically with the aim of currying critical favour... being self-concious attempts at being deeply philosophical works of substance. Also, correct me if I'm wrong here, but didn't "Aspects Of Love" and "The Beautiful Game" attract some good notices from critics who praised ALW for doing something deeper than he usually does? Even a lot of the bad reviews note the ambition of those shows in an "oh well, good try, but..." manner.

Then again, I've yet to read any interview with ALW where he did not make at least one breathtakingly stupid comment.

I agree, and it's stupid.