The twilight golden years of the Golden Age of musical theater, which archaeologists date from about 1959 to 1981, produced three great lyricists.
One, of course, was Stephen Sondheim, setting words to his own music with a neurotic complexity that defined that time and ours.
Sondheim called his lyrics “impeccable.”As models of humor, elegance and compassion, they could stand to be more widely studied and imitated.
That they aren’t is partly the result of the strange bifurcation of Harnick’s career into Bock and post-Bock eras.
Another handful of his shows with Bock (“The Apple Tree,” “The Rothschilds,” “Tenderloin”) are just as pleasurable, if less profound.
Persons:
Stephen Sondheim, Fred Ebb, John Kander, Sheldon Harnick, “, Jerry Bock, Sondheim, Bock, Harnick, ”, “ Fiorello