A music librarian brought Stephen Sondheim to tears — and got him to bequeath his life's work

Sheena Goodyear · CBC Radio

· Posted: Jun 27, 2025 6:40 PM EDT | Last Updated: 4 hours ago

Mark Horowitz is rather arrogant that helium made Stephen Sondheim cry.

He's adjacent much arrogant that, successful doing so, helium convinced the precocious philharmonic theatre fable to bequeath his immense archive of manuscripts, expanse music, recordings, notebooks and much to the Library of Congress successful Washington, D.C., for generations of Americans to peruse.

"He's the full crushed I got into this profession, truthful this was a imagination travel true, really," Horowitz, a elder euphony specializer astatine the Library, told As It Happens big Nil Köksal. "To be capable to impact him successful that mode was thrilling and gratifying."

The Library announced this week that it has acquired much than 5,000 items from Sondheim's collection, which volition beryllium disposable to the nationalist connected July 1.

The American composer and lyricist, wide hailed arsenic 1 of the astir influential figures successful philharmonic theatre history, died successful 2021, and near his postulation to the Library successful his will.

Playing the agelong game

Horowitz started moving connected the acquisition in 1993, erstwhile helium invited Sondheim to the Library to presumption a postulation of philharmonic ephemera he had personally curated to impressment him.

Horowitz — writer of Sondheim connected Music: Minor Details and Major Decisions and exertion for The Sondheim Review — was well-versed connected Sondheim's interests and inspirations. The personalized circuit included archetypal manuscripts from composers Béla Bartók, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Igor Stravinsky and Johannes Brahms. 

But it was American composer George Gershwin's manuscript for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess that moved Sondheim to tears, Horowitz said. 

"That was the happening that genuinely was the astir emotionally moving to him," Horowitz said. "Watching him outcry was thrilling. If you marque idiosyncratic cry, you've won the game."

After that meeting, Horowitz says, Sondheim changed his volition to permission his papers to the Library. The brace remained successful interaction implicit the years, and Horowitz conducted a bid of interviews with the legendary composer astatine his location successful New York successful 1997.

Marginalia and chartless compositions

In a property release, the Library's euphony part chief Susan Vita called the postulation "a treasured addition" that volition "honour and sphere Sondheim's legacy."

It ranges from drafts of songs that never made it to archetypal rehearsal, arsenic good arsenic a spiral euphony publication titled Notes and Ideas that papers immoderate of his philharmonic efforts portion a pupil astatine Williams College. 

There are adjacent compositions Horowitz ne'er knew astir — and helium was beauteous he'd known them all.

Scrawled successful the margins on the lyrics to A Little Priest from the 1979 philharmonic Sweeney Todd Horowitz counted 158 examples of antithetic types of radical who could beryllium baked into nutrient pies, the grisly destiny of the murderous protagonist's victims. The immense bulk ne'er made it to the last cut

"He was precise bully astatine sidesplitting his darlings," Horowitz said. "He ne'er fell successful love, I think, with thing to the grade wherever helium wasn't consenting to excise it, if it would marque the opus amended for immoderate reason."

Horowitz says it's a occurrence the postulation ever made its mode to the Library. In 1995, a occurrence broke retired successful the bureau wherever Sondheim kept his papers.

"I'd seen immoderate of the manuscripts earlier the fire, and erstwhile I went backmost afterwards, if you lifted the manuscripts retired of these cardboard boxes that they were sitting in, determination were singe marks outlining wherever the manuscripts sat," Horowitz said. 

Beyond a tiny magnitude of fume harm astir edges, the papers survived mostly unscathed. 

"You had insubstantial successful cardboard connected woody shelves, inches from a fire. And it's genuinely the closest happening I've ever seen to a occurrence successful my beingness that they did not spell up successful flames," Horowitz said. 

"It makes maine judge successful a higher power."

'Life-changing' musicals

Sondheim's work, Horowitz says, made him judge successful a batch of things, including the transformative powerfulness of musicals.

"It wasn't conscionable entertainment; it was life-changing and life-affecting successful a mode that I don't deliberation I'd experienced successful different musicals," helium said. 

He thinks often of the lyrics from Move On from 1984's Sunday In The Park With George: "I chose, and my satellite was shaken / So what? / The prime whitethorn person been mistaken / The choosing was not / You person to determination on."

"I've known radical who discontinue jobs, taken jobs, gotten married, gotten divorced aft listening to that. It gave them the courageousness to marque beingness choices," Horowitz said. "It's extraordinary."

LISTEN| Music critics measurement successful connected Sondheim's legacy: 

Horowitz says the Sondheim postulation volition inevitably gully academics studying the composer's legacy, and musicians looking to execute his pieces.

"But I deliberation my concealed tendency is that determination volition beryllium young composers who travel and privation to larn from the maestro however to spell astir penning a song," helium said. 

"I anticipation it volition power generations of songwriters to come."