1918 August 25
Lawrence, Massachusetts
Maestro

I could go through any Beethoven sonata, the most original or the most extraordinary Beethovenian kind of, .. even late sonatas and show you all the origins in Haydn, or in Mozart, or in Bach.

If we do survive, I think we are going to come out with a great return to representational painting, to intelligible poetry, to tonal music, to novels which we like, instead of novels in which you can take the pages out and realign them as you wish. And I do think we are going to come back to enjoyable art, in other words art that not only upsets and reveals but art that gives pleasure and catharsis.

Jerry R. called today with a noble idea: a modern version of Romeo and Juliet, set in slums at the coincidence of Easter-Passover celebrations. Feelings running high between Jews and Catholics. Former: Capulets, latter: Montagues. Juliet is Jewish. Friar Lawrence is a neighborhood druggist. Street brawls, double death — it all fits. But it's all much less important than the bigger idea of making a musical that tells a tragic story in musical comedy terms, using only musical comedy techniques, never falling into the “operatic” trap. Can it succeed? It hasn't yet in our country. I'm excited. If it can work — it's a first. 6 Jan., 1949

Could be. Who knows? There's something due any day. I will know right away soon as it shows. It may come a-cannonballing come down from the sky, gleam in its eye, bright as a rose. Who knows? — Stephen Sondheim

There will always be some kind of fresh, popular, Earth-rooted source from which Art can come and grow to the more sophisticated developmental heights.

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