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‘Give me time’: Sondheim, a clever maid and ‘The Miller’s Son’
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Sondheim claimed that ‘The Miller’s Son’ ‘sums up’ A Little Night Music. It occupies the 11 o’clock slot, yet it seems to have no plot function. It is sung by a secondary character, the flirtatious maid Petra, less to herself than directly to the audience. Normally such an ‘I am/I want’ song would introduce a character, but it is Petra’s valedictory and her only solo number. It contains one of just two vocal passages in the show set in duple metre and the only number begging to be ‘belted’. To save the song from being cut in Boston, Sondheim insisted that the role be recast. Yet he has said little about the number. Although Sondheim made the maid the mistress of his show by empowering her to voice its theme, might not its poetic complexity, rhetorical cleverness and spiralling trajectory recommend it as one of his brilliant but ‘wrong’ songs?
Title: ‘Give me time’: Sondheim, a clever maid and ‘The Miller’s Son’
Description:
Sondheim claimed that ‘The Miller’s Son’ ‘sums up’ A Little Night Music.
It occupies the 11 o’clock slot, yet it seems to have no plot function.
It is sung by a secondary character, the flirtatious maid Petra, less to herself than directly to the audience.
Normally such an ‘I am/I want’ song would introduce a character, but it is Petra’s valedictory and her only solo number.
It contains one of just two vocal passages in the show set in duple metre and the only number begging to be ‘belted’.
To save the song from being cut in Boston, Sondheim insisted that the role be recast.
Yet he has said little about the number.
Although Sondheim made the maid the mistress of his show by empowering her to voice its theme, might not its poetic complexity, rhetorical cleverness and spiralling trajectory recommend it as one of his brilliant but ‘wrong’ songs?.
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