Sondheim & Novalis: Chasing Flowers, Finishing Hats, and the Irrepressible Force of Art

NOTE: This essay is a rough draft. Although I have done my best to proof accuracy and citations, it has not been independently verified or proofread. The essay was written not for publication, but as an exercise to help sort through my ideas on the concept of the Blue Flower and art. I have posted it here in the spirit of Novalis's Fragments so that it might help others who are going down a similar path.

Frank & Hank Needlenose of Sparkle Valley channel Novalis and Sondheim

Stephen Sondheim and Novalis are separated by 200 years. One is a songwriter, the other is a poet and philosopher. One embraces reason and the mind, the other, emotions and the heart. One died young, the other is over 90.[i] On the surface, they couldn’t be more different. But they share one very important thing. They are both artists. In fact, they are both transformative artists. What is it in the nature of art that links these two seemingly disparate figures?

Sondheim

Stephen Sondheim’s townhouse is spotless. He is meticulous and nothing is ever out of place. The actor, Anthony Perkins, commented that, ''if you leave so much as a sock out, you feel like everyone can see it…”[ii] Sondheim’s passion is puzzles, and his house is filled with them. He lives a structured life.

This carries through to his work as well. He is a slow and deliberate writer who makes meticulous notes and rarely presents a song in progress. Over 50 years, he has written musicals, and countless characters, and can explain and account for every note and word in every song he has written.

He likes order.

Even as a kid he sought order. After his parents divorced, his life was thrown into chaos. But the rigor of military school saved him. As he puts it—

You have to be at a certain place at a certain time, you have to polish the buttons on the uniform, you have to parade here, you have to take orders there, and it was wonderful. There's a sense of structure and I think psychologically it must've saved my life.

Your life becomes chaotic suddenly when your parents split up and military school is bringing order to chaos.”[iii]

“Bringing order to chaos”

This became his mantra.

He loved mathematics for its sense of order, and as he grew up he learned the craft of songwriting from mentors who emphasized rules. First, from Oscar Hammerstein, who put Sondheim through a rigorous writing bootcamp, which required working his way logically through four complete scores.

Sondheim credits Hammerstein with setting him on the path to becoming an artist.

"What happened was I was able to turn the experience [of my dysfunctional upbringing] into the desire to make things. Both to emulate him, as a way of making order out of chaos, and turning revenge into something positive...”[iv]

“Revenge”

This became his motive.

He continued his training at Williams College, where his music professor, William Barrow, who was from the “Mary Poppins” school of music, again emphasized the strict rules of songwriting.[v]

And finally, and most importantly, he worked under the guidance of the “godfather of rules,” Milton Babbitt, the composer/mathematician from Princeton who was notorious for his rigorous and cerebral approach to music.

“He (Babbit) often said in interviews that every note in a contemporary composition should be so thoroughly justified that the alteration of a tone color or a dynamic would ruin the work’s structure.”[vi]

Sondheim’s training as a musician was no less rigorous and analytical than that of a scientist. And it shows in his work.

“[Sondheim’s] literary and musical love of precision, his perfectionism, his fondness for puzzles and mystery stories, even what he calls his Germanic taste for organization -- all are manifestations, in Wallace Stevens's words, of the artist's "blessed rage for order." Just as composing, for him, is about organizing music for a listener's ear, designing it architectonically to hold together through various rhythmic and harmonic devices, so is writing a way of reinventing and transcending the tumultuous emotions of his childhood, a way of lending the random, messy business of life a sense of harmony and form.”[vii]

Precision. Perfectionism. Order.

Revenge. Redemption. Emotions.

Novalis

Unlike Sondheim, Novalis[viii] grew up with a present father and plenty of order in his life. Too much order in fact. His father was a pietist and his home life reflected it. There were so many rules.[ix]

Novalis also loved mathematics and was exposed at an early age to Enlightenment thinking and the scientific method.[x]He trained (in Freiburg) as a geologist under the “father of geology,” Abraham Werner, who is best known for a comprehensive color scheme used for the description and classification of minerals.[xi] The echoes of Babbitt are clear.

Novalis also studied law—again a discipline involving rules and order. But his reaction to all this training and order was different than Sondheim’s.

He rebelled and became a poet. “Poetry,” he said, “heals the wounds inflicted by reason.”

He rejected order and embraced chaos.

Schiller

Novalis’ journey to freedom began with Friedrich von Schiller, whom he met while he was studying law at the University of Jena (1790).

Schiller also grew up in a world of rules, the son of a military man who was employed by the notorious Duke of Württemberg—an absolute tyrant. In deference to the Duke, Schiller was sent to military school where he endured eight years of rigid rules and misery. He deeply resented this treatment and ultimately rebelled, making it his life’s work to write about the use and abuse of power.

His first play, “Die Rauber,” (1781) is the story of a rebel, a “sublime criminal,” who is driven by society to a life of crime.[xii]

Novalis loved it. The edginess and anti-establshment attitude spoke to him. But it was Schiller’s third work, Cabel and Love (1784)—about the love of a young aristocrat for a girl of humble origin—(which ironically presaged Novalis’ own experience with Sophie Kuhn)—that ultimately spurred Novalis into action.[xiii]

The zeitgeist was right for change. All across Europe (and especially in Jena with figures like Schiller), artists and thinkers were beginning to challenge the “artificial” conventions of Enlightenment thinking.[xiv]

Freed from convention, Novalis left the rules and the “dull realities”[xv]of life behind and sought a higher truth. And he did it through his art.

Art, to Novalis, was not about following rules. It was about the mystery, the yearning, the artistic spirit. As he put it,

“In a work of art, chaos must shimmer through the veil of order.“

While Sondheim was running away from chaos to order, Novalis was running toward it. And he did it with a vengeance. Although he died at the age of 28, he created a body of work that would be described by Harold Bloom as laying the groundwork for the German Romantic movement.[xvi]

Sondheim/Novalis

Order/Chaos

Enlightenment/Romanticism

Rationality/Emotions

Rebels

Artists.

Are Sondheim and Novalis really as different as they seem?

The Rebels (Art as Rebellion)

Romantics are rebels. Novalis, and the Romantics of his time, rebelled against the order and rationality of the Enlightenment. Artistically, they rebelled against the “mechanical” rules of conventional form—the balance, the harmony—and replaced it with the “organic” principle of individual imagination and creativity. In the dialectic of man versus nature, they chose the latter.

So where does this leave Sondheim?

Sondheim embraced balance and harmony—on the surface, at least. He is a conventional songwriter who learned from conventional songwriters. He has been called a modernist, which is essentially Enlightenment 2.0, and a post-modernist—Enlightenment 3.0. But he has also been called an Existentialist, which is essentially Romanticism 2.0— Romanticism without the romance.[xvii]

Clearly, Sondheim defies labels—both because of the breadth of his work, and because of the context in which he worked. Unlike Novalis, who worked with a blank canvas, Sondheim is a collaborator—always part of a larger project. And there is compromise in collaboration.

Sondheim and Chaos

There is also chaos.

Most importantly, there is the unpredictability of a live audience. As Sondheim puts it,

“…the audience is a collaborator – and every night that collaborator changes. What’s presented on stage is ordered and generally follows logic. But how an audience reacts is not. The presence (or absence) of the audience, the atmosphere (vibe) during the actual performance is that uncontrolled x factor – it’s “the chaos that shimmers through.”[xviii]

This is Novalis’ chaos. It’s ineffable—part of the magic that creates and underlies art. It’s a mystery without a solution.

The same goes for Sondheim’s creative process. There is chaos there as well.[xix]

His process is deliberate and systematic – it’s about making connections, but it still requires that creative spark. And he does that by becoming his characters.

“I don’t create the characters.” Sondheim says, “They’re given to me. I’m a collaborator…. By the time I am done with a score I know the book better than the author. I examine every word and ask why he used this word or that word (I spend weeks with the writer.) … After that the process of creating a character is ad libbing. I take the character I’m given and then ad lib. I can do it because I’m in the character.” [xx]

Once he is in character Sondheim creates his art. The initial process is systematic and “fact gathering,” but the second part - the “ad libbing,” (improvisation) is the “magic,” the chaos.

Then, after the ad-libbing, the third step occurs—the re-shaping, and re-writing (analytical/puzzle solving). Sondheim’s creative process is a complicated dance of analysis, chaos, and collaboration.

All this adds up to a body of work that stands alone. Although one can debate where to place him philosophically, there is no debating the impact of his work. He is considered the greatest musical theater songwriter in American history for a reason. He transformed theater.

So despite all this talk of rules and order, Sondheim was a rebel.

In the words of Jesse Green:

“He was a rebel advancing a cause: a new, jarring, adult kind of Broadway musical… Landmark shows like "Company," "Follies," "Sweeney Todd" and "Sunday in the Park With George" – upend[ed] the genteel conventions of an American art form exemplified by "My Fair Lady."[xxi]

Ironically, it was his meticulous nature and his strict adherence to the rules (along with his creative genius) that made him a rebel. By choosing to apply his rigorous standards to musical theater, a form of entertainment that had never before been considered art, he brought a new art form to life.

And he never wavered. “Stick to it Steve,” is what they called him. Although the times changed, he didn’t. He stayed the course. Always the mantra—“order from disorder.” And as a result, he revolutionized musical theater, transforming it from mere entertainment into art.[xxii]

As Frank Rich put it, “Sondheim demand[ed] that an audience radically change its whole way of looking at the Broadway musical,” [xxiii]

In reference to Sondheim’s, Sunday in the Park with George, Rich had this to say:

“… Sunday is a watershed event that demands nothing less than a retrospective, even revisionist, look at the development of...the serious Broadway musical.”[xxiv]

This was revolutionary. It was art.

The confluence of events – a turbulent childhood that led to a “blessed rage”[xxv] for order and a passion for revenge (on his mother)—combined with the meticulous learning of a craft (from icons like Hammerstein and Babbit)—and finally, and most importantly, the decision to act—to put pen to paper—resulted in a revolution in musical theater.

This is what art does.

Sondheim and Seurat

So where did this art come from? Who is the artist behind this revolutionary work?

Although Sondheim denies any autobiographical links to his work, he admits there are parts of him in his characters. One such character is George from “Sunday in the Park with George” (modeled after Georges Seurat).

Seurat’s approach to his art clearly resonated with Sondheim:

'It certainly relates to music,'' Sondheim said. ''Seurat experimented with the color wheel the way one experiments with a scale. He used complementary color exactly the way one uses dominant and tonic harmony. When you start thinking about it, there are all kinds of analogies. It started from the painting and the more I found out about Seurat, the more I realized, 'My God, this is all about music.”[xxvi]

It was this realization that led to Sunday in the Park with George, which he wrote with James Lapine.

In Seurat’s work, Sondheim saw an opportunity to explore the artistic process:

“The major thing I wanted to do [with Sunday in the Park with George] was to enable anyone who is not an artist to understand what hard work it is… We were trying to do what pointillism does. Take this image and that image and make them so they all finally come together, to create a whole that tells a story… Audiences were baffled by it. Lots of walk-outs. The Tony’s ignored it… but we won the Pulitzer Prize.”[xxvii]

“Hard work.” “Technical.” “Unappreciated.” This is the way Sondheim describes his own art. He doesn’t expect his work to be understood by the masses. But the people who matter, the ones who understand what he’s doing, will appreciate it. He has become Babbitt—the classic trope of the artist suffering for his work.

But according to _____, Sunday reveals more than just Sondheim’s creative process. It reveals what’s behind that process - “Stephen Sondheim,” the man.

Sondheim’s classic features one of his most autobiographical songs “Finishing the Hat.” … Where he offers a massive credo for the artist who has, in effect, two souls: one for the physical specimen living in the world and another for the out-of-body creator living in the canvases where he re-fashions the world.”[xxviii]

How you have to finish the hat How you watch the rest of the world From a window while you finish the hat[xxix]

Sondheim the man, who is restricted by the conventions and psychology of his life, and Sondheim the artist, who is not.

Two souls - order and chaos.

The question, of course, as Rich points out, is how much did Sondheim actually live in the “real” world of chaos?

“I concluded that it was again the solitude of a Sondheim character—Georges, a loner who watched “the rest of the world from a window” rather than living within it—that spoke to me…”[xxx]

Sondheim the outsider (observer). Sondheim, the creator of “Finishing the Hat,” who spends his life paying mechanical attention to his art, which makes him rich and respected, but keeps him behind the glass. Sondheim, the person who peers every once in a while at life but then returns to his hat because he prefers the ordered world he created to the chaos out there. Sondheim, the creator feeling the power of making something from nothing and needing that rush. Finally, Sondheim, the man being aware of all this but not being able to change a thing.

There’s another line in “Finishing the Hat” that drives home this final point:

"The woman who won't wait for you knows that however you live there's a part of you always standing by, mapping out the sky, finishing a hat, starting on a hat..."[xxxi] Sondheim is saying that the real world (the character, Dot) is important to him, but his art will always come first. It’s not in his control. And when he finishes this hat, there will be another, and another. As long as he lives, he will be an artist, and this means he will never be free to fully live in the real world and love someone (Dot). The world of creativity will always come first.

Sondheim (George) is burning with the passion to create.

Sondheim elaborates on this type of obsession in “Passion” (1994) where he describes love as "an intoxication," "a great blindness," "a disease that would cripple us all." Love, the main character (Giorgio) discovers, is a rude, cathartic "religion" that possesses the power to indelibly shatter or redeem his life. He will discover a love "Without cause,/ Without sense,/ Without laws."[xxxii]

So how did George (Sondheim) end up this way? Where does this yearning, this passion to create come from? This is, of course, an open question. What makes an artist? It’s the chaos of life.

But having said that, it isn’t surprising that the similarities between George (Seurat) and Sondheim go beyond their artistic approaches. Seurat also came from an affluent family with an absentee father. Like Sondheim, he was left to figure things out for himself—“bring order to disorder.” His teachers at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts were steeped in the classical painting tradition and Seurat worked rigorously at perfecting his craft. Later in life, after being inspired by the works of Monet and Pisarro, he applied his brand of “order” to his art and revolutionized painting. But even then, his approach remained consistent. In Seurat’s own words:

"Some say they see poetry in my paintings, I see only science."

This reverence for science (order) is Enlightenment-thinking plain and simple, and flies in the face of the Romantic view. The Romantic poet, Edgar Allen Poe, says as much when he describes science as a “vulture” picking the magic from life and stripping the world of mystery. According to Poe, one cannot dream and create art when one knows the rules behind the world.[xxxiii] And yet Seurat and Sondheim did exactly that.

Although a century apart, they were kindred spirits. Not only were they artists who embraced a scientific approach, but they created art that transformed the way we look at the world.

Novalis the Rebel

If Sondheim was the quiet rebel, transforming musical theater from the inside with his precision and appeal to order, Novalis was the loud rebel, the “by-any-means-necessary” rebel, who led with his emotions. Novalis attacked the status quo with a vengeance and helped launch an entire rebel culture.

After the death of his beloved Sophie Kuhn in 1797 —a 13 year old, whom he described as “superearthly” and “representative of immortaliy,”[xxxiv] he went on a creative tear that embraced the chaos in his heart. Not only did he write “Hymns of the Night,” where he celebrates death (a common theme for Romantics) as a mystical portal to a higher idealized life. He also completed numerous other poems such as “The Sacred Fountain,” and the draft of a philosophical system based on Fichte (and Kant’s) idealism.

He was burning with passion.

Like Sondheim with Sunday, there is a work, the unfinished Heinrich von Ofterdingen (1802), that cuts to the heart of what Novalis was about. Set in an idealized vision of the European Middle Ages, it describes the mystical and romantic yearnings of a young poet. It is this yearning (passion) that is at the center of Novalis’ work (and life). The central image of his visions is the famous blue flower, which became a widely recognized symbol of Romantic longing among Novalis’s fellow Romantics like Schelling and Schlegel­­­, and like-minded rebels that followed.

Herman Hesse

And they followed. In fact, Novalis is kind of a poster-boy for rebels (both artistic and political). They love his pie-in-the-sky notion of a utopian world being led by artists. They love his passion, his aura of youth, his audacity, his mystery, his attitude. Many writers, including most notably, Herman Hesse, took inspiration from the German Romantics, and Novalis in particular.

Hesse, the 1946 Nobel Prize winner, experienced an upbringing similar to that of Novalis. He also grew up in a Pietist home and rebelled against the strict rules of the church. In fact, it became so difficult for him to conform that his parents tried to commit him to a mental institution.

In 1898, shortly after he left home, he found (therapeutic) relief and inspiration in the works of Novalis and the Romantics. You can sense the excitement and rebellion in Hesse’s words: “Romanticism,” he said, “has all the mystery and youthfulness of the German heart, all its energy as well as its sickness, and above all a longing for intellectual heights, and youthful, brilliant speculation, which our age absolutely lacks.” Novalis’ work had lit a fire in him, and he set out to change the world. He did it through his lyrical writing—which became must-reads for the “Holden Caulfields” of the world.[xxxv]

His novels “Steppenwolf, “Demian, Siddhartha,” and “The Glass Bead Game” sold in the millions. And as the literary critic, Theodore Ziolkowski put it, “They have become the embodiment of the passions of adolescent crisis and the hunger for a spiritual release in a materialistic world.” [xxxvi]

In a sense, Novalis and the Romantics provided the therapeutic relief and path forward that allowed Hesse to get on with his life and create transformative works of art.[xxxvii]

As Hesse puts it,“Novalis … awaited me just as do the mother, or the wife, the children, maids, dogs and cats in the case of more sensible people.” (Steppenwolf)

He found his artistic home in the works of Novalis and the German Romantics, just as Sondheim found his in Hammerstein and Babbitt.

Novalis and Order – getting home

Sondheim chose order. Novalis chose chaos. But ultimately, according to Novalis, they are trying to do the same thing – get home.

“Art is a way of making reality more present. We have been taught to oppose reality with the imaginary. But the act of making coherent sense of the world is already an imaginative construction. We are constantly distanced from reality. It lies beyond our world. Art brings that reality closer. Without it we are literally lost, homeless. It secures our uncontrollable desires, our destructive, sometimes beautiful imaginations and we call it philosophy. For as Novalis said, "All philosophy is really homesickness. It is the desire to be at home everywhere.” [xxxviii]

But what exactly does Novalis mean by “home?”

Home was more than therapeutic to Novalis. It was a lofty, ambitious goal, inspired by Johann Fichte (and Kant), whom he had also met in Jena.[xxxix] He sought to finish the ambitious project they had begun – a unified theory of morality and knowledge that would result in a “Golden age.” But he would do it on his terms.[xl]

Where Fichte (and Kant) stuck to the Enlightenment script and used reason (order),

Novalis used art.[xli] He believed in a “poetic spirit” that defied the “bounds and bonds” of any one epoch.[xlii] [xliii]

And underlying this “poetic spirit” was the chaos of nature—life. It was the job of the artist to pursue a personal relationship with nature, which would then lead to artistic and spiritual transformation.[xliv]

But in the true rebel spirit, he didn’t stop there. For Novalis, it was about more than just going on some personal journey for personal transformation. He wanted it all. He believed that art could lead beyond art, to a golden age of awareness for all of society. And leading the charge to this golden age was Novalis’ most audacious creation - the “genius-artist” - which presumably was him.

‘Genius – artist’?

According to Novalis, the genius-artist has a superpower… the ability to understand the language of nature.[xlv] While this language is indecipherable to most people, the genius-artist, can in a sense engage in a creative dialogue with his surroundings. And by doing this, he reveals what is hidden and brings this world to a higher, more spiritual expression.[xlvi]

He compares the process to a novelist, who “from his given crowd of accidents and situations—makes a well-ordered, lawlike series.”[xlvii]

This sounds a lot like Sondheim – “bringing order to disorder,” And it’s not a stretch to make a connection between Novalis’ concept of the artist-genius and Sondheim’s own lofty view of art.

But Novalis was on another level. The scope of his ambition was audacious. He believed that the genius-artist could lead a nation of artists to the “Golden Age.”[xlviii] He revered art. In fact, his answer to everything was simple—“more art.”

But how did Novalis’ genius-artist go about creating his art?

Paul Klee, the Swiss painter, and another Novalis fan, explained it this way: “The artist stands as the trunk of the tree… From the root the sap flows to the artist, flows through him, flows to his eye… Battered and stirred by the strength of the flow, he guides the vision on into his work. As, in full view of the world, the crown of the tree unfolds and spreads in time and space, so with his work.”

Using Klee’s metaphor, Novalis thought that by planting enough (artistic) “trees,” it would ultimately lead to an idyllic forest that would provide complete understanding of the human condition. Unfortunately, as Klee points out, “…the sap doesn’t flow sufficiently from human roots… We have found parts, but not the whole.” In other words, Novalis’ golden age” (the underlying reality of nature) is not only unattainable, it can’t even be defined. It exists only as a construct in the artist’s mind (a “regulative” ideal)—the blue flower.[xlix]

Novalis seems to acknowledge as much when he says, “Life must not be a novel that is given to us, but one that is made by us.”[l]

The whole notion of a utopian golden age serves as the motivation for Novalis to act—to assume the role of “artist genius” and use his superpower to engage with the world. It’s a state of mind, an attitude, a choice to engage, a process. For Novalis, success is ultimately in the doing, not the arriving. It’s the striving, the yearning for that undefinable blue flower—that insatiable desire to get “home” that defines the Romantic project.

The sculptor, Isamu Noguchi (1949), put it this way:

"There is an implicit chaos and an element of non-control in life—in relationships, in the social, cultural and political web that surrounds us, in the very randomness of life itself… The aim of art... [is] bringing order out of chaos, a myth out of the world, a sense of belonging out of our loneliness…[li]

Novalis embraces the language of dreams and emotions (chaos) as the path home. Sondheim chooses the language of science (order). Their methods are reflected in their art and their creative processes. But ultimately their objective is the same—to escape the loneliness (chaos) of a world beyond their control and find their way home. It is their “homesickness”— their unquenchable yearning for the blue flower (or desire to finish the hat)—that drives them and is responsible for their art.

Art is Yearning

Novalis (the Romantic) is defined by his yearning. [lii] In “Hymns to the Night” he yearns to escape the limitations of the physical world. In “To the Poets” he urges poets to write works that connect with the divine. He devoured philosophy (particularly Kant and Fichte), but also explored mysticism and the occult. Nothing was off limits in his quest to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of reality and the human soul.

Sondheim (the Rationalist) also yearns. Where Novalis chased his blue flower, Sondheim has his hat. Even now, in his 90s, he continues to “finish his hat.” Every day he works at it. It’s in his blood. He can’t help it.

And his characters yearn as well. They long for emotional connection. In “Merrily We Roll Along,” they yearn to learn "how to let go," lower their guard, "relax, let go, let fly…" In “Sunday in the Park with George,” George yearns for recognition for his art, but also a connection with others. In “Into the Woods” there is all manner of yearning. The list goes on. [liii]

This yearning is the foundation for creativity. It’s what drives the artist forward. And although the ingredients that go into it are a mysterious and varied, there are certain attributes shared by Sondheim and Novalis that stand out. One such attribute is enthusiasm.

Art is enthusiasm.

To yearn requires energy, something usually associated with the young.[liv]

Novalis believed that children represent a “Golden Age”[lv] The implication is that the young, because they are not yet completely situated in society, have a special knowledge not only of the future, but of our most primitive origins.[lvi]

Surely it is no accident that the words “childlike” and “childish“ appear on the first few pages of his work, Christianity or Europe, linked to such words as “trust,” “dream,” and “innocence.” On the path to true humanity, one must rid oneself of the trappings of everyday reality, and this can be most easily accomplished by children—or the “childlike,” e.g., the artist—who have not yet been entwined in a web of pragmatic considerations.[lvii]

The antithesis of this, the enemy, is the philistine, who also makes an appearance in this work. Novalis despises this type – “The philistine who never transcends everyday life, has little use for poetry, and embraces religion as little more than an “opiate.”[lviii]

Sondheim also dislikes this type, and echoes many of these same sentiments. Part 2 of Sunday is an indictment of the art world and the influence of philistines.[lix]

He also commented to Frank Rich about the sorry state of contemporary theater:

"What's happened to the theater," he says, "is one thing that does depress me a lot because it is such a large part of my life. You'd go and see other shows that would stimulate you, that would make you want to write. Now it makes you not want to write because you think the audience isn't there anymore. The audience that is there is not an audience who would either like or respond to the kind of stuff I write except with, if anything, kind of detached bemusement instead of getting involved."[lx]

And while Sondheim may sound like an old elitist here, he rejects the label.

As Frank Rich explains:

The only time he cut me off was when I began a question with the phrase, "When you grew up. . . ." "I never grew up," he interjected, with a finality that foreclosed any follow-up. This may explain how Sondheim has remained an artist and why, for all his sophistication, he can seem guileless, even naive.”

Rich continues:

It’s a mixture of this objectivity, enthusiasm, and adventurousness, I think, that keeps Steve fresh. Steve may be a lifelong creature of Manhattan, yet he’s game for anything and anybody…

There is a fierce critical intelligence at work here, but beneath the analytic zeal, beneath the love of language, there is also a boyish enthusiasm and directness -- a perpetual student's curiosity about the world, coupled with a professional craftsman's erudition.[lxi]

Curiosity. Enthusiasm. Naiveté. It’s a short step from there to another attribute that both Sondheim and Novalis share—optimisim.

Art is optimism.

Yearning doesn’t require optimism, but it helps.[lxii]

The unshakeable outlook of both artists is evident in the way they deal with death—not as a reason for despair, but as a way to celebrate life. Both in their lives and their art, their optimism shines through.

The death of Sophie Kuhn (and the death of his younger brother, Erasmus, shortly thereafter) affected Novalis deeply. For a time he embraced a kind of Christian mysticism, and even professed to be longing for his own death in order to be reunited with her. But her death did not cause him to lose his optimism. On the contrary, it was the major catalyst that changed his life and led him to focus all his artistic energy on his grand project of fusing life and art. His response to heartbreak was to live life to its fullest.[lxiii]

Even on his deathbed he was optimistic.

A few days before his death, he said to his brother Carl: “When I am well again, then you will finally learn what poetry is. In my head I have magnificent poems and songs.” These died with him.[lxiv]

Sondheim also deals with death, not as a downer, but as a motivation to live life to the fullest.

Sondheim has created so many colorful and haunting images of death in his musicals, using the theme, in a way, as a celebration of life or, rather, as the antithesis of obscurity. Death has strength. Death comes is myriad forms. Death is a motivator. The specter of death either kills us, or more likely, sustains us through our need for survival. It is the grandest of juxtapositions: life and death. The two wrestle and we all know who eventually wins, but Sondheim finds a way to make it an interesting battle to the very end.[lxv]

And although there is a sadness in some of Sondheim’s characters[lxvi], it is presented in the context of mystery, another attribute closely associated with art.

Art is mysterious.

Sondheim and Novalis both embrace mystery.

Novalis’ entire project centers on mystery—the mysterious language of nature, and the ineffable blue flower. And like Sondheim, he often ventures into the mysterious woods, a favorite metaphor of the Romantics. [lxvii]

Sondheim is a specialist in mystery. Not only are mysteries his passion,[lxviii] he uses mystery as a theme in many of his works.[lxix]

But as Rich puts it, a better word to describe Sondheim’s work is “ineffable.”

Yearning/sadness … sorry/grateful—that’s Steve, all right. And “ineffable”? The dictionary says it means “incapable of being expressed in words,” and, for me, it will do for Steve too. The ineffable quality in Sondheim’s work is where love enters his equation—his love for his characters, our reciprocal love for him. As Oscar Hammerstein wrote in “What’s the Use of Wond’rin’,” if you love someone, “all the rest is talk.”[lxx]

Art is love.

Love defines art. It is the fuel that drives the motor. Without love (passion) there is no art. There is no yearning.

Love, more than anything defines Novalis. His love for Sophie set him off on the route of self-discovery… [lxxi]

Despite his reputation as a rational thinker, love and passion is central to Sondheim’s art and life. He talks about love as “the life force in a deadened world,” and how

“Passion' is about how the force of somebody's feelings for you can crack you open,"[lxxii]

And as for the passion in his method, this is what Ben Brantley had to say:

“… critics have often characterized his body of work as cerebral and cold— "all mind, no heart," as a character put it in "Sunday" —when in fact its virtuosic brilliance cloaks both extraordinary passion and a dazzling array of emotional moods. Indeed, if Mr. Sondheim resembles any composer, it is probably George Gershwin—not only in his ability to combine American and European influences, classical and popular idioms, but also in simple terms of his music's ambition and emotional pull.”[lxxiii]

But passion has a downside.

It makes you vulnerable. Like George at the window in Sunday, you can find yourself observing life rather than participating in it. The whole notion of being in the moment is lost.[lxxiv]

Sondheim addresses this directly and says he is only truly in the moment is when he’s in character, creating his art.

This leads to an interesting take on Sondheim’s identity. Insofar as his work consumes him, it would also define him. Ergo, Sondheim the man is Sondheim the artist. So when he says his characters are not autobiographical, is he simply playing a role—the role of the artist?

Is Sondheim the ultimate chameleon? Is there a “real” Sondheim or is he simply a stew of all his characters?[lxxv] There is no answer, of course. The notion of a “fake” Sondheim made up of his characters makes no more sense than the notion of a “real” Sondheim. He wears many hats. Like everyone else, he is just living his life, trying to get “home.”

Or as a psychologist might say, he is looking for psychological harmony.

Art is Therapy

Put simply, art saved Sondheim.

Or more accurately, Oscar Hammerstein saved Sondheim.

And he did this by setting him on the path to becoming an artist.[lxxvi] According to Sondheim, not only did Hammerstein teach him the craft of songwriting, he taught him “the redemptive—and avenging—principles of art.”

By providing him with the tools to bring “order to chaos” he provided a positive outlet for all of his hurt and rage, and set the foundation for his life’s work.[lxxvii] From then on, “making order out of chaos” became Sondheim’s mantra, both for his art and his life. And over his decades as an artist, his appreciation for the therapeutic value of art has grown.

As he puts it:

"The analyst I went to had a particular interest in the relationship between creativity and neurosis, and I spent a lot of time talking to him about how art tries to make order out of chaos, not just the chaos of the world, but the chaos of your own feelings and your own discombobulations.

"Our lives aren't scripted," he continues. "They're chaotic. That's why people enjoy art, not just narrative, but paintings and music, too. It's about giving order to what everybody knows does not have order at all."

Or as George says in "Sunday in the Park": "The challenge: Bring order to the whole./ Through design./ Composition./ Tension./ Balance./ Light./ And harmony."[lxxviii]

When Sondheim turned 63, he commented that he was happier personally than he had ever been. "It was after a struggle," he said, "and after a lot of pain—just the way Giorgio has to struggle a long time." Twenty-five years of analysis, he believes, helped lay the groundwork for the richness he now feels in his life: "It's not entirely luck," he says. "I think you have to be ready for things."[lxxix]

Hammerstein’s mentorship, followed by the decades of hard work—trying to bring order to chaos—laid the groundwork and ultimately provided Sondheim with the psychological harmony he was yearning for.

Novalis and art as therapy

As for Novalis, his entire approach was one big exercise in trying to get home—finding psychological fulfillment.

But unlike Sondheim, what spurred Novalis to action was not the chaos of his upbringing, but rather the burden of growing up in a world of oppressive rules and restrictions. Where Sondheim sought the safety of a protected harbor, Novalis sought the excitement and adventure of the open sea. Where Sondheim restricted himself to the narrow world of musical theater, Novalis spread his wings to include myriad forms of artistic expression. Where Sondheim exercised the discipline of a pointillist painter, Novalis painted with broad strokes. Where Sondheim led with his head, Novalis led with his heart.

And yet both made the choice to become artists—both had the guts to make that decision —the single most important element in art.

Art is a choice

At the end of the day, art is a choice.

As Niguchi puts it:

In creating art, “that impossible process of controlling the uncontrollable, a number of questions about the work arise: where lies the real art here? Is it the end result: … The infinite possibilities… allowed by the technique? Or the simple intention of seeking control over chaos?”

It’s the latter. It’s the only thing it can be. Art in the sense of “really” being anything is exactly that—it’s ultimately the simple act of making a choice.

Sondheim has made this point repeatedly over the years.

For example, in “Move on” in Sunday in the Park with George:

“I chose and my world was shaken

So What?

The Choice may have been mistaken.

The Choosing was not”

It’s the choosing that counts, not what’s chosen. As Kohn puts it, The act of choosing “represented for him a way of transcending the purely “aesthetic” life—that is, one devoted to a succession of pleasurable experiences.”[lxxx]

Another example:

The Baker’s wife, in Into the Woods, when she sings:

“Oh, if life were made of moments Even now and then a bad one — !”

But then immediately she understands the consequences:

“But if life were only moments, Then you’d never know you had one.”[lxxxi]

She understands that there is nothing without context and perspective (order). This is Sondheim’s message.

Even Cinderella on the steps of the palace—who chooses not to choose—has chosen.[lxxxii] Everything in life is a series of choices. And that’s all ultimately that art is or can be. A choice.

For Sondheim and Novalis, it was their choice to become artists. The messy circumstances of their lives[lxxxiii]— their upbringing, their training, their talent, their passion, and most importantly their yearning to pursue the blue flower (and finish the hat), led them down their respective paths to art.[lxxxiv]

Art is art

Technically, art is simply art. It’s just a label—a placeholder for an idea. It is what we say it is. Society has determined that certain forms and certain works fall under the definition of art. But that is malleable and evolving. Look at what Sondheim did with musicals. He turned a medium for entertainment into one for art. Or what Novalis did by linking art and nature. He created a new way of looking at the world.

At the end of the day that’s all we can say. There is nothing “deeper” about art. There is no one “language of nature” as Novalis would have it. And there is no final solution to the puzzle as Sondheim might put it. Art does not somehow exist on a deeper level than other things—it is what we say it is. It is quite simply, as Niguchi puts it, an “intent,” a choice to pursue art. It can be no other way.[lxxxv]

But behind this intent there is in fact one timeless and unwavering principle that underlies all art (and everything for that matter)—the mysterious and unrelenting yearning to get home.[lxxxvi] And ultimately it doesn’t matter how you attempt to get there—through Novalis’ crooked road of chaos or Sondheim’s linear road of order—so long as you choose.

Of course the word “home” just prompts the inevitable question: What do you mean by “home?” But that’s the point, isn’t it? There is no end, and there never will be. There is just yearning.

[i] This essay was written prior to Sondheim’s passing on Nov 26, 2021. [ii]"Stephen Sondheim: A Life" 1990 by Meryle Secrest [iii] Interview with The New York Times, published on November 10, 2010. [iv] As Sondheim explains it, Hammerstein taught him how to structure songs as little plays with beginnings, middles and ends. He taught him how to write what he felt. He gave him assignments, criticism and support. Most of all, he introduced him to the redemptive -- and avenging -- principles of art. Interview with The New York Times, published on November 10, 2010. [v] In his book, "Finishing the Hat," Sondheim writes about Barrow's influence on him, saying, "He was a stickler for form, which, while hardly imaginative in itself, is an excellent discipline for the imagination." [vi] From an article in The New Yorker titled "The Music Mountain" by Alex Ross, March 20, 2006. [vii] https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/07/19/specials/sondheim-compassion.html [viii] Meaning “preparer of new land” - the pen name for Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg. [ix]A strict form of Lutheranism that emphasized a vigorous Christian life. [x] Enlightenment thinkers placed particular emphasis on empirical knowledge and what they described as scientific method: that is, knowledge verifiable by reference to experiment, experience or first-hand observation. Empiricism was applied to every aspect of human thought and activity. https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history-art/the-enlightenment/content-section-3 [xi] (Von den äußerlichen Kennzeichen der Foßilien (1774) [xii] Published in 1781 "The Robbers" tells the story of a young nobleman who is disinherited by his father and forced into a life of crime. The play explores themes of justice, freedom, and the conflict between individualism and society. [xiii] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Friedrich-Schiller [xiv] (FN -The Jena circle of Early German Romantics – Ludwig Tieck, Fichte, Schiller, Hülsen, Hüderlin, Schelling, August and Friedrich Schlegel, and Schleiermacher,) [xv] Edgar Allen Poe, "Sonnet —To Science." 1829 [xvi] Harold Bloom "The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages." [xvii] https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/case-sondheim-existentialist/ [xviii] Sondheim, “Finishing the Hat” One way to think about might be - if the script, music, actors, etc are the matter, then the invisible audience, the atmosphere (vibe) are the mysterious dark matter. Or think of an iceberg. The performance you see is just the tip. There is so much that goes into it - not only technically, but the magic of creation - that is all hidden below the surface. [xix] Example of collaboration: Sondheim originally wrote the role of Dot as a soprano and the role of George as a bass-baritone. However, when the actors Bernadette Peters and Mandy Patinkin were cast in the lead roles, the score had to drastically change. Sondheim quickly dropped the vocal range of Dot to an alto for Bernadette Peter’s rich, powerful alto voice and escalated the vocal range of George to a tenor to accommodate Patinkin’s full range (Horowitz 97). http://etd.fcla.edu/CF/CFE0001380/Staffel_Chris_E_200612_MFA.pdf) [xx] NPR broadcast - "To write a song," he says, "you have to be the actor." "It's like I'll play Blanche DuBois," he has explained. "You've already thought about Blanche DuBois, but I have something to say about her myself.” [xxi] New York Times article "Stephen Sondheim, Theater's Greatest Lyricist," written by Jesse Green, March 23, 2018. [xxii] "Entertainment gives you a predictable pleasure. Art… leads to transformation. It awakens you, rather than just satisfying a craving." - Makoto Fujimura in interview "On Being," January 31, 2019. [xxiii] https://www.playbill.com/article/how-sondheim-and-lapine-made-a-masterpiece-with-sunday-in-the-park-with-george [xxiv] (Goodhart 199) from http://etd.fcla.edu/CF/CFE0001380/Staffel_Chris_E_200612_MFA.pdf (p 28) [xxv] Interview with Frank Rich, The New York Times Magazine, 997. "I think all composers have a certain kind of anger in them. It's the fuel that fires them, but it's also the greatest impediment to getting the work done. And so we all have to learn how to harness our anger, and use it to good effect. It's a blessed rage." [xxvi] Interview with Mel Gussow, New York Times, May 2, 1984 [xxvii] NPR Broadcast [xxviii] https://www.huntingtontheatre.org/articles/sunday-articles/Gallery/Art-A-Century-Apart/ [xxix] “Finishing the Hat,” Sunday in the Park with George, Stephen Sondheim [xxx] Green, Jesse. “Review: ‘Sunday in the Park With George,’ a Living Painting to Make Your Heart Leap.” The New York Times, 23 Feb. 2017 [xxxi] "Finishing the Hat" from "Sunday in the Park with George," Stephen Sondheim [xxxii] "Loving You" in the musical, "Passion" by Stephen Sondheim [xxxiii] Edgar Allen Poe, "Sonnet —To Science." 1829 [xxxiv] From Novalis' correspondence with Tieck [xxxv] Hesse’s lyrical novels include: "Hours in the Garden" (Stunden im Garten), a collection of poetry published in 1906. "Songs of the Wanderer" (Lieder des Wanderers), a collection of poetry published in 1918. "Crisis" (Krisis), a collection of poetry published in 1921. "Wandering" (Wanderung), a collection of prose and poetry published in 1920. "If the War Goes On..." (Wenn der Krieg noch lange geht...), a collection of essays and poems published in 1930. [xxxvi] His writing was considered “lyrical prose,” and incorporated elaborate symbolism— reminiscent of Novalis. [xxxvii] It is important to note that Hesse was the first writer to be psychoanalyzed. Hesse’s art allowed him to escape the chaos of his own soul and takes us on a journey into his rich inner world. [xxxviii] Correspondence from Novalis [xxxix] The Jena group included Goethe, Schiller, Fichte among others, and were known for their interest in German idealism and their literary experimentation with the emerging Romantic movement. Novalis was one of the younger members of the group. In general, German idealism tended to be more abstract and theoretical, while German romanticism was more focused on lived experience, creativity, and imagination. [xl] He believed that the great religious and spiritual traditions were pointing to an underlying truth and that it simply needed to be re-articulated in a language of art and nature. Unlike existentialists like Neitschze, he believed there was something to fall back on.) [xli] Allegory was a specific art form [xlii] (Bst, no. 76, 261) from downloaded PDF Litskin1). [xliii] In the fragmentary novel Die Lehrlinge zu Sais (1798; The Novices at Sais) Novalis expressed his belief that the things of the natural world are symbols whose meanings can be discovered by poets. [xliv] Heinrich von Ofterdingen He was inspired by Goethe, who in his early work, Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers, whose main character also has a deeply personal relationship with nature and (“Goethe uses nature as a tool to mirror the moods and emotions of his title character.”) His attempt at providing a unified theory through an allegorical interpretation of the world appeared in two collections of fragments, Blütenstaub (1798; “Pollen”) and Glauben und Liebe (1798; “Faith and Love”). [xlv] Which includes all the beings and events that make up the world—nature is a language according to Novalis which ultimately reveals the divine. [xlvi] In Henry of Ofterdingen, Zulima, who shows Henry how to construct a meaningful narrative out of chance events and gives him a musical instrument with which to begin his life as a poet, provides an axial moment in Henry’s development. From https://iep.utm.edu/novalis/ He compares the process to a novelist, who “from his given crowd of accidents and situations—makes a well-ordered, lawlike series” (“Anecdotes,” Schriften II, p.580 #242). [xlvii] “Anecdotes,” Schriften II, p.580 #242. [xlviii] An ideal community of conscious individuals aware of their nature as parts of the same greater whole: “Before abstraction everything is one, but one like chaos; after abstraction everything is unified again, but this unification is a free interconnection of independent, self-determined beings. From a heap, a community has emerged” (“Pollen,” Schriften II p.455 #95). Although human beings epitomize this conscious awareness, Novalis indicates that plants, animals, and other aspects of the natural world also form parts of this ideal community. https://iep.utm.edu/novalis/) [xlix] The nature of the universe as originally infinite, whole, and undifferentiated can never be perfectly known. This is because all knowledge and consciousness depends on the subject-object distinction, and so is necessarily mediated by the particular finite entities that make up the world: Thus, Novalis claims, “We seek the unconditioned everywhere, and findonly things” (“Pollen,” Schriften II, p.412 #1). Perfect knowledge of the universe is, therefore, a regulative ideal. https://iep.utm.edu/novalis/) [l] Novalis correspondence [li] “Loneliness” in this context needs to be understood not in the negative existential (Nietzschean) sense. Neither artist appears to be tortured by loneliness or the thought of there being no underlying reality. But they are both clearly looking for a “sense of belonging.” Once the foundations of religion and science (and social convention) are removed, all you have is yearning to fall back on. And this is the domain of the artist. "A Sculptor's World" Isamu Noguchi (1949) [lii] Examples include: Hymn to the Night, The Blue Flower, The Novice at Sais, To the Poets, and the The Sacred Fountain. [liii] The yearning for love in "Company" is another example. [liv] Romanticism is usually associated with the young. Many of the Romantics died young (e.g. Byron, Shelley, Keats) There is kind of a romantic myth associated with youth and dying young. It’s about rebellion. [lv] (Bst, no. 97, 273). [lvi] In his fragmentary novel "Heinrich von Ofterdingen," Heinrich seeks to unite poetry and life, and in doing so, he encounters various individuals who represent different aspects of the poetic ideal. One such character is the "Child", who is described as possessing a pure and innocent spirit that is in tune with the natural world. The Child serves as a symbol of the uncorrupted imagination and intuition that Novalis saw as essential to the poetic vision. [lvii] Christendom or Europe, Chapter One [lviii] (Bst, no. 77, 263). [lix] The Jules character, a wealthy art collector, embodies this philistine mentality as he dismisses George's art as "not commercial" and reduces it to a mere investment opportunity. [lx] Interview with Frank Rich, 1990, The New York Times. [lxi] Naivete’ and audacity go hand in hand – a trait both Novalis and Sondheim exhibit in spades. [lxii] Although there is a dark side to yearning (e.g. dark romantics like Poe) marked by sadness and cynicism, neither Novalis or Sondheim fit this description. [lxiii] The very notion of an “artist-genius” speaks to his audacity (confidence) and optimism. [lxiv] https://www.enotes.com/topics/novalis He also trained in mining, ultimately becoming supervisor of the mines in Wiessenfels. His connection to everyday reality was actually strong compared to other Romantics and those who emulated him. [lxv] http://www.markrobinsonwrites.com/the-music-that-makes-me-dance/2014/10/12/dying-to-make-a-point-sondheim-and-his-themes-of-death [lxvi] Examples include The Baker's Wife from "Into the Woods," who is unhappy in her marriage and longs for something more. She has an affair with the Prince and ultimately dies while trying to retrieve a magical object that she believes will make her life better. Or Sweeney Todd, whose thirst for revenge leaves him with a profound sense of emptiness and loss. [lxvii] "Heinrich von Ofterdingen," the main character embarks on a journey into the woods to seek the "blue flower" of his dreams, which represents his deepest longings and desires. In "Hymns to the Night," Novalis writes: "Into the bosom of the earth, / Into the unknown womb of the night, / I hasten, wrapped in a mantle / Of deepest darkness, and there in the woods / I stand alone, like a lost child." In "To the Woods," Novalis writes: "O woods, how often have I sought your peace / To calm the restlessness of my heart / And find the solace that I seek." [lxviii] (FN – About Sondheim’s intense interest in mysteries and puzzles) [lxix] “Sweeney Todd,” "Assassins,” "Into the Woods.” "Sunday in the Park with George" all have mystery as a theme. [lxx] "A Master of Many Voices Singing One Song" NY Times, September 15, 2010. [lxxi] He was then able to create a consistent vision, a vision proclaiming the transforming power of love and raising personal experience to the level of mythology. In transforming his subjective experience into universal symbolism, Novalis created the Romantic mythology that Schlegel had proclaimed the sine qua non of the new poetic age. https://www.enotes.com/topics/novalis [lxxii] https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/07/19/specials/sondheim-compassion.html [lxxiii] "Theater; Sondheim's Genius: Heart as Well as Head" Ben Brantley, New York Times, May 21, 2000. [lxxiv] There’s a nice quote from Beyonce’ about being in the moment in the digital age: “A few years ago, as Beyoncé performed "Irreplaceable" in front of a full house at Atlanta’s Gwinnett Center, she called out a fan for filming her using their phone saying, "See? You can't even sing because you’re too busy taping. I'm right in your face, baby, you gotta seize this moment, baby. Put that damn camera down!" https://blog.sonicbids.com/whats-the-difference-between-entertainment-and-true-art [lxxv] The fact that Sondheim did a fair amount of acting himself at Williams College, and obviously has an actor’s ability to empathize, supports this proposition. [lxxvi] "It was Oscar and Dorothy's saving my emotional life, combined with his teaching me" that made all the difference,” says Mr. Sondheim. [lxxvii] One sad incident underscores what Sondheim’s childhood with his mother must’ve been like. When Sondheim was in his 40s, his mother thought she was going to die and revealed in a note to Sondheim that “'The only regret I have in life is giving you birth.' As Sondheim explains, “We all think our parents are suffering from misplaced love or possessiveness or whatever," he continues, "but she didn't want me on earth. And I realized why: she had a career and she didn't want a child. In a way, her letter was a good thing for me. As long as it took the pen to cross the paper, I wrote her a letter saying I finally understand." [lxxviii] "Putting It Together,” "Sunday in the Park with George" by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine [lxxix] (FN) [lxxx] https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/case-sondheim-existentialist/ [lxxxi] "Moments in the Woods" "Into the Woods" Stephen Sondheim [lxxxii] The idea that every decision, even the decision to not make a decision, has consequences is a central message of “Into the Woods.” [lxxxiii] As Novalis puts it “the accidents of their lives” [lxxxiv] And because their art resonated with the right people in society, they became transformative artists. [lxxxv] This is assuming an anti-foundationalist approach, which holds that the whole notion of an underlying reality - “intrinsicness” - makes no sense. As Richard Rorty puts it, “This is because only descriptions of the world can be true or false, and descriptions are made by humans who must also make truth or falsity: truth or falsity is thus not determined by any intrinsic property of the world being described.” [lxxxvi] This yearning applies to more than art obviously. There are a myriad of ways to get home. In fact, interpreted broadly enough, you could argue that the principle underlying life itself and the choice to continue living at all, is the yearning to get home.