AUDIO: Sondheim his own harshest critic

Stephen Sondheim, writer of West Side Story and A Little Night Music, is considered one of musical theatre's best lyricists, but a new memoir shows him to be a tough critic of his own work.

His book, Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes, was released this week.

"I was asked by a publisher to do a book of collected lyrics and I said I would if I could write some essays on lyric writing in the musical theatre," Sondheim said in an interview Friday with Jian Ghomeshi of CBC's Q cultural affairs show.

The book takes a surprising approach the 80-year-old lyricist exposes flaws he sees inhis own work, including ones in Finishing the Hat from his Sunday in the Park with George and songs such as Tonight from West Side Story.

In fact, he declares the lyrics to West Side Story, his first musical which hit the stage in 1957, are "wet" and "naive" because the gangs come across as so harmless.

He also tears down work by the pantheon of great musical theatre lyricists, including Cole Porter,Lorenz Hart and his own greatest influence, Oscar Hammerstein.

"I was brought up by Oscar Hammerstein who was a sort of mentor to me and he taught me to be relentless about my own work, because he was relentless with his own work." Sondheim said, describing how he met Hammerstein at age 12.

Sondheim said he even considered "toughening up" West Side Story for its current revival on Broadway.

He said a second volume of the memoir will be just as critical of the work he has created since 1981.