This is fresh air. I'm Terry Gross. Stephen Sondheim once described himself as an austere revolutionary.

His musicals, the music, the lyrics, the stories, were both more complex and more subtle than their predecessors.

After Alan J. Lerner, who wrote the lyrics for My Fair Lady, Brigadun, and Camelot, saw Sondheim's groundbreaking

1970 musical company. He broke into tears and told his wife, my way of writing musicals is over.

It's no exaggeration to say Sondheim was a genius. Genuces are often complicated people,

with complicated personalities, and Sondheim was no exception.

Perhaps the most difficult relationship in his life was with his mother, who could be cold and even

verbally cruel. That seems to have influenced Sondheim's personality in the themes of some of his

shows. In the new book, Stephen Sondheim, art isn't easy. My guest,

Daniel Ockrent, offers insights into Sondheim's life and music based on access to his letters,

archives, oral history, as well as the 36 hours of interviews that Merrill Seacrest did for her

1998 biography of him, and O'Kron's own interviews with many people who knew him.

O'Kent has worked as a book and magazine editor and was the first public editor for the New York Times.

He's the author of previous books about prohibition, baseball, and how eugenics and bigotry shaped

anti-immigration law.

Stephen Sondheim got a start on Broadway writing lyrics for Gypsy and West Side Story.

He went on to write music and lyrics for such shows as A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Follies, Marily We Roll Along, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, into the woods and passion.

Daniel O'Krent, welcome back to fresh air. It's great to have you back.

I'm very happy to be here.

I want to start with you choosing a song, and I'd like it to be a song that you heard something new in as a result of all the research that you did for this

New Sondheim book.

Well, Epiphany, this horrifying and overwhelming song near the end of Sweeney Todd,

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