Michael Ball Quotes on Wisdom & Knowledge (1 Quote)

Ball is one of the few musical comedy artists to have distinguished himself equally as an interpreter of both Andrew Lloyd Webber and Stephen Sondheim, who would seem to be polar opposites as songwriters. I'm very lucky that I've gotten to work with both of them, ... I was in Andrew Lloyd Webber's 50th party concert at the Albert Hall. That same year I was in a special show called Hey, Mr. Producer , a celebration of Cameron Mackintosh's work. There was a Sondheim section, and Cameron asked if I'd be part of it. I'd already recorded 'Losing My Mind' from Follies , which is one of my favorite songs of Steve's. But I hadn't yet done a particularly traditional treatment of it. Steve said he wanted me to do it absolutely straight, the way it was heard in the original show, which I was delighted about. And he worked with me on it--just him, and me, and a pianist in a tiny room, for an hour-and-a-half master class on this song. I came away knowing every nuance why he wrote everything that he did why every note was in its place why the phrasing was like this--can you imagine how thrilling that was And he is so articulate in explaining his work you can be under no illusion why something is there. When you have that understanding, that is when his work opens up to you. Of course, they put me between Judi Dench singing 'Send in the Clowns' and Bernadette Peters doing 'Being Alive.' You try holding your own in that company.