Sondheim's verbal felicity has remained with him throughout his career. He has that gift for clever rhymes that has distinguished lyricists since W. S. Gilbert ("beauty celestial the best you'll / agree" from Follies, for instance). Better still, he has the ability to link musical construction with verbal cadence, to let the rhythm of the words shape the structure of a phrase. To take yet another of many possible examples, the song "Broadway Baby," again from Follies, includes a stanza that begins "At / my tiny flat …" This is an unexpected rhyme, to start with. And it helps define the melodic structure of the song itself.

That sense of melody, shape and overall formal design only really came into its own after 1970, with Company (Forum, for all its cleverness and charm, was not much more than a revue). (p. 214)

Company formed a trilogy with Follies (1971) and A Little Night Music...