How do you feel?

That’s a simple question, right? And unless you’re talking to a doctor, you probably have a simple answer.

And if that’s the case, the odds are that you’re lying.

Such, anyway, is always my view of the human race after listening to a cast recording of a Stephen Sondheim musical, or even to just one of his ballads. And when it comes to emotions, Sondheim — more than any other composer from the Broadway songbook — is the one I trust to tell me the truth.

That’s because in the world of Sondheim, feelings never come singly but in battalions. Even his simplest, most assertive melodies usually sound as if they’re being pulled in contradictory directions.

Of course, his ever-nimble lyrics — which have made his name a byword for verbal cosmopolitanism — abound in paradoxes, puns and declarations of uncertainty, all etched into deep-burrowing grooves. But the music adds yet another layer, which often both confirms and battles with the words.