Putting them together

Four re-mastered Sondheim cast recordings are released with bonus tracks
he Masterworks Broadway re-release of the original cast recordings of Sweeney Todd, Merrily We Roll Along, Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods have the feel of the return of old friends. These CDs, released by SONY BMG Music Entertainment, showcase Stephen Sondheim at the peak of composing fully realized theatrical scores and also display the best work of the top cast album producers. Those of us old enough to remember the early days of the compact disc, when the only available Sweeney CD was a truncated "highlights" single disc, will appreciate the digitally re-mastered, two-disc recording here. While a soundtrack from the upcoming Tim Burton movie version of Sweeney Todd might reach an even wider audience, the original 1979 album will stand as the best sung and best-produced Sweeney recording and possibly the most satisfying original cast album of any modern Broadway musical. Producer Thomas Z. Shepard did some of his most inspired work on the Sweeney Todd album, incorporating enough dialogue from the libretto to make the entire album coherent and using special aural effects (such as the sound of the barber's chair depositing bodies down the chute) to heighten the suspense. Two of the bonus tracks are from the 1992 Sondheim: A Celebration at Carnegie Hall the seven-and-ahalf minute "Symphonic Sondheim: Sweeney Todd" piece opening that concert featuring Jerry t Hadley and Eugene and Herbert Parry singing "Johanna" and "Pretty Women," and Harolyn Blackwell's rendition of "Green Finch and Linnet Bird." There's also a hidden track of Julie * Andrews' version of "Sweet Polly Plunkett" from the recording of the 1993 New \brk production of Putting It Together. Merrily We Roll Along, recorded the day after its final performance in November 1981, displays the breadth of Sondheim's songwriting. Listening to "Like It Was." which avoids any rhymes until the final lines, one is struck that it immediately precedes the intricately rhymed "Franklin Shepard. Inc." The bonus Merrily tracks are of Bernadette Peters' "Not a Day Goes By" from the 1992 Celebration concert, and a fascinating demo of Sondheim singing "It's a Hit!" before an enthusiastic audience prior to the show's opening. This version of the song has a lengthier middle section with clever lyrics not retained in the final version ("The songs earning bullets And every house full, it's A cinch for the Pulitzer Or the Nobel"). Shepard told Craig Zadan in the 1980s that "the real pleasure in doing Sunday, which' recorded digitally all the way through, is to 1
REVIEW BY ANDREW MILNER

the compact disc ... When you hear that arpeggio at the beginning, it comes out of an absolute eerie silence ... and there's nothing like it." The opening notes on the re-mastered Sunday album, plus the performances of the entire cast (including Charles Kimbrough, Barbara Bryne and Brent Spiner) have never sounded better. The extra Sunday tracks are the title song from Putting It Together performed by Julie Andrews, Stephen Collins, Christopher Durang, Michael Rupert and Rachel York) with new Sondheim lyrics, and Bernadette Peters and the chorus of the 1992 Celebration concert singing the choral "Sunday." By the time of Into the Woods, Shepard had yielded to Jay David Saks, who didn't miss a beat in expertly recording a Sondheim show. Sondheim wrote some of his most poignant melodies for this musical ("No More," "No One Is Alone"), as well as several of his most exuberant ("It Takes Two," "Ever After"), and from this album it's easy to discern why Woods is so universally popular. Of special interest are the three bonus tracks that, according to the liner notes, were songs for a proposed children's video adaptation. There's a different version of "Giants in the Sky," sung by John Cameron Mitchell; "Back to the Palace," a variation of "On the Steps of the Palace" (sung by Kim Crosby, who played Cinderella in the original Broadway production) and "Boom Crunch," sung by Maureen Moore, a bluesy song that appears to take the place of "Last Midnight." The new liner notes on the albums include extensive photos of the original productions, quotes from original performers (Victor Garber on the Sweeney Todd album, Bernadette Peters on Sunday) and some intriguing trivia (such as the identity of the elderly stage actress who attended the Merrily cast recording). Unfortunately for those without Internet sa\vy. the lyric sheets from the original releases are now only available on the Masterworks Broadway Web site (www.masterworksbroadwayLOOBi). Given that the size of CD jewel boxes haie faced lyrics to be printed in increasingly smaller type, however, lyrics in PI actually be a blessing. These recordings ihnrfri be pan at amr musical theatre IGTCT'S ttJmJna. SoMdhe who already possess the onfemai c and various andiaia&e* afcc he skipping -

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