Stephen Sondheim - A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (1962 Original Broadway Cast)
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Stephen SondheimEdition: Music CD
Format: Cast Recording
CD Release Date: 1993-05-11
Music Label: Angel Records
Soundtracks:
- Overture
- Comedy Tonight
- Love, I Hear
- Free
- Lovely
- Pretty Little Picture
- Everybody Ought to Have a Maid
- I'm Calm
- Impossible
- Bring Me My Bride
- That Dirty Old Man
- That'll Show Him
- Lovely (Reprise)
- Funeral Sequence
- Finale
Free Music Notes for A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (1962 Original Broadway Cast)
Free Music Review: Perfect...Absolutely Perfect...
Hit: 5 Stars
Innitially, when i first listened to this recording after buying it, i was slightly dissapointed. I certainly enjoyed the different music styles and clever lyrics, but i felt that the stars, and Zero Mostel in particular, were not as great as i had been led to believe they were. Comedy Tonight proved something of a dissapointment, and i winced several times during Free, where it seemed to me that Mostel had stopped singing and had started yowling. The only numbers that immediately made a favorable impression upon me were Lovely and Impossible, and these are still my favorite moments in the CD. What i didnt realize was that i had been listening to the recording with the ears of someone who expected to find the classic,overwhelming style of the period, full of showstoppers and sweeping romantic moments. This piece is none of those things. Indeed, in many ways, it is not like any musical i had ever heard before, and i have heard quite a few. It is...I suppose the only way to describe it is to call it a phenomenon that occured purely by chance when three men came together with a vision of a musical that would mesh the comic style of the Roman playwright Plautus with classic American vaudeville and do it so effectively that it would become a timeless classic of musical theater that would continue to delight audiences for over fourty years. This piece has been performed so often, and is such a well known favorite that it is a wonder to me that i, devoted musical fan that i am, could have gone so long without having any knowledge of it. I now know how deprived i was, and how deprived you will be if you do not buy this recording. And whatever you do,dont buy a different one until you own this one. While i have only heard extracts from other recordings, i can safely say that no musical collection is complete without THIS recording of the material. It isn't only because there is a freshness, a tentative bubble of excitement hanging over this recording, or because the orchestrations and the quality of the CD are very good. After you have bought it, and listened to it several times, ask yourself, honestly if you could imagine A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum without Zero Mostel, or indeed without any of the other stars. The cast are so superbly suited to the piece that it is little wonder that it became an immediate hit, and they have a lot to do with the fact that this musical has made its mark in an industry that is one of the most popular forms of live entertainment the world has ever known. The whole thing is wonderful...there is not one song in it that does not grow on, or appeal instantly to the listener. How i could have ever been less than overwhelmed with Comedy Tonight is beyond me, and there are many other memorable moments on this CD. Do not hesitate over this one. Just buy it. You can always give it away if you find it less than satisfactory, but i seriously doubt that you will. Sorry for taking up so much of your time, but when i am passionate about something, i want the whole world to share it with me.
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (1962 Original Broadway Cast) Poster
"Tragedy tomorrow, comedy tonight!" With that song, one of the most famous opening numbers ever, the brilliant career of Stephen Sondheim as a Broadway composer and lyricist was born. Sondheim had written lyrics for the classics West Side Story and Gypsy, but he wanted to compose as well, and after 1954's Saturday Night was derailed, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962) gave him his first Broadway show. Based on the Roman comedies of Plautus, it's a light frothy entertainment (as promised in the opening) led by the outrageous Zero Mostel as the scheming slave Pseudolus. The Gordian knot of a plot also involves Jack Gilford as fellow slave Hysterium, Preshy Marker as the vacant Philia, Brian Davies as the young hero, Hero, and Ron Holgate as the testosterone-oozing soldier Miles Glorious. Sondheim the composer proves an ideal match for Sondheim the lyricist: you can hear halting uncertainty and not-yet-blossomed passion in "Love, I Hear," "I'm Calm" perfectly captures Hysterium's hysteria, and "Everybody Ought to Have a Maid" is pure vaudeville genius. --David HoriuchiBroadway & Vocalists Music CDs
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