Sunday in the Park With George (2006 London Revival Cast)
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Free Music Notes for Sunday in the Park With George (2006 London Revival Cast)
Free Music Review: Great Recording and Impresive Orchestral Reduction
Hit: 4 Stars
I must say that this recording of Sunday in the Park with George ranks with the original cast album. Although, Mr. Evans and Ms. Russel do not surpass Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters, they are fine performers and perform their parts well. The featured players are also excellent and rank with their originators.
This cast album is two discs and includes more music than the original cast album. That's also a nice plus.
What impressed me most about the album is the stunning reduction of the orchestrations. I believe the original orchestra of Sunday in the Park with George had 12-14 musicians in the pit. That number has been reduced to a reed player, a violinist, a celloist and two keyboard players. The orchestra sounds as beautiful as the large one does and is quite nice.
So, although the original cast album is wonderful, this album is fine and recommended.
Free Music Review: great new recording
Hit: 5 Stars
I will start by saying I am a Mandy Patinkin fan. I have seen him several times in concert and I love his solo recordings. However, I do not like most of his OC recordings, SITPWG included. This new recording is fresh, exciting, more complete and very well acted. It shimmers from the heart. All of the actors are very well-cast, and handle this difficult score superbly.
A few gripes: sometimes Daniel Evans sounds a little too polite to the people he hurts, but I am willing to give him the benifit of the doubt since I did not see his performance. I aslo miss the french horn, but am getting used to it being replaced by a sax.
It's great to have an alternate recording, it eases the frustration of the fact that there is no recording of the 1990s production from the National Royal Theatre.
Free Music Review: not better, not worse - just different
Hit: 5 Stars
I don't hold with many reviewers who always claim that the original stars are the best, that the original orchestration is the only one working for the specific work, that no-one could possibly do it better than those geniuses some 20 years ago.
This new recording of the show can stand for its own. The interpretations are well-conceived (and actually i am glad that there is no patinkineske drive in this production).
I love the new orchestrations: some nice details are missing from the original, which is a pity. on the other hand there are a lot of things which can be heard much better than in the original: the orchestra shimmered in 86 - let's say in a high-definition format. Today the colours are much brighter and you stand closer to the picture and therefore you can hear the individual pixels much better than in the original.
which brings me to my final point: the new recording's sound quality is ways better.
>> go for both records, the score is worth it <<
Free Music Review: Nice Revival, But No Comparison To Original
Hit: 3 Stars
The London revival of "Sunday In The Park With George" is good, but does not match the excellence of 1984's original Broadway production and its stellar cast, led by Bernadette Peters & Mandy Patinkin.
Best Tracks:
Finishing The Hat (though will always belong to Mr. Patinkin)
Sunday
Children And Art
Move On
Still, a nice effort.
Free Music Review: Sondheim's Greatest got even greater
Hit: 5 Stars
When I heard this show was being recorded again, I had my doubts. In my mind, nothing could top the 1984 recording of Patinkin and Peters in this groundbreaking musical, one of my favorite musicals (and cast recordings) of all time. And of course, so many times that a London Sondheim recording is made, it just sounds like a cheesey and/or overdone: Follies, Company, the 1978 Night Music, Pacific Overtures to name a few (only the 1994 RSC Night Music stands out as a superb recording).
But the Brits have produced a new CD that is aurally STUNNING. The (reduced) orchestra sounds great, the singers bring new colors and interpretations to every line, and in addition, their musicianship is unequalled, rhythms and stacatti and punctuated, pianos and fortes are thrilling... the score comes to life in a way that I have never heard it before.
There is a great deal of dialogue recording as well, which is almost vital for a show where music and text are so tightly bound. At first, hearing these French personages talk and sing in various UK accents is jarring and sounds wrong, but then you realize that on Broadway, no one spoke in a french accent either. The accents in the London version turn out to have a great effect, drawing lines between the varied classes presented on stage.
I won't dissect the entire CD, because it will only delay you from purchasing it! Buy it now...you won't regret it!