as Arlen, Berlin, and Porter and catapulted numbers in with just enough of the ovations presented some songs most of us haven't them into the turbulent Seventies. His music and cheers to give a rounded "you are heard before, and eleven are included in the has enriched my life, and it's a tonic 1 fully there" feeling without turning it into another Warner Brothers album. Among them are endorse for anybody who is as fed up as 1 of those recorded applause meters so dear Silly People, a rather Chekhovian love song am with the clutter and clatter that is passing to the heart of Marlene Dietrich and so for a lusty servant, beautifully performed by itself off as music these days. boring to the rest of us. George Lee Andrews; One More Kiss, a Some of the more familiar Sondheim Romberg -like waltz that didn't make it into Ir was further demonstrated, on Sunday items are included: Alice Playten, that mini- the Follies album; a plaintive love duet, with evening, March 11, at New York's Schu- Munchkin with the steamroller voice, and Jack Cassidy and Susan Browning, called bert Theater, that this particular musical Virginia Sandifur add new punch to If So Many People and written for Sondheim's cause is far from lost, for on that night 1,600 Mama Was Married from Gypsy: Chita firstshow, Saturday Night (never pro- celebrities, journalists, socialites, and just Rivera and Pam Myers turn America into duced); and two selections from Evening people with good musical taste (and a little a rousing Puerto Rican street festival: and Primrose, a TV special about department - money) gathered at a $100 -a -seat benefit Angela Lansbury brings down the house store mannequins that come to life after (for the National Hemophilia Foundation)with two selections from the popular but closing hours (never before recorded). And to honor the composer with a testimonial short-lived Anyone Can Whistle. The songs finally, as a closing throat -catcher, the corn - bouquetcalled"Sondheim: A Musicalfrom Company included here are better poser himself stepped to the stage amid Tribute." The show presented more than recorded than they were in the original - shattering applause, sat down at the piano. forty Sondheim songs and lasted four hours; cast album (listen carefully to the inventive and movingly played and sang his own fav- Warner Brothers has just issued a two -disc musical embroidery of bride, groom, and orite,thetitlesong from Anyone Can set of the event's highlights that might as church soloist on the tongue -twisting Get- Whistle. This is but a modest once-over- well be labeled a collector's item right now. ting Married Today; I finally realized how lightly of what is contained on these four At a time when cacophonous rock and special this song is because I was able for sides, and any part of it is worth the asking anemic high camp from former eras threaten the first time to hear the counter -parts clear- price for the whole. to overrun the culturally deprived waste-ly enunciated). Finally, simply everything land of Broadway, such an evening must from Follies is better recorded here than on Byr that's not quite all. Warner Brothers have seemed to many, as it did to me, a the dismal original -cast recording for Cap- has spent what looks like a fortune packag- glorious oasis. One by one, the biggest tal- itol, especially the unabridged version of ing all this-amazing considering the fact entsin show music saluted Sondheim's I'm Still Here, one of Sondheim's cleverest that the record company is donating all roy- achievement by performing to perfection songs. Nancy Walker's reading of the full alties to the American Musical and Dramat- his songs of complex sentiment, wry humor, set of lyrics simply outclasses Yvonne De ic Academy and the National Hemophilia and contemporary sophistication. The re- Carlo's. Foundation. (The performers donated their corded version of the event-it is live, of And now, if you're ready, for the "inside" talents as well, of course. Don't tell me phi- course-is something lessthan a sonic surprises. One of Sondheim's most lamenta- lanthropy is dead.) The package includes a triumph: microphones pop, the balances are ble career gambles was his collaboration, as six -page insert containing photographs of occasionally uneven, stereo emphasis wan- lyricist, with Richard Rodgers on Do I the stars in actual performance, notes on the ders, and separation sometimes disappears. Hear a Waltz? One song in particular, a previously unrecorded songs, and two pages Laryngitis and other vocal problems plagued bubbly ditty in the old Rodgers -Hart tradi- of production stills and vital statistics of some of the performers (this probably ac- tion called We're Gonna Be All Right, was every Sondheim show. There is also a cap- counts for the absence of some expected considered too cynical for Rodgers' home- sule account of the entire Sondheim career. numbers), and legal complications made it spun taste, and the lyrics were changed. All of which constitutes something of a mir- acle by today's recording standards. There are so many people who should be congratu- lated that 1 hardly know where to begin. So I'll just skip the formalities, and you go off and play the records. Get to know what a miracle sounds like. Taken together, I think these two Sond- heim albums are very much the cream of everything that is going on in American theater music today and are therefore the record event of the year as well. It is genius recognized, and thank goodness. If Sond- heim is properly encouraged now, the rest of us can only look forward to many more years of benefit. Nothing posthumous about that.
A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC (Stephen Sond- heim). Original -cast recording.Glynis Johns, Hermione Gingold, Len Cariou, Vic- toria Mallory, Patricia Elliott, Mark Lam- bert: others. Orchestra, Harold Hastings cond., Jonathan Tunick arr. COLUMBIA KS 32265 $6.98, ® SA 32265 $6.98, © ST Above, West Side Story collaborators Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein; facing 32265 $6.98. page, Angela Lansbury sings at the benefit performance, Night Music set in background. SONDHEIM: A MUSICAL TRIBUTE. impossible to include Leonard Bernstein's Here we get the original, in its only record- Twenty-nine songs by Stephen Sondheim moving piano recollections of West Side ing, and it turns out to be a very cherishable recorded in live concert. Larry Blyden, Len Story (Sondheim's lyrics, remember?) as song about some of the sour social attitudes Cariou, Jack Cassidy, Dorothy Collins, well as selections by Glynis Johns and Her- that are poisoning contemporary marriages. Hermione Gingold, Glynis Johns, Larry mione Gingold from A Little Night Music. Last-minute cancellations by Ethel Mer- Kert, Angela Lansbury, Anthony Perkins, But all such minor carping aside, it is an man, Phil Silvers, and Zero Mostel fore- Alice Playten, Chita Rivera, Alexis Smith, album that gives us the brightness and closed the possibility of including much of Nancy Walker: others.Orchestra,Paul beauty of Broadway show music at its spit - the material from Gypsy and A Funny Thing Gemignani cond., Jonathan Tunick arr. and -polishSundaybest.Skillfulediting Happened on the Way to the Forum, but I WARNER BROS. 2WS 2705twodiscs has shaped and blended the show -stopping didn't miss them at all. Instead, the show $9.95.
JULY 1973 95