Stephen Sondheim’s “The Story So Far…”

Posted by Sony BMG Masterworks

September 30, 2008

By Daniel Felsenfeld

I. Am. So. Excited! As a longstanding admirer of Stephen Sondheim, the great theatre genius who made poetry out of urbane bitchiness and who brought music of a certain harmonic spikiness to the mainstream, I was thrilled when this gorgeous boxed set arrived at my doorstep. Sony’s Sondheim: The Story So Far… is simply a beautifully packaged, carefully contrived tribute to a still-vital composer who changed the face of the American stage. Admirers of Sondheim run deep and wax rhapsodic—I recall being at a musicology conference some years ago and attending a panel devoted to his work in which hardened and often-stuffy academics who spend their life ferreting out Gregorian Chant or writing entire books on a few measures of Beethoven took the stage and beamed. A coming out party, in a way, as I’d never heard someone at a panel devoted to, say, Mozart, saying things like “I mean he’s just plain good.” Sondheim just inspires admiration on a certain level.

In later posts I will go into the specifics because honestly I cannot listen to this enough for me. But as a general overview, this box is pretty much aces. There are some obvious choices— “America” from West Side Story (the show that made him famous), “Send in the Clowns” from A Little Night Music (his only bona-fide “hit”), and “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” from Gypsy—but the box is best for its goodies, its nod to the fans (guilty!) who probably already have all these cast albums. For example, for years I’ve been dying to hear the entirety of the essentially-lost made-for-TV musical Evening Primrose. Much as I love the version with Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters, it is nice to hear it as it was written, for the composer’s close friend Tony Perkins. (If neither he nor Charmain Carr sing as well as Mr. Patinkin or Ms. Peters, that doesn’t really matter—this version of this odd little show is important to hear, as much a slice of a bygone era as a musical event; and this era should by no means be bygone.) And wow, to hear Mel Torme singing “Live Alone and Like It,” a song that never made it into the film Dick Tracy (am I right about that?), is worth the price of admission.

It is, of course, the real ephemera that gets this fanboy riled up. Disc Four is a Sondheim completist’s dream, containing music that has only until this point been lines of descriptions in this or that biography or available on this or that obscure compilation or concert album: Incidental music to Arthur Laurents’ play The Enclave, “Truly Content” from Passionella (though this is available on one of the two Sondheim Sings discs issued in the past few years on P.S. Classics—but you truly have to be a hardcore fan to own these…), “Water Under the Bridge” from the Rob Reiner movie Singing Out Loud (whatever happened to it?), and the incidental music to Invitation to a Waltz. I will get more into this because I am one of those people who looks for the extras. I like a rounder picture sometimes…

The Story So Far also contains a generous sampling of photographs, testimonials, and explanations of certain songs from the composer himself. The final product is, in short, delicious.

And as an added, interactive bonus, Sony is producing a series of Podcasts—the Masterworks Broadway Podcast Theatre—to coincide with this release. So allow me, your blogger, to inject a little of that smug, critical, I’ve-heard-this-which-is-unavailable-to-mere-mortals bluster to say that they contain some pretty remarkable stuff that will be rolled out as the months go on, through the beginning of February. Important people in the Sondheim-verse weigh in on things, from his musical collaborators like Paul Ford (a pianist who has worked with Sondheim for years) or Paul Gemigniani (conductor and orchestrator) to his theatrical collaborators like Patti LuPone, Elaine Stritch (who does still wear a hat, I discovered), Mandy Patinkin or a certain Angela Lansbury and another certain Bernadette Peters. Plenty of chatting with the man himself as well. It is a banner month for fans of both Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein.

The first Podcast airs on Tuesday, September 30th, and it is a nice introduction to Sondheim. Fans of course will love it, but if you remain unconvinced (or just haven’t listened yet) this might be a good place to start. Sondheim speaks about his overall intentions in the theatre (to write things that are not confusing), with delightful and thoughtful endorsements by no less than Angela Lansbury, Frank Rich (the former “Butcher of Broadway”), Lonny Price, and Laura Benanti.

Much much more later…

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In This Blog:
Stephen Sondheim: The Story So Far …

Click HERE to listen to the Stephen Sondheim Podcast Series!!