Company cast recording: original or revival?

Fall in love with the original, and then admire the revival.
The OBC of Company is easily one of the best cast recordings ever, in my very humble opinion,

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That's a hard call. The OBCR has the advantage of having Stritch; the 2007 revival has the advantage of having the best Bobby ever -- Raul Esparza.

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I'm a huge fan of 2006 revival recording. It also has some more dialogue in it if you're a fan of that, but I second Ed in saying it has the best Bobby, Raul Esparza. His "Being Alive" is worth the price for me.

However, Stritch is why I also have the OBC. I often listen to the revival, then listen to "The Ladies who Lunch" and "The Little Things You Do Together" off the OBC.

The original, in this case, is the blueprint, so start there.
The 1995 revival had an amazing cast and worth a listen.
The actual singing of the score was quite a let down in the recent revival. (unless you are a RABID EZSPARZA FAN).
And I quess Mottershead has seen every production ever of COMPANY to make such a ridiculous statement.

I don't even like the OBCR overly much, and I'd still have to say start there. (The recording itself is wonderful. I just have some subjective performer issues.)

I've mostly listened to the recent revival recording. Occasionally I'll listen to Ladies Who Lunch or You Could Drive A Person Crazy from the OBCR.

I agree going with the OBC then the Doyle revival.
The 1995 Roundabout Bway revival isn't that great, it sounds too glossy and plastic, not to mention the synthed orchestrations are terrible. However, Debra Monk delivers a pretty vicious Ladies Who Lunch that I truly love.
There is the 1996 London Revival directed by Sam Mendes. Some people say it's an absolute mess, but I think it has it's charm. It's definately the darkest version of the show. The unconvincingly-masked-British-accents-with-even-more-unconvincing-New York-accents are sometimes horrendous but a lot of the time the actors and orchestration deliver the perfect feelings of anxiousness, desperation and suffocation that make Company such a superb musical. Their 'Have I Got a Girl for You' and 'Poor Baby' are probably my favorite of all four recordings.

I'd probably rank the recordings as such
OBC
Doyle
London
Roundabout

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Updated On: 4/16/09 at 12:55 PM

I have a very strong preference for the original cast. However, given that the original question was how to familiarize oneself with the show, I don't know that any cast recording accomplishes that task for Company.

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Start with the OBC (or even the OLC if you can find it), then the 1995 revival, which is a bit sterile, but not without its charms. I can't recommend the other two. I like Esparza, but not in Company. I listened to the recording of the recent revival once and have never felt the need to hear it again.

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CurtainPullDowner,

The question was which recording you'd recommend if you weren't
familiar with the show. I gave my opinion and never intimated that I'd seen every production of Company. Why the snarky remark?

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All dialogue on the revival recording makes everyone sound so bored. I've listened to that recording once and never listened to it again.

Call me biased since I've never listened to the revival recording, but I would take a full sized orchestra playing Sondheim over 12 actors playing their own instruments any day of any week. You'll also have the songs, and interpretations as they originally were meant to be. Once you've familiarized yourself with that, listen to whichever recording you'd like.

What annoys me about all this is that orchestras are always another character in the show. Composers, score writers and orchestrators write for a certain amount of musicians and instruments for a reason. Taking them away takes away a whole character and meaning for the show.

Case in point with the recent Sondheim revivals. The new Sunday production had 5 players in the pit. Not only did it sound tiny, and not do justice to the score, Sondheim and his orchestrator Michael Starobin chose to have 11 musicians in the pit, because Seurat used 11 different colors while painting Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte.

Or, the Sweeney revival which had 10 tinny sounding actor-musicians. Talk about taking another character away from a show when you decrease the size of the pit from 31 to 10. So much depth, and emotion, excitement, and thrill is lost when you take away that huge sound.


Oh yea...pick the Original cast recording of Company.

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I enjoy the dialogue on the revival recording. To each his own I guess!

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