Favorite Sondheim Scores — Page 3

Passion is an incredibly problematic show with beautiful music. "Loving you" and "I Wish I Could Forget You" are wonderful songs.
Sunday in the Park with George is also a problematic show with beautiful music. I happen to love the actual show as a whole, but many others find the book to be dull. The score of that show though is consistently beautiful throughout. I just love the overall shimmery sound that it has.

^The Doyle production was amazing. I was hoping it would move to broadway so that Judy Kuhn could get award recognition for her performance.
I have not seen or really listened to Road Show.
Question: Should I give Merrily a go? I've never listened to the cast recording or anything. I know that it was a major flop and "Not A Day Goes By" is a great song.

icecreambenjamin, you have never heard Merrily?!!?!??!?

Stop what you are doing right now, get the recent P.S. Classics recording and go listen to your new favorite score.

jv92, I also love Bounce/Road Show (score wise, I actually prefer Bounce). I have not seen either show, but the score(s) are wonderful.

"The Best Thing That Ever Happened" is one of my favorite Sondheim ballads.

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Updated On: 11/29/14 at 09:52 AM

Alright I'll go listen to Merrily. I just recently listened to Follies for the first time and fell in love with it.
BTW what are the best cast recordings of Sondheim shows?

"Someone in a Tree2, I’m interested by your characterization of the book of PACIFIC OVERTURES as a “flaccid play.”

To answer Growl-- I saw the Boston tryout of the OBC back in '76 (or was it late in '75?), and then the Off-Broadway production in the 80's. Both times the passages without songs completely put me to sleep. I agree that the basic changing dialectic between the 2 male leads was a wonderful idea-- so wonderful that it's entire arc was summarized in the brilliant "Poems" and "It's Called a Bowler Hat" numbers, and didn't really need any other book scenes to tell you anything more. One interminable scene of narration about tigers and the Lords of the South, told by a castmember moving a paper fan, has always stayed with me as one of the dullest scenes to ever grace a musical. But oh, that score is breathtaking!

Thanks for your thoughts, Someone in a Tree2. While I disagree that the Kayama/Manjiro switcheroo is summarized in those songs – it’s certainly deepened and illuminated by them – it’s nice we share some of the same affections for the show, not the least of which is the breathtaking score. (A friend of mine who shall go unnamed chastises me for loving “Welcome to Kanagawa.” Are you here?)

Have you seen the film of the Broadway production? That was my first – and sadly, so far, has been my only – experience with the show in full, when I was about 20, and I remember being rapt from start to finish. I’d never seen a show with a book quite like it. I ask not to suggest it might “turn” your opinion, as, having seen the Boston and OOB productions, you’re clearly familiar with the material, but just out of curiosity. It’s one of those things that I’m repeatedly both thankful and surprised for – just the fact that it exists.

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Updated On: 11/29/14 at 11:28 AM

I definitely wouldn't mind a bit of rewrite on Pacific Overtures, particularly keeping in mind the amount of immersion our own culture has had with Japan, just so long as it stays an angry, violent show. That's why I like Welcome to Kanagawa so much. If done right, it should make you feel sick.

The more I listen to PACIFIC OVERTURES (in full-- on vinyl) the more I truly, truly fall in love with it. It's probably one of his most romantic scores ever. Yes, I said that.

Do you think that Sunday in the Park with George could ever make a good movie? I feel like it would need a really artsy director.

I agree that PO would make a great movie. That or NIGHT MUSIC are the two of his shows that would most easily lend themselves to film. Almost every song is a character number, and, except for "Next," which is problematic even within the show, there are no park-and-bark-style choruses. I could easily imagine "The Advantages of Floating in the Middle of the Sea" done a la "Belle" in "Beauty and the Beast" -- with a Japanese aesthetic, of course.

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Night Music the film (Liz Taylor as Desiree!) is available on amazon.

I also love PO. The score is one of my faves (Chrysanthemum Tea is a absolute brilliant little mini-musical in its own right.

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It's criminal what Hal Prince himself allowed to happen on the film of NIGHT MUSIC. Replacing the Swedish setting with an Austrian one basically deleted the entire Perpetual Sunset magic and left us with way too much Schlagsahne and Schmaltz. But the revised "Glamorous Life" and perfectly executed "Weekend in the Country" almost make it worth watching nonetheless. And yes, I agree that a NIGHT MUSIC film remake will never happen but is so deserving of one.

PACIFIC OVERTURES is so deeply woven with theater conventions and performance modes, both American and Asian, that I have a hard time picturing it gaining much through the realistic medium of film. Would "Poems" benefit by seeing the actual leaves and the wind and the drops of rain? Would "Four Black Dragons" be any richer if we saw genuine steamships chugging into the harbor? Doubtful.

Updated On: 11/29/14 at 03:00 PM

Well, Kurosawa is dead so...