Earlier this week I went to a screening of "Company" with a friend (both loved it). He asked me if there is a definitive recording of the song. I wasn't sure how to answer. Is the OCR considered definitive? - not sure it is for this song...
The first version I heard was Streisand's 'Broadway Album'. Favorite recording is Patti LuPone from "Sondheim: A Celebration", with Bernadette Peters rendition on "Sondheim, Etc." a distant, but notable second.
I love the Stephen Bogardus version from the "Musicality of Sondheim" album
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Dean Jones is definitive. Personally, for some reason I haven't heard a rendition of this that I liked that was sung by a man. Love Streisand's, Peters', and LuPone's though. LuPone's is my favorite.
Lupone's seems to suffer from her continual difficulties with diction. Of course I heard Bernadette's first so I was probably biased when I first heard Lupone's. Updated On: 6/23/11 at 02:04 PM
Bernadette's is the definitive version for me. So moving.
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Raul, though not just out of partiality to him, and I don't think it's objective so much as determinately personal; I think the first time you see something like that song, in context, performed, it does something to you that nothing can ever recreate. Raul's version tore me up in such a beautiful way, and every time I see or hear it sung, no matter how well, my mind always goes back to him.
Vocally, though, Stokes' version is also really beautiful.
I've always loved Anthony Warlow's version from the On The Boards album. Original orchestrations and sung in full, minus the dialogue and. as always, impeccably sung.
As OBCRs go, the original COMPANY just might be my favorite OBCR of all time. That being said, I have a particular fondness for Adrian Lester's performance of "Being Alive" on the far-from-wonderful 1996 OLCR. I assume most others here don't agree as Lester has not been mentioned previously in this discussion. As non-OCRs go, I'm in total agreement about the power of Bernadette's performance as well.