"Stephen Sondheim: The Story So Far"

[follies85]

Posted: 8/20/08 at 11:30pm

For whomever is interested:

The four disc set, "Stephen Sondheim: The Story So Far," is now available!
Link Updated On: 10/4/08 at 11:30 PM

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 8/20/08 at 11:48pm

Good price, this would cost nearly a $100.00 if i was to wait for an Australian release.

[heathurrr]

Posted: 8/21/08 at 7:46am

WOO HOO!

[Amalia Balash]

Posted: 8/21/08 at 8:05am

Glad to see it! Can't wait till September 30!

[ljay889]

Posted: 10/4/08 at 2:34am

i cannot believe I forgot this was released already! Did anybody get it?

[follies85]

Posted: 10/4/08 at 10:55am

I'm eagerly awaiting for it to arrive in the mail. I had a Borders.com coupon for 30% off so I only paid about $40.00, tax and all.

[wonkit]

Posted: 10/4/08 at 11:04am

Got it but haven't had a chance to listen yet. Great booklet included and lots of interesting previously unreleased music.

[jv92]

Posted: 10/7/08 at 9:38pm

Got it today. While I think it's disgusting that they only included one song from Sunday in the Park and none from the OBCR of Follies (even with its flaws), overall, it's wonderful. The bonus material is fabulous. I love his demos of "Happily Ever After" and "Foxtrot." The booklet is great with tons of rare photos, mostly of cast album recording sessions. Alas, none are from the Follies session in 1971. However, there are some wonderful color ones of Steve, Angie and Len at the Sweeney Todd recording. The liner notes are nice and Hal Prince's loving tribute is a joy to read.
Sondheim fans- GET IT! It's a real treat.

[Paul W. Thompson]

Posted: 10/7/08 at 11:25pm

Mine came today WOO HOO

Next up--ALW 60 lol

[bwaylvsong]

Posted: 10/8/08 at 12:04am

Does it have any selections from SATURDAY NIGHT?

[Paul W. Thompson]

Posted: 10/8/08 at 12:23am

Yes, all previously unreleased.

"Class"
"Love's a Bond"
"In the Movies"
"I'm All for You"

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 10/8/08 at 1:38am

While I think it's disgusting that they only included one song from Sunday in the Park and none from the OBCR of Follies

There is a story there. Apparently EMI wanted to much money to allow Sony to use tracks from the OBCR of FOLLIES and since the concert verion -originally on RCA - is now owned by Sony they made the (logical?) decision to use that instead.

Most of us have the cast albums already. It's the bonus material that will drive this set. 20 years sgo RCA did a similar set caled A COLLECTOR'S SONDHEIM. There we got for the first time Lee Remick's "There Won't Be Trumpets", and the song "It's a Hit" (both left off the OCR Lp's of WHISTLE and MERRILY - since restored to the CD releases of those shows) and the disco "Ballad of Sweeney Todd" which is frighteningly bad.

[RockabyeHamlet]

Posted: 10/8/08 at 3:42am

I am glad I'm not the only one who remembers the disco version of Sweeney Todd. I first heard it when I was very, very young and I think it forever scarred me of disco music. That sound effect of the throat slitting and then the thud, still makes me shudder.

[follies85]

Posted: 10/9/08 at 12:43pm

I have fallen in love with this set, especially the fourth CD which contains incidental music from Arthur Laurents' Invitation to a March as well as The Enclave and the Saturday Night demo/backers' audition songs sung by what would have probably been the original cast if the show was produced. The 70-odd paged booklet is amazing with rare photographs, pretty good liner notes, and comments by Sondheim on some of the rare tracks. It is somewhat disappointing that there are no demo recordings from Sweeney Todd onward. Perhaps there will be a new installment in the PS Classics' Sondheim Sings series?

[heathurr2]

Posted: 11/11/08 at 12:05pm

I just got mine yesterday and WOW. I'm like a giddy kid in a candy store going through all the unreleased songs! It's been my goal as a Sondheim nerd to hear 'Happily Ever After', and now I have happily achieved my goal. So good.
The booklet is gorgeous, too!

[heathurr2]

Posted: 11/11/08 at 3:36pm

Does anyone have the lyrics to 'Class' from Saturday Night?
The only bad thing about the booklet is that it doesn't have all the lyrics!

EDIT - my booklet's pages are messed up. I have some twice, and some missing!

Updated On: 11/11/08 at 03:36 PM

[Scripps2]

Posted: 11/11/08 at 4:16pm

Is that version of Happily Ever After the one sung by Mr Sondheim himself?

[heathurr2]

Posted: 11/11/08 at 5:40pm

Yes, it is!

[heathurr2]

Posted: 11/11/08 at 5:51pm

I have another question:
Why does it say that the songs from Evening Primrose are released for the first authorized time?
The cast recording was released this summer.

[best12bars]

Posted: 11/11/08 at 8:29pm

I have to ask, because I haven't been paying attention...

Isn't this just a "best-of" box set of previously released Sondheim material?

Is there anything here that hasn't been previously released somewhere else?

Posted: 11/11/08 at 8:46pm

You mean soundtrack of course I think it's cuz this release was originally planned for over two years back, and more recently this Spring. It woulda got to the songs first (you'll notice they use slightly different recordings--no dialogue like the soundtrack, and the officially release private recording it's from, did, no "speaker effect" on parts of World, etc).

I wish we'd get a recording of Happily Ever After sung with the full Tunick orchestrations used in Boston and by a real singer (sorta like how we got all those great cut Follies songs on the Papermill recording in their full orchestration as an apendix). I love hearing Sondheim sing, but his take on Happily Ever After has been floating around here for eons--and the version by Craig Lucas on Marry me a Little isn't vocally all that better (and is still with piano). We did get a tiny bit of it on the great 1973 Tribute album by Larry Kert of course but not enough *grumpy*


I was going to hold off getting it till Christmas but couldn't resist--I found it new on an Amazon marketplace seller for abour 32 bucks, which really isn't bad at all.

I have to say 10 years ago when I ws a teenaged obsessed fan I woulda been in Heaven. I'm a bit more jaded now lol. It's a great set, but I agree with Suskin's review on Playbill--who is it for? It seems to want to tap into the newbie fan market AND the collector fan market who has all the cds--and in the current market I can't blame them for wanting both, but it may put some people off.

Even disc four a lot of stuff is familiar. I've LOVED the recordings of Invitation and Enclave's incidental music from Unsung Sondheim for YEARS--and it's great to finally have the actual recordings, but they aren't very different.

I understand why they used the only Sony owned Follies concert, although Mark I don't quite buy your argument. Angel is part of EMI which is owned by Sony... It couldn't have been that hard to lease the originals could it? Were they asking much more than what they asked for the Forum tracks? I was expecting to hear the Nathan Lane Forum for the same reason.

I'm fine with that although the Concert recording is by far my least fave Follies recording--I admit I play it so little I had forgotten how great Carol Burnett was on it. It's also great that they didn't repeat the demos and bonus tracks from the remastered individual CDs--ie we get Hero is Coming for Whistle which isn't one of the several bonus demos on the Whistle CD, it's great to have Poems from PO too (and to have two PO tracks *remastered*--the only older Sondheim cast album that badly needs remastering but doesn't seem poised to get one).

Of special note for me is we get three more tracks for Into the Woods for that fabled "special TV version demo" which are actually earlier versions of songs from the workshop! the ITW OBC remaster has the other songs from this demo so now we have a complete set it seems (I still wish we knew the full story behind them--why would a LATER tv version use the earlier workshop versions with some of the vocalists from the workshop production? Seems fishy to me).

And great to have all of the Dick Tracy songs though I dunno why More is a shorter take than on I'm Breathless without the introduction verses, and Sooner or Later says it's an unreleased version but is the same from Madonna's CD and not the version in the film... Where's Nathan Lane's song from Birdcage? (which he mentions in the booklet)

The booklet is GORGEOUS. So many handsome pics of Sondheim too--I love the red and black and white ones of him smoking at the front--PHWOAR. I wish it was attached to the CD box the way my Bacharach box set (with a similar sized booklet) is, but oh well.

Oh and great to have another of the Night Music soundtrack songs on CD (I have the vinyl soundtrack and for all that film's faults, and all the songs completely dropped, it's my most played Night Music. The songs they DO record I think are recorde din their best versions--and I stand by that).

So it's a very good set, I'm glad I have it (but I'm a Sondheim fanatic) but there are a few things I'm weird about--including the mix of so many demos. I love hearing Sondheim sing but for a newbie it probably could be off putting (on the other hand when I sing along I actually hit the notes and have a BETTER range than him so for once me singing along to a Sondheim recording sounds arguably better than the original )

Now all we need is that other thing promised way back when this was for his 75th Anniversary--Image's release of the Pacific Overtures OBCR DVD. NOW.

(Oh and yeah this is bascially a better version of Collector's Sondheim in many ways--I miss the disco Sweeney Todd though I agree it's awful, and I'm a HUGE obscure disco fan--Festival's disco Evita is great I think. But this reeks, but is fun to have. I do think this set shoulda included some pop Sondheim like Judy Collins' Send in the CLowns)

Posted: 11/11/08 at 9:12pm

I have to ask, because I haven't been paying attention...

Isn't this just a "best-of" box set of previously released Sondheim material?

Is there anything here that hasn't been previously released somewhere else? "

Rather a lot actually--they knew they had to get the hardcore collectors somehow. Besides nearly all the photos being new to fans, tons of demos on every CD (and a couple of rare non demos) disc four is the extras disc with a lot of soundtrack recordings, sound broad recordings of two fo his play incidental scores, etc Like I said little of it is truly obscure to longterm fans but... (all the Dick Tracy songs, severla of the original Jack Cassidy and cast Saturday Night recordings, Madam's SOng from the soudntrack of 7 Percent Solution, a great remix of the Stavisky theme--a score I LOVE--that was redone for single release in Europe but never released, etc)

[bk]

Posted: 11/12/08 at 1:50am

I think Eric probably has it right - the CD and packaging has been in the works for ages - and since we beat it out with the soundtrack CD to Evening Primrose, the "first authorized release" was moot but had already been printed. If that's not the reason, then I have no idea what they're going on about, since our release is certainly "authorized" with an emphasis on the "author".

Posted: 11/13/08 at 1:31am

Makes sense to me

Posted: 11/13/08 at 9:33pm

Just noticed the last verse of Live Alone and Like It is different from the sheet music/Putting it Together version. I'm not too keen on Mel Torme's voice on the recording but it's nice to have (I used to sing the song a lot in auditions so know it pretty well--this version doesn't have the "on your own with only you to concern yourself" etc)