The "other" Secret Garden

[musikman]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 4:45pm

So I've been looking through boxes in storage for a memorial next week, and I came across a CD of The Secret Garden. However, it's not the Lucy Simon/Marsha Norman version. This one has music by Sharon Burgett and includes Barbara Cook as Martha, Judy Kaye as Mrs. Medlock, John Cullum as Archie and others. It's being touted as a world premiere recording on the CD, but I can't really find any other information about it online other than sites that sell the CD. Were there any staged productions, concerts, etc...? It obviously has a great cast. If anyone has any info on it, it would be greatly appreciated.


On first listen, it seems a lot lighter and happier than the Lucy Simon version. The opening song is like a rip-off of "I think I'm gonna like it here" from Annie.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 4:56pm

I don't have any information for you, but I'd like to point out how naughty this thread title is.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 4:58pm

^ha ha.

[tazber]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 5:17pm

It was staged in London. I don't know anything about the production, but maybe post this question on the UK board also.

For some reason when they released the cd they left off about 5 songs that were on the cassette (and they were good songs).

[ChenoKahn]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 5:20pm

Yeah. all I can find is it's the 1986 London Recording and it has some nice artwork.

[ClapYo'Hands]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 5:43pm

'The Secret Garden'
Kings Head Theatre. Opened 16th Jan 1987 for 171 perfs. LIMITED RUN.

This is information from the West End board thread of West End musicals. It doesn't seem to be the one you are referring to, but I also can't find any record of the one you are speaking of being produced in London around that time (unless it was produced somewhere like The National?)

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 5:54pm

For some reason when they released the cd they left off about 5 songs that were on the cassette (and they were good songs).

It was three songs and I think it had something to do with rights and the different orchestrators for the three songs.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 6:14pm

When the Simon version did premier in London (and I think was recorded) wasn't it changed a lot to correspond more with the book (which, while I love the book, sounds far less theatrically interesting).

[ClapYo'Hands]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 6:20pm

On Cook's Wikipedia page it says: " In 1986, she recorded the role of Martha in the Sharon Burgett musical version of The Secret Garden along with John Cullum, Judy Kaye, and George Rose"

So was she actually *in* it in London or did she just record the concept album?

[tdl83]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 6:25pm

If anyone would like info on the above....please send me a pm.

[husk_charmer]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 6:32pm

^ Why not just post it here so we can all read it?

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 8:21pm

Nothing to back me up, but I do remember reading a good decade ago or more that it was a studio album and didn't stem from a production.

[theatreguy]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 8:44pm

It is a studio recording - none of them (except possibly the kids) ever did it on stage.

I don't think it was ever done in the West End though it was produced elsewhere in England. A revised version was done in Tennessee and is now licensed through Dramatic Publishing:

http://www.dramaticpublishing.com/p1334/The-Secret-Garden-(Crabtree)/product_info.html

[chewy5000]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 8:50pm

http://castalbums.org/recordings/The-Secret-Garden-1986-London-Studio-Cast/3469
Updated On: 11/10/11 at 08:50 PM

[tazber]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 9:25pm

Thanks for the link chewy.

I Don't Want To Be An Angel is the song I love that isn't on the cd.

[musikman]

Posted: 11/10/11 at 10:04pm

Thanks for all the info! (as well as the thread title change haha)

[JJC]

Posted: 11/11/11 at 2:17pm

Link to an audio clip on YouTube.
"Something Special" from the Secret Garden

[pinoyidol2006]

Posted: 11/12/11 at 5:34pm

I was just gonna post something about a different version of Secret Garden. There's also another one by Tim Sutton which sounds so ripped off from the Lucy Simon version. I still like it, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFdL1Xu_qPE

[Gabriel2]

Posted: 2/21/12 at 9:39am

While there were multiple orchestrators, I would find it hard to believe that they would quibble about whose songs got on which format. In fact, the LP version made different choices for cuts.

Here is the list of songs on the complete version (cassette), and how they were cut for the LP and CD.

Overture -- Any Minute Now -- I Will Do Nothing (cut from LP) -- Just Like Me -- Dickon Is My Name -- Somewhere in the Past -- Wishful Thinking -- My Mother (cut from LP) -- Before You Know It's Summer -- I've Got a Secret -- No One Needs Me/A Secret Place (cut from LP and CD) -- Something Special -- Entr'acte -- The Likes of You and Me -- Traditions -- I Don't Want to Be an Angel (cut from CD) -- One Patch of Blue -- How We Love children -- My Favorite Song/Wings (reprise) -- Weave a Spell (cut from LP) -- Your Best Foot -- I Shall Live Forever (cut from CD) -- The Secret Garden (Right Before Our Eyes) -- The Finale.

Larry Wilcox was the main orchestrator. The songs "My Mother" and "I Don't Want to Be an Angel" were orchestrated by Ian Macpherson, "I've Got a Secret" by Dick Lieb, and the Entr'acte by Jim Tyler. One Macpherson song is cut on the LP, one on the CD.

Interestingly, on the CD, all of Colin's songs are cut. Did they choose the youngest child to cut as least desirable? I think he sings quite well, and his recovery is an important part of the plot. The LP cuts most of Mary's songs--odd, since she's the main character. Two of those songs are duets with Martha, played by Barbara Cook, who is supposed to be the star of the recording. I think these cuts seem to be mostly about timing, and possibly about Colin. There doesn't seem to be any consistency at all, and difficult to draw conclusions, without talking to the producer, Robert Sher. What this recording needs is a new, double-album release!

[Gabriel2]

Posted: 2/21/12 at 9:45am

While there were multiple orchestrators, I would find it hard to believe that they would quibble about whose songs got on which format. In fact, the LP version made different choices for cuts.

Here is the list of songs on the complete version (cassette), and how they were cut for the LP and CD.

Overture -- Any Minute Now -- I Will Do Nothing (cut from LP) -- Just Like Me -- Dickon Is My Name -- Somewhere in the Past -- Wishful Thinking -- My Mother (cut from LP) -- Before You Know It's Summer -- I've Got a Secret -- No One Needs Me/A Secret Place (cut from LP and CD) -- Something Special -- Entr'acte -- The Likes of You and Me -- Traditions -- I Don't Want to Be an Angel (cut from CD) -- One Patch of Blue -- How We Love children -- My Favorite Song/Wings (reprise) -- Weave a Spell (cut from LP) -- Your Best Foot -- I Shall Live Forever (cut from CD) -- The Secret Garden (Right Before Our Eyes) -- The Finale.

Larry Wilcox was the main orchestrator. The songs "My Mother" and "I Don't Want to Be an Angel" were orchestrated by Ian Macpherson, "I've Got a Secret" by Dick Lieb, and the Entr'acte by Jim Tyler. One Macpherson song is cut on the LP, one on the CD.

Interestingly, on the CD, all of Colin's songs are cut. Did they choose the youngest child to cut as least desirable? I think he sings quite well, and his recovery is an important part of the plot. The LP cuts most of Mary's songs--odd, since she's the main character. Two of those songs are duets with Martha, played by Barbara Cook, who is supposed to be the star of the recording. I think these cuts seem to be mostly about timing, and possibly about Colin (in the case of the CD). There doesn't seem to be any consistency at all, and difficult to draw conclusions, without talking to the producer, Robert Sher. What this recording needs is a new, double-album release!

[sondheimboy2]

Posted: 2/21/12 at 4:24pm

I think this album only exists because someone had one Hell of an agent or had a lot of people owing him favors or had money to burn. (Besides the vocal talent and orchestrations, you have artwork by Hillary Knight.)

For those of you our there who remember "Show Music" magazine, this was one of the albums listed in the "upcoming releases" section for , what seemed like, ages. I was waiting for it because of Barbara Cook's involvement in it. (This was before she started recording for DRG.)

I believe that it had a regional premiere somewhere in England and never made it anywhere even near London.

As it was released just when CDs were being introduced into the market, a time when the record companies were trying to get customers to feel the need to one more than one format of the same thing. That's why the different formats had differing amounts of material on them.

I haven't listened to it a few times when it came out and again when I dubbed a copy of it for the music director of a production of the Simon/Norman version of "Secret Garden" that I was in. As huge of a Barbara Cook fan as I am, I have felt no need to listen to it again.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 2/21/12 at 4:45pm

I found this on Answers.com:

The first musical stage adaptation of Francis Hodgson Burnett's 1909 children's novel The Secret Garden, with music by Sharon Burgett and lyrics by Burgett, Susan Beckwith-Smith, and Diana Matterson, was produced originally at Salisbury's Playhouse in Watford, England, on April 28, 1983. After a second British repertory production, this recording was undertaken in May and June 1986. It does not derive from either of the stage productions, but is a studio cast recording with a top-flight list of performers headed by Barbara Cook, a Broadway veteran turned concert singer, who plays Martha, the housemaid at Misselthwaite Manor, where young orphan Mary Lennox (Victoria Coote) goes to live with her widowed uncle Archie Craven (John Cullum) after her parents die of cholera in India. Cullum, of course, is another Broadway veteran, as are George Rose, who plays Ben Weatherstaff, the gardener, and Judy Kaye, who plays the nasty Mrs. Medlock, the housekeeper. All are given showcase material to sing, particularly Cook, whose solo songs, "Before You Know It's Summer," "Something Special," "One Patch of Blue," and "The Secret Garden (Right Before Our Eyes)," and duets with Coote, "I Will Do Nothing," "Wings," and "My Mother," are the score's highlights, often sounding like they could have been written for Cook's warm, soaring voice. One oddity is that Cook never bothers to speak or sing in a British accent, while other performers do, especially the children, not only Coote, but also Paul Glen and Daniel Waller. Kaye (an American who works frequently in London) uses a full-on British accent, while Cullum and Rose occasionally suggest one without laying it on so thick. Another curious aspect of the recording is that the vocals employ a lot of echo and sound as if they were recorded by distant microphones at a performance, so that the orchestra is sometimes louder than they are. These peculiarities aside, the music is pleasant and professional, without being really memorable, and it sounds like even a more modestly talented cast could achieve an enjoyable production inspired by this recording of the score. [For its initial release by CBS Special Products in 1988, this recording appeared in differing lengths depending on the format, with the LP having 21 tracks and the CD and cassette versions boasting additional tracks. This 1994 reissue by Varèse Sarabande has 22 tracks.] [This musical adaptation of The Secret Garden is not to be confused with the 1987 British musical with songs by Diana Morgan and Stephen Marwick or with the 1991 musical with songs by Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon that has generated Broadway, London, and Australian cast albums; both of these are entirely different works, albeit based on the same novel. Also, it is not to be confused with the soundtrack album for the 1993 film version with a score by Zbigniew Preisner, also released by Varèse Sarabande, or, naturally, with the score by Bronislaw Kaper for the 1949 film version.] ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi

Read more: https://www.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.php?boardid=2&boardname=off&thread=1038785#4071368#ixzz1n3UMWiv2

[mikey2573]

Posted: 2/21/12 at 8:47pm

Holy cow!! When she sang "What are you seeking" it sounded like the exact notes to "Clusters of crocus".
Strange.

[ditsylife09]

Posted: 1/26/20 at 3:34pm

Sorry to bring up a dead thread.

Anyone by chance have a PDF of the score? Not available for purchase outside of producing the show itself from what I can see.

Please and thank you.