Search - Lorenz Hart :: Fly With Me (1980 Revival Cast)

An embarrassment....

Peach | 01/13/2003

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Not the score but this recording! It is a poorly made live recording with a student ensemble (Columbia University no less) that sounds simply dreadful. The string intonation can make your hair stand on end.
Shame on Original Cast records for issuing this. Did they get an okay fron the R & H Estates? I look forward to hearing this score properly performed one day"

Student production of a show that is of historical interest

Peach | New York, NY | 02/09/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I must object to the previous reviewer's comments. As a member of that awful string section 28 years ago, I should mention that this project was conceived as a 1980 revival of the 1920 Columbia Varsity Show, which happened to be written by Rodgers, Hart and Hammerstein. Pretty interesting, right? It was about a futuristic Columbia in 1970, by which time it would have been renamed "Bolshevicki University." (!) Mr. Rodgers completely approved of this revival, and his widow appeared at the opening (he had just recently died). As recordings go, this does leave much to be desired, but this was a live recording of a college show in an old theatre. It was a student production! As I recall, we spent about an hour and a half rerecording the overture, and that was about it. So, if you want to hear an interesting sample of Rodgers/Hart/Hammerstein's early collegiate songs, buy this disc -- it's really fun, and the lyrics are very clever ("Gone are old ecclesiastics, moral teachings by bombastics, we're our own iconoclastics, teaching plastics by gymnastics!"). On the other hand, if you're a fetishistic audiophile who cannot be satisfied with anything but recordings made under the most expensive and exacting conditions, skip this disc and stay unhappy."