Search - Marc Heller - tenor;Alfred Heller - piano;Martin Ormandy - cello :: Take Me To The World -- Marc Heller Sings Stephen Sondheim

Wonderful Sondheim Recital

Bart Brands | Tilburg, Netherlands | 07/09/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is a wonderful CD to introduce the music of Stephen Sondheim to those people who usually only listen to classical music. Most of Sondheim's music is only accompanied by piano, except for the song "later" which is accompanied by cello like it is in the original production of "A little night music". Taking away the usual orchestrations and tackling these songs in a classical way has an interesting effect. It proves that it is possible to place Sondheim's music and lyrics out of their original context without losing it's strength and impact. What we get as a result is an interesting recital of songs, which does justice to both the composer and the performer. Marc Heller gives us fine interpretations of Sondheim's music and with his classical trained voice he is a joy to listen to. It's obvious that Heller has actually performed in several Sondheim shows because he's very aware of what he is singing about and he knows how to handle this music. We also get a varied program of Sondheim's music. With the exception of "Assassins" we get music from all the musicals for which Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics an on top of that there is the song "Take me to the world" from "Evening Primrose" and the song "Silly people" which was originally discarded and later used in "Marry me a little". I would recommend this album to all those people who would like to be introduced to Sondheim's music and to those who'd like to hear his music performed in a different style."

Oversung

andrewwww | UK | 07/07/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"The CD is actually by Marc Heller, an operatic tenor, accompanied by Alfred Heller on piano. The singer ruins most of the varied material by feeling it necessary to swell and show off his volume during every song. He seems incapable of subtlety or reading a lyric. Virtually all the material is spoilt by this vulgar display and unfeeling delivery."

In response to Andrewww

Alfred Heller | 01/16/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In response to Andrewww with regard to, "Take me to the World" - We performed Mr. Sondheim's music as it is written and deliberately out of context. This was done in order to remove the Broadway cliché presentations and go back to how the music and words actually were written. We wanted to provide Mr. Sondheim with a "classical" approach to his excellent art. Perhaps it was the first classical approach. We were in consultation with Mr. Sondheim's publisher much of the time as well, Paul McKibbins. To add to Andrewww's erronious conclusion that Marc Heller is only an opera singer, Mr. Heller also has sung jazz and tap danced. He just happens to be versatile. Marc Heller had just finished performing Henryk in, "A Little Night Music" in Williamstown, Massachusetts when we recorded this CD. Other musical theatre roles Marc Heller has performed are Arpad in, "She Loves me" and Rolf in, "The Sound of Music" in New York . So much for Andrewww's idea that Marc Heller is strictly an opera singer. More recently, Mr. Heller has been singing opera. This is logical, since he sings in 12 languages. Marc Heller's range of operatic roles include, The Composer in, "The First Emperor," of Tan Dun at the Metropolitan Opera, Rodolfo in, "La Bohême" in Stockholm and Pinkerton in, "Madama Butterfly" in Berlin. The cellist for this CD was Martin Ormandy, brother of conductor Eugene Ormandy and 93 years old when this was recorded. Submitted by Alfred Heller, producer of this CD for Etcetera Records at the request of Michel Arcizet, then owner of Etcetera Records."