Stephen Sondheim Mandy Patinkin Bernadette Peters - Sunday In The Park With George 1984 Original Broadway Cast (16 tracks) +Album Reviews

Sondheim at his best

Byron Kolln | the corner where Broadway meets Hollywood | 07/20/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE surely must count as one of Stephen Sondheim's most amazing scores, one that continually rewards the listener with it's simplistic-yet complicated nature.

The Broadway production of SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE features the irresistible Bernadette Peters with Mandy Patinkin in the title role. The story takes what little is known of the life of Parisian artist Georges Seurat and weaves it into a story of life, loss and coming to know yourself. The first act follows George as he paints the legendary "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte". His mistress and model Dot (Bernadette Peters) attempts to pursue a relationship with George that goes beyond art. She is rejected and leaves for America with another man (and George's baby).

The second act of the show opens with George's great-grandson, also an artist struggling with his own inspiration. Dot's daughter Marie (also played by Bernadette Peters) gently guides his hand, but it's only when George returns to the scene of his great-grandfather's masterwork that the past comes to rest with the future.

The score is full of gems like Dot's manic opening number "Sunday in the Park with George", the wrenching "We Do Not Belong Together" and the eccentric "Everybody Loves Louis". One of the biggest highlights is the moving "Sunday" as well as the clarifying "Move On" where the younger George is visited by Dot and the other members of the Grande Jatte painting.

To get a better idea of the staging and direction within the piece, you may wish to also purchase the well-presented DVD which preserves the Broadway production. Definitely a score which improves with repeated listening."

Sondheim is a genius

Joel Sinensky | 03/25/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a heckuva long review, so please bear with me:After viewing Into the Woods for the first time I instantly became a Steven Sondhime fanatic. A friend of mine (Andrew Fox, who has written many reviews here) insisted that I absolutely had to see Sunday in the Park with George and lent me his tape of it. Knowing that it had won the pulitzer prize and that Bernadette Peters, who I loved in Into the Woods, starred, I went in expecting something incredible. While the show was obviously well written, the music great and Mandy Patinkin remarkable I couldn't help being a little disappointed. Peters, having vocal troubles during the recording, was NOT sounding very good, and the chorous as well didn't sound great. There's also the book, which is well written by James Lapine but doesn't quite measure up to the score like his fantastic book for Into the Woods almost would. The fact that the tape was battered from (obvious) repeated viewings didn't help either. Still, I went out to buy the soundtrack so i could really listen to the music and I was blown out of my mind. Bernadette Peters voice is as loud and beautiful as usual and the backround chorous was sensational. This recording also allowed me to truly appreciate the brilliant lyrics and dot-painting inspired music. Like all Sondheim shows, similar themes are repeated throughout and the lyrics range from absolutely hilariious to heart wrenching. I'm planning on buying the DVD soon and I reccomend everyone get both this CD and that as this is the ultimate way to appreciate the score but you have to know the story to get the full emotional impact. Every song (yes, EVERY ONE) is fantastic in its own right, but here are some of the highlights:1. Color and Light: one of the most incredible pieces of music I've ever heard. Sondheim's incredible music captures Seurat's style of painting perfectly and Mandy Patintkin is brilliant in both his intense delivery of the main theme "color and light" and his trancelike repetitions of colors. The way it intertwines with Peter's thoughts is uncanny and it goes in several diffrent directions with many emotions. It is worth buying the CD for this song alone, I guarentee it.2. Putting it Together: the score's most well known song is in competetion with Color and Light as the best song on the disc. Mandy Patinkin show's his true skills in his pin-point, dramatic and lightning fast delivery of Sondheim's lyrics that vividly describe both the struggle of having to pay for art and the conquest of working the room at a party in search of a commision. The rhyme scheme is incredible and the lyrics are truly revelant today. The chrous is great in this as well, full of character.3. Sunday: Both rendetions of this song (at the end of the first and second act) are musically excellent but it is the one at the end of the second act that conveys the most emotion. The timing between Patintkin and the chorous is perfection and the song itself has some of the most beautiful music and lyrics ever written. I'll tell you, if you've seen the play (or even listened to the whole CD) the sheer emotional impact of this makes it the greatest musical finale I have ever heard. Period.Those may be my three favorites, but there are so many more. The opening "Sunday in the Park with George" is quite hilarious, "No Life" as well is brilliantly performed and written. "Everybody Loves Louis" is perfectly sung by Peters, "It's Hot up Here" is a truly ingenious second act opener, "Gossip" is wonderfully fast and exciting with very funny lyrics and the final two songs before the finale, "Lesson Number 8" performed by Patintkin and "Move On" Performed by Peters have some of the most profound lyrics of all time. Both are sung perfectly, of course, as Patintkin and Peters are in top form in this show. Buy this CD and either the video or DVD to fully appreciate this masterpiece. And a masterpiece score this is...on par with George Seurat's "Sunday in the Island of La Grande Jatte""

Color and light....

Katie | New York, NY United States | 01/05/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This unique Stephen Sondheim show's main character is Georges Seurat, painter of the famous "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" among others. This beautiful spectacle of a show is accentuated, if not carried, by Stephen Sondheim's brilliant score. In the original cast, Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters are breathtaking as George and his mistress/model, Dot. As the songs parallel George's paintings, the lyrics portray the contrasting feelings of both characters. George's love for Dot is equal for his love of painting, yet he expresses it through his work, and she does not understand. Dot sees only that he paints her because she's there, not because he loves her. Songs like "We Do Not Belong Together" "Sunday in the Park with George" and "Move On" will thrill and touch the listener, with the effect that all of Sondheim's music seems to have. The show also expresses the experience of art, with critics at every turn, and the difficulty of "Putting it Together". When the fated pair meet again, the past combining with the present at the finale, the listener will be uplifted and rewarded by the experience that is "Sunday in the Park"."

A Stunning Work of Artistic Merit.

Blactor | Washington, D.C. USA | 12/05/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Sunday in the Park with George," a nothing-if-not-ambitious music theatre piece that explores the ins and outs of the creative process, is--as composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim himself has admitted--a weird show. Collaborating with book-writer James Lapine, Sondheim created a musical that has no real plot, a myriad of characters with relationships that in the end add nothing to the whole, and no "showtunes"--at least not in the classic sense. Yet despite what could easily be seen as setbacks, "Sunday" emerges as a masterpiece of the modern musical theatre.

This recording preserves Sondheim's highly intellectual score, which is greatly served by Michael Starobin's orchestrations and the solid singing & characterizations of every single member of the ensemble. However, calling Sondheim's score "intellectual" is perhaps a disservice to the beauty and wit of his music and lyrics, as many of his critics accuse his work of being "all brain and no heart."

It's hard to imagine that someone devoid of emotion could have written a song like "Move On," a sweeping anthem about finding your own voice as an artist, and not dwelling on past mistakes (an experience very close to Sondheim's heart, as flops such as "Merrily We Roll Along" and "Anyone Can Whistle", despite their brilliance failed miserably--the former prompting Sondheim to consider quitting the theatre!); or "Finishing the Hat," in which the title character sings of his ferocious dedication to his art, and the painful toll it has taken on his personal life; or the aptly titled "Beautiful" in which George and his nostalgic mother ruminate on the nature of beauty.

I could go on; there are countless emotionally stirring gems on the album, complimented nicely by exquisitely-written, nearly conversational songs such as the anxious title song, or "Gossip" in which two critics pompously analyze one of George's paintings. I dare you to not be impressed with Sondheim's facility in rhyme with "Gossip," "It's Hot Up Here," or "Putting it Together."

As far as performers, the two leads are a couple of the best in the business. It's hard to imagine anyone improving the work of the incomparable Bernadette Peters, in the dual roles of Dot (George's jilted lover) and Marie (Dot's daughter, 100 years later). Peters' voice is particular, expressive, and enormously powerful when it needs to be. Unfortunately, Mandy Patinkin's beautifully understated work as both Georges is lost without the visual, but his lilting tenor voice is also impressive in its flexibility and, at times, raw power. But I must note again, that there is not a weak voice or performance in the entire cast.

This recording is valuable for fans of both Sondheim and of musical theatre; the former get to relish in the brilliant output by the theatre's current foremost composer/lyricist; the latter to experience other avenues and forms musical theatre can take. Although Jerry Herman won the Tony over Sondheim with "La Cage..." (making what could be conceived of as a snipe at Sondheim in his acceptance speech), the gravity and depth of Sondheim's work here is every bit as valuable and noteworthy as Herman's (or Porter's, or Hammerstein's, or Loesser's, etc.) ability to write a "catchy" melody.

"Sunday in the Park with George" is a stunning work of artistic merit.

"

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