Track Listings Set for Sondheim Sings II CD, Released Oct. 25

By: Sep. 08, 2005
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A song list has been announced for Sondheim Sings II, the second volume of newly-remastered demos from the private collection of the man who is arguably Broadway's greatest-living composer/lyricist.  The CD will be released by PS Classics on October 25th.

Whereas the first CD, which encompassed the years 1962-1972, highlighted Sondheim's private renditions of songs that were mostly known to fans, the second will focus on rarities from the Sondheim trunk, "material Sondheim wrote in college, or for early and often unproduced professional productions, or for the amusement of friends and colleagues in the 1950s," stated Philip Chaffin, a board member and A&R Director of PS Classics.  "I consider myself as much a Sondheim fan as the next person, but most of this material was totally unfamiliar to me."  Sondheim Sings II will most likely feature 20 tracks, and a part of the CD's proceeds will benefit Young Playwrights, Inc., which Sondheim founded for young creative talents in the theatre world.

Peter E. Jones, Sondheim's archivist, will produce the CD for PS Classics.  He also serves on the board of the label, which has released the revival cast albums of Assassins and Pacific Overtures as well as the Broadway cast recording of The Frogs.

The career of Stephen Sondheim has spanned almost 50 years since his Broadway debut in 1957 as the lyricist of West Side Story. After also penning the lyrics to Gypsy (with a return to mere lyric-writing for 1965's Do I Hear a Waltz?), Sondheim went on to write the scores for a litany of shows that challenged musical theatre conventions in theme, content and structure. Among his shows are A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Anyone Can Whistle, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures, Sweeney Todd, Merrily We Roll Along, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, Assassins and Passion. His latest musical, Bounce, closed out of town in DC before making it to Broadway but an expanded, limited-run production of 1974's The Frogs bowed last year at Lincoln Center.

The track listings are:

 1. "You're Only as Old as You Look" (1955)
2. "Do I Hear a Waltz?" (from Do You Hear a Waltz?, 1960)
3. "Pour le Sport" (from The Last Resorts, 1956)
4. "Men" (from By George, 1946)
5. Steve Greets Ockie 1 (1943)
6. "What to Do at George School" (from By George)
7. "How Do I Know?" (from Phinney's Rainbow, 1948)
8. When I Get Famous (from Climb High, 1952)
9. "A Star Is Born" (1954)
10. "I Remember That" (from Saturday Night, 1953)
11. "In No Time At All"/"A Moment With You" (from Saturday Night)
12. "New York Song" (from The Clock, 1953)
13. "The Girls of Summer" (from The Girls of Summer, 1956)
14. "I Wouldn't Change a Thing" (from The Last Resorts)
15. "Ten Years Old" (from The Fabulous Fifties, 1960)
16. "High Life" (from The Last Resorts)
17. "Where Do I Belong?" (from Climb High)
18. "Bitterness" (from By George)/"Steve Greets Ockie 2"

In the last track, "Steve Greets Ockie 2," the latter name refers to Sondheim's mentor Oscar Hammerstein II.  Owners of the CD will hear Sondheim deliver a Christmas greeting to Hammerstein. The message was recorded in 1943, the year that Oklahoma! opened and changed the face of musical theatre.

For more information, visit www.psclassics.org.

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