Best Cast Recording of A Little Night Music?

[icecreambenjamin]

Which is the best cast recording of A Little Night Music?

[ljay889]

The OBC, Dench revival, and Broadway revival recordings are all very good.

[JoseLee_]

I love the 2009 Broadway Revival but I don't like the spoken dialogue mixed in with the songs.. I just want to hear Send in the Clowns without the beginning dialogue. Still love it though.

[Mr. Nowack]

The OBC is hard to beat but the Dench version does come very close.

The revival was actually my introduction to the score but once I heard the fully orchestrated version I've rarely revisited it.

The soundtrack, now widely available, is interesting if only for the new lyric for Night Waltz and Diana Rigg's fine performance (though it rarely comes through on the album when I think about it), but is marred by the deletion of the Quintet and "The Miller's Son."

I regret to say I've only listened to the original London cast album once, though I recall having enjoyed the slightly modified orchestration and fine cast.

[Mister Matt]

Original London cast is my favorite. I just feel there is more character in the voices.

[PalJoey]

How could you possibly, possibly, possibly want anything other than this?

[EricMontreal22]

The OBC is lovely--and producer Lieberson augmented the string section heavily which sounds great. It's probably the essential one, though I also love the (impossible to find now) Dench/RNT production--partly because I was lucky enough to see it live as a young teen--and the original London is well done too.

I admit-I have a soft spot for the film soundtrack. All comments on the quality of the film itself aside, I think it's very good. The two Broadway male leads sound even more assured on it. Diana Rigg is perfection (and the new orchestrations with pulsing strings that Tunick did for Little Death are gorgeous.) The woman who apparently dubbed nearly all of the other females has a lovely voice. I even kinda like that Henrick/Eric now sings in a lower key, and I don't mind the slight change to Weekend in the Country (a small edit, and a new short bit for Mme Armfeldt,) or the re-arrangement of Now/Later/Soon into Now/Soon/Later. Oh and the film version of Glamorous Life is gorgeous.

But, it is missing *so* much music from the stage show, that I can't really recommend that as a first purchase. Still, I actually find myself playing it the most.

[wickedfan]

Original Broadway Cast. That and only that. The orchestrations, the tempos, the performances. All perfect. All 100% perfect.

Original London is essentially the same album, but with faster tempos and less elegance.

RNT has Dench and a decent Guittard and some fascinating orchestrations. Unfortunately, it also has Joanna Riding giving the 2nd most annoying Anne ever and a botched job of "Glamorous Life."

Soundtrack comes off as a castrated OBCR.

And the Revival, though complete, moves at a glacial pace with uninspired vocals and a music box for an orchestra, which isn't as charming as it sounds.

Just get the OBCR. You'll never need another recording.

[HorseTears]

OBCR. No questions. No hesitations. To start with anything else is pure foolishness. Virtually every other recording - including the London recording with its strange tempos - is just a curiosity.

And if you want to *see* a first rate production, check out the NY City Opera production online.

Frankly, the best way to experience the wonderful Dench is via her numerous video taped performances of 'Send in the Clowns' (Hey Mr. Producer, BBC Proms Sondheim Tribute, various chat shows) available on YouTube. Her cast recording is not worth the exorbitant prices you'll find it for. And you can watch Dame Angela's wonderful Liasions online as well and with a FULL orchestra, when she serenaded Sondheim and Cameron Mackintosh at a recent Olivier Awards.

[EricMontreal22]

I'm not nearly as ecstatic as most people about the NYCO production. Yes, I'm very glad we have it. And it's mostly performed very well. But I find some of the direction peculiar, and I wish they could have used Aronson's designs--as it is the way the sets work on that very large stage makes the production look very empty to me.

As much as I loved the RNT production live, and love the film's Glamorous Life (which is a bonus track on the OBCR CD release anyway as is Night Waltz II which didn't fit on the original LP) their "joined" version of the stage and movie songs really doesn't work.

[ljay889]

The studio recording with Sian Phillips is probably the worst. What a bore. Don't think I have listened to it in ages.

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Have to agree with Eric on the NYCO production, it's nice to have a taping of the show to watch but it's a very big, empty production, and it's always felt a little anonymous to me. There's no real edge or danger to it - it's a comfortable evening of theater.

Anyways, OBC all the way, but I do like the music-box sound of the revival recording, though it has a similar issue as the Pacific Overtures revival, where the stripped-down orchestra sounds lovely and delicate with the small numbers but underpowered and flaccid with the big numbers.

[ljay889]

The orchestrations were rightfully increased for the revival recording. Sounds so much better than the tinny sound in the theater.

[Gothampc]

I love Judi Dench, but I don't like her angry Send In The Clowns.

The OBC is the best overall.

[theatregeek6]

Thanks PalJoey for the clip. Had the pleasure of seeing the OBC and the performances are so well represented on the OBC album. Still one of my favorites -both the album and the show

[WOSQ]

I have seen probably half a dozen productions of Night Music, but in the back of my mind I hear Glynis Johns' voice every time.

I feel the original realizes the story is a boulevard comedic farce with a big dollop of irony thrown in. The show is not a tragedy. (Do you hear me Trevor Nunn?)

Also Judi Dench's first phrase of Send in the Clowns ("Isn't it rich...?") is angry and this works although it is disconcerting, but she does soon soften it into the ironic song it is.

.

[Gothampc]

"Also Judi Dench's first phrase of Send in the Clowns ("Isn't it rich...?") is angry and this works although it is disconcerting, but she does soon soften it into the ironic song it is."

I think she never fully realizes the irony of the song. Over halfway through the song she spits out "Don't bother, they're here" which for me sounds angry and jarring. For me, it loses some of the wistfulness.

[broadwaybabywannabe2]

OBC...I saw the show in it's original production and this OBC always reminds me of how much I love this musical...one of the most complete musicals of the modern era IMHO...:)

[Mister Matt]

Original London is essentially the same album, but with faster tempos and less elegance.

Precisely why I prefer it to the OBC. I actually like the tempos (or "tempi") and it sort of highlights the fact that the characters sound less elegant than they wish to appear.

[MattDean]

I was lucky enough to see the Dench production - what a show!

Anyway, I remember either watching a documentary around the time, or possibly reading somewhere, that Sondheim said Judi's 'angry' rendition was true to his original intentions. He said SITC was often misinterpreted as a 'sad' love song but it was meant to be bitter, angry and full of regret.

[qolbinau]

My favourite recording is the OBC.

I wish that rumoured sample with Bernadette and Elaine Stritch was recorded


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNwnrA8EshM

[Auggie27]

I still love the piece of a number the composer apparently does not: Fredericka's Song in the middle of "Glamorous Life." I love the sequence in the film -- the part that shows what might've been (Taylor's best work is in the montage, and the one shot of her on the train is exquisite) -- and of course on the NT recording. Audra recorded it, and made a persuasive case for the verses, which are not licensed. Too bad. One of my very favorite Sondheim melodies. ("And sometime this summer...!") I've seen all of the major productions, including the national company with Simmons and dear brave Margaret Hamilton, and the final London cast, which was all replacements (Virginia -- from BORN FREE, entirely unmemorable). The original, all of whom I saw in July 1973, remains the gold standard. I still remember buying it, listening, and listening again. And then seeing it again at the Shubert. Magic.

[EricMontreal22]

I didn't think, Auggie, that currently ANY version including ANY of the film's Glamorous Life was available for license? Sondheim has gone on record saying the mixed version done for the RNT was a mistake (and as much as I adore the film version--a Sondheim favorite of mine--the mi is a mistake.) I agree with you about the montage in the film -- I'm not sure though what you mean by Frederick'a song "in the middle." In the full version on film she does the full song, start to finish. And Sondheim didn't like the mix of the two songs done (only, I believe for the RNT,) but IIRC he likes the film song fine.

ALNM also has so many great cut songs. I'm glad we get the original Frid, with the original orchestrations singing cut-out-of-town Silly People on the Scrabble album though it's too bad we don't have a fully orchestrated version of Bang! sung by Guitard--it sounds great on the Boston bootleg, and otherwise the only recording I can think of it is with piano and not sung as well in Marry Me a Little. (And the original Henrik and Anne do sing Two Fairy Tales on the Scrabble Album too which is great, but was composed and dropped so early in the genesis of the show--way before rehearsals apparently--that it doesn't really sound like the rest of the score to me.)

Of course the RNT production did restore the brief "My Husband the Pig" for Charlotte that goes into Little Death which worked for me, even if it seems a bit crude to sing to Anne about your husband's falling erection, but I think Sondheim just oked it for that production, as well.

[Auggie27]

I think my "in the middle" reference is only to her being given those verses (amid other characters' POV's) otherwise never sung by the character. The "middle," no, but she never had the vocal role on stage (until the NT) in the number that Sondheim gave her for the film. I know well that he doesn't like it, but I stand by my adoration of the melody and the way it sets up the mother-daughter stakes (and the denouement). (Audra makes a persuasive case for the song on her album, no?) I love the verses, and as noted above, they remain some of my favorite pieces in all of Sondheim. How ironic that they are among the best executed things in the generally loathed film.

[EricMontreal22]

That makes sense. If Sondheim doesn't like the song, I think it's only because it was such a disappointment (and must have been for those involved, artistically, as well.) I think it's one of his best. The fact that you love it so much makes me think all the more highly of your opinion--I was so obsessed with the song as a kid that I would buy every used copy of the movie soundtrack I could find (oddly, there are an unusually large amount of "Made in Canada" editions floating around in used record shops here--at least there were 15 years back,) to try to get the least scratched copy.