Anyone Can Whistle (1964 Original Broadway Cast) [Cast Recording]

Stephen Sondheim, Gabriel Dell, Harvey Evans, Harry Guardino, Lee Remick, Angela Lansbury | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Original Release Date: 2000
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Cast Recording
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B0000024P5
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #333,624 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great recording, June 1, 2001

By 

Maggie "maggie79" (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Anyone Can Whistle (1964 Original Broadway Cast) (Audio CD)

This recording is far better than the concert version done with Bernadette Peters. I can't really name the exact reason--if anyone looked at the cast lists for both, the talent would seem to be about dead even--but this album has far more heart and simplicity. The 1990's version is cutesy and far too "knowing." The performers seem less sure of themselves and the material so they act with very broad strokes. The original version however, is subtle and heartfelt. When I listen to it, I almost consider it to be Sondheim's best score. (Although, I usually think that Assassins, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd or whatever Sondheim show happens to be in my CD player is his best!)

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The one that started it all, October 9, 2001

By 

Tommy Peter - See all my reviews

This review is from: Anyone Can Whistle (1964 Original Broadway Cast) (Audio CD)

I have only seen the film version of "A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum<' but from all I understand, the musical, hilarious as it may be, has its heart in its book and staging, and the score (The first complete one Stephen Sondheim premiered on Broadway) doesn't really have much of the SOndheim "style" that theater fans have come to know and love. "Anyone Can Whistle" is the true beginning of that style, which of course took off in later years with Company, Follies, Sweeney Todd, etc. The melodies are intriguing and certainly different from the typical musical of the period (Which is probably why the show lasted just a week on Broadway), dissonant at times but often quite clever and truly beautiful, and the lyrics are witty, perceptive, and moving, and completely in character with the show and the characters. From the sensational opening number "Me and My Town" to the touching conclusion "With So Little To Be Sure Of," the score is consistently fresh and inventive, by turns wickedly clever ("Miracle Song," the music/dialogue interplay in "Simple" and the "Cookie Chase" dance, "Come Play Wiz Me"), poigniant (The title song, perhaps a very personal statement for Sondheim himself, and even, in a strange way, "A Parade In Town"), and simply stirring and powerful ("There Won't Be Trumpets," "Everybody Says Don't"). Thankfully, despite the show's short run, Goddard Lieberson of Columbia Records insisted on recording an original cast album, and so we have a record not only of this score as it first sounded but of the wonderful performances by a great cast, especially the three stars, who were all not known at that point for doing musicals but nevertheless acquit themselves beautifully. Lee Remick is both charming and irresistably moving as the nurse Fay Apple. Her tentative but imploring reading of the title song is enough to break your heart. Unfortunately, she mostly concentrated on acting in straight plays, movies and television after this, but she gave at least one other brilliant musical performance, again singing the songs of her close friend Sondheim, in the 1985 concert of "Follies." Angela Lansbury, of course, went on to stardom in musicals like "Mame" and, again for SOndheim, "Sweeney Todd," and in her first major musical performance as the mayor-ess (yes), Cora Hoover Hoople, she is highly effective, both hilarious and even a little touching in her attempts to get tourists into her town by arranging fake miracles and keeping the Cookies (mental patients) under control. Harry Guardino, as the supposed psychiatrist, Dr. Hapgood, is charming and sincere, although I have heard better recordings of "Everybody Says Don't" sung by female singers at faster paces. Apparently, the book and staging, teh strongest points in "A Funny Thing," were the weakest points in "Anyone Can Whistle," which may have contributed to its quick close. The score was definitly not a reason, unless it was simply too original to really be understood or enjoyed. It is a great score, and this recording shows you why.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Songs Without The Script--Thank Heavens, May 12, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Anyone Can Whistle (1964 Original Broadway Cast) (Audio CD)

Stephen Sondheim's second show as both composer and lyricist, and the one that set the mold for much of his career; i.e., a brilliant score wedded to a second-rate book. As usual, Sondheim's songs express the show's ideas with more wit and eloquence than anything that the librettist (in this case Arthur Laurents) could even concieve of, much less achieve. And as was often the case, his work attracted talented performers who often do some of their best work in his material (Lee Remick is strikingly witty and intense here, and Harry Guardino, a macho stalwart in films and television, displays a talent for whimsy that one would never have expected). Angela Lansbury is less of a surprise (she seems to give brilliant performances as easily as she draws breath), but there is still profound pleasure in her witty and oddly poignant performance as the scheming mayor of a backwater small town; when, in the opening song "Me and My Town" she sings "somebody, please buy a ticket to us," there is a desperation in her voice that makes the character's subsequent chicanery at least comprehensible. It makes you wonder, at least it makes me wonder (and not for the first time), why Sondheim doesn't write his own scripts. He couldn't make a bigger hash of it than most of his collaborators have.