Sunday In The Park With George (1984 Original Broadway Cast) [Cast Recording]

Cris Groenendaal, Dana Ivey, Stephen Sondheim, Charles Kimbrough, Robert Westenberg, Barbara Bryne, William Parry, Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Cast Recording
• Label: RCA
• ASIN: B000002W7F
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (71 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #152,215 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential recording

After Merrily We Roll Along's devastating flop in 1981, Stephen Sondheim thought about abandoning the theater. He wrote one of his most beloved shows instead, Sunday in the Park with George. Sondheim and his new collaborator, librettist/director James Lapine, used George Seurat's painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" as a way to tackle the issue of artistic creation itself. Both Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters play two different parts with brio, jumping across decades with ease, and they get to deliver some of Sondheim's most heartwrenching songs--"Color and Light," "Finishing the Hat," "Putting It Together," and "Children and Art." Sunday in the Park with George is one of the most intellectually ambitious musicals to ever hit Broadway--and one of the most emotionally rewarding. --Elisabeth Vincentelli

Product Description

A Classic Stephen Sondheim Musical Available Now at a New Low Price!

Features bonus tracks, digitally remastered and new liner notes. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sondheim at his best, July 19, 2005

By 

Byron Kolln (the corner where Broadway meets Hollywood) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Sunday In The Park With George (1984 Original Broadway Cast) (Audio CD)

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.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sondheim is a genius, March 24, 2001

By 

Joel Sinensky - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sunday In The Park With George (1984 Original Broadway Cast) (Audio CD)

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"

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars color and light...., January 4, 2000

By 

Katie (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sunday In The Park With George (1984 Original Broadway Cast) (Audio CD)

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".