The headliners are excellent. Cook has lost some range and control over the years, but proves she's still one of the great Sondheim voices of any generation with her "Send in the Clowns." Wopat, best known as a TV actor before embarking on a Broadway career, is up to the subtle intricacies of "Finishing the Hat," and Williams, who played the Witch in the 2002 Into the Woods revival, shines on ballads such as "Losing My Mind" (which Cook memorably recorded in the 1980s) and ""Good Thing Going." The unsung stars are the lesser-known singers, Leslie Kritzer, Norm Lewis, Euan Morton, Erin Mackey, and Matthew Scott, who cover the tight harmonies and elaborate counterpoint of the ensemble numbers and also sing strong solos and duets. One almost wishes there had been no headliners with distractingly distinctive voices, thereby giving the sole spotlight to the songs and to Sondheim, who talks about himself in ways that he probably abhors, including deeply personal moments about his mother and his relationship with Oscar Hammerstein II. The stories have probably been told before, but here, in context with the songs he's written, they become even more moving. For a composer often criticized as being cold and unemotional, there can be no better response. --David Horiuchi' border='0'> - $16.29 new from $15.97
Has any post-Tin Pan Alley composer been the subject of more revues than Stephen Sondheim? Perhaps not, but Sondheim on Sondheim is not your typical revue. Yes, it collects a wide variety of songs from the many Broadway shows he composed or for which hewrote lyrics over a career spanning from the 1950s to the present, performed by a talented cast including name headliners Barbara Cook, Tom Wopat, and Vanessa Williams. But when Sondheim on Sondheim played at the Roundabout Theatre's Studio 54 in April 2010, it included video segments of the composer talking about himself and his life, represented on this recording by audio segments. As he talks about his shows, his collaborators, or his personal experiences, the cast of singers acts like a Greek chorus, embellishing the thoughts with excerpts from Sondheim's songs, but also performing some in full, and many in versions different from the original shows. After he talks about working on Company, the singers perform the multiple variations on the ending. Mention of his personal relationship is followed by songs from Passion. And there's one newly composed song, "God," in which he pokes fun at his own lofty reputation.

The headliners are excellent. Cook has lost some range and control over the years, but proves she's still one of the great Sondheim voices of any generation with her "Send in the Clowns." Wopat, best known as a TV actor before embarking on a Broadway career, is up to the subtle intricacies of "Finishing the Hat," and Williams, who played the Witch in the 2002 Into the Woods revival, shines on ballads such as "Losing My Mind" (which Cook memorably recorded in the 1980s) and ""Good Thing Going." The unsung stars are the lesser-known singers, Leslie Kritzer, Norm Lewis, Euan Morton, Erin Mackey, and Matthew Scott, who cover the tight harmonies and elaborate counterpoint of the ensemble numbers and also sing strong solos and duets. One almost wishes there had been no headliners with distractingly distinctive voices, thereby giving the sole spotlight to the songs and to Sondheim, who talks about himself in ways that he probably abhors, including deeply personal moments about his mother and his relationship with Oscar Hammerstein II. The stories have probably been told before, but here, in context with the songs he's written, they become even more moving. For a composer often criticized as being cold and unemotional, there can be no better response. --David Horiuchi