Track Listing

1. Company
2. Little Things You Do Together
3. Sorry Grateful
4. You Could Drive A Person Crazy
5. Have I Got A Girl For You
6. Someone Is Waiting
7. Another Hundred People
8. Getting Married Today
9. Marry Me A Little
10. Side By Side/What Would We Do Without You
11. Poor Baby
12. Barcelona
13. Ladies Who Lunch
14. Being Alive

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #54815 in Music
• Released on: 1996-04-29
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds
• Running time: 55 minutes

From Amazon.com
While the original version of Company is still indispensable for any self-respecting Broadway fan, this London revival directed by Sam Mendes has enough sharp edges to make it a welcome addition. The anger underlining "You Could Drive a Person Crazy" is more forceful than ever (especially with loud-and-clear interjections like "son of a bitch!"), and the small orchestra plays with uncommon energy. As Robert/Bobby, Adrian Noble injects new resonance into a character usually perceived as being passive: "Barcelona" features some particularly good acting, while "Marry Me a Little is touchingly tender. This version doesn't rank as high as the original one (what could?) but it's more interesting than the 1995 Broadway revival. --Elisabeth Vincentelli

Customer Reviews

Excellent in so many ways!
Stephen Sondheims "Company" is one of the great composers masterpeices. It musically and dramatically tells the tale of one mans inability to deal with relationships. His well meaning friends constantly try to involve him in some form of relationship while all the time showing the problems they have with their own. This lead to Bobby (our lead) unable to embrace the fact that he does want to be with someone, but not at the cost of who he is. The show is filled with many wonderful songs including the comical "You could drive a person crazy", the charming "Sorry Grateful" to the amazing "Being Alive". This show is a must buy for anyone who likes musical theatre. As important as when it was written over 20 years ago. This recording is an excellent one with a fabulous cast. Buy this and enjoy with or without company!

You're in bad company
I'm an absolute Sondheim nut and "Company" is one of my favourite scores. It's sad, then, that I want to pan this recording of the musical.

To those of you who don't know the show - our everyman hero, Robert, is facing his 35th birthday and trying to figure out where his life his going. This leads him to fantasise about himself, his married friends and his on-off girlfriends, acting out his anxieties about love, marriage and commitment as a Broadway musical. I wish all therapy was this fun ...

Frankly, this recording is not a patch on the original 1970 cast recording. The guy playing Bobby has - in my opinion - a thin, reedy voice, nowhere near the warmth and timbre of Dean Jones's original. Likewise, the actress playing Joanne is too over-the-top, too drunken and too tuneless (sure, Joanne should be all a little of all those things, but she takes it way too far) and just isn't in Elaine Stritch's league.

It's not just the performers, though. This is a scaled-down version of the orchestration and it doesn't sound as good. The wonderful hammond organ mimicking of a 'busy' phone signal in the opening number has been completely lost, replaced by a rather weedy-sounding electric piano. If you really want to hear what the score can be, you should hear the 1970 recording, which Amazon isn't stocking, alas.

The one saving grace of this album is "Marry Me a Little" - and I say that because the 1970 recording doesn't feature this superb song (originally an alternative to the final number "Being Alive") at all. But there are probably better versions of it out there than this one.

If this is absolutely the only recording of the show you can find, get it - it's a great show. But I don't think you'll really appreciate, or even like, the music until you've heard the 1970 version.

Company.
This recording isn't as bad as some people say, but it's not very good either. It's not as brilliant as The Original Broadway Cast, but if you are a fan and collector of Sondheim recordings, buy this cd.

Also, one of the re-views said that Marry Me A Little was replaced with Being Alive, that is wrong information, Being Alive replaced a song called Happily Every After.