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Title: A really good tribute album, and a great Sondheim sampler.
Review: If you don't know Sondheim's work, this is a concise, entertaining, extremely well-performed introduction to it. And if you do, this is still a very good compilation!Everyone on this album can really sing. The performances of "Being Alive", "Poems", and "The Miller's Son" are much better than the Broadway cast recordings. A wide range of material is included, including some rarely-performed stuff from "Saturday Night", Sondheim's first (but unstaged) musical.Another nice thing about this live recording is the relaxed, friendly, cabaret-like atmosphere. The orchestra is small, and one gets the impression the audience was pretty small, too. Overall, I think it's a much better experience than, say, "Follies in Concert", which is a huge recording--so huge that one wonders if the "event" didn't overwhelm the material.
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