Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. America
2. Tonight
3. Gee, Officer Krupke
4. Everything's Coming Up Roses
5. Comedy Tonight
6. Everybody Ought to Have a Maid
7. There's Something About a War
8. Don't Laugh
9. Anyone Can Whistle
10. A Parade in Town
11. A Hero is Coming
12. This Week, Americans
13. Perhaps
14. Everybody Loves Leona
15. The Boy From...
16. (If You Can Find Me) I'm Here
17. Arts and Crafts
18. I Remember Sky
19. When?
20. Take Me to the World

Disc 2:

1. Another Hundred People
2. The Ladies Who Lunch
3. Being Alive
4. Happily Ever After
5. Waiting for the Girls Upstairs
6. Broadway Baby
7. Losing My Mind
8. I'm Still Here
9. Can That Boy Fox Trot!
10. The Miller's Son
11. Liaisons
12. Send in the Clowns
13. Night Waltz (Love Takes Time)
14. Silly People
15. Not Quite Night
16. Welcome to Kanagawa
17. Pretty Lady
18. Prayers
19. There is No Other Way

Disc 3:

1. The Ballad of Sweeney Todd
2. Green Finch and Linnet Bird
3. A Little Priest
4. The Worst Pies in London
5. Not a Day Goes By
6. Old Friends
7. Finishing the Hat
8. Agony
9. Children Will Listen
10. Have to Give Her Someone
11. Interesting Questions
12. Second Midnight
13. Everybody's Got the Right
14. The Ballad of Booth
15. Happiness
16. I Wish I Could Forget You
17. Bounce
18. Isn't He Something!
19. Invocation and Instructions to the Audience

Disc 4:

1. I Must Be Dreaming
2. The Two of You
3. Class
4. Love's a Bond
5. In the Movies
6. I'm All For You
7. They Ask Me Why I Believe in You
8. Incidental Music
9. Truly Content
10. No, Mary Ann
11. Incidental Music
12. Theme
13. Auto Show
14. Arlette by Night
15. Operetta
16. Theme (European version)
17. I Never Do Anything Twice (The Madam's Song)
18. Theme
19. Sooner or Later
20. Live Alone and Like It
21. What Can You Lose?
22. Back in Business
23. More
24. Water Under the Bridge

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39309 in Music
• Released on: 2008-09-30
• Number of discs: 4

Amazon.com
Stephen Sondheim’s career is so rich that trying to encompass it on a mere four discs seems like a tall order. This satisfying set tries to please both newbies (the first three discs propose an overview of the master’s career via excerpts from all of his shows) and hardcore fans (the fourth disc sheds some light on lesser-known corners of Sondheim’s oeuvre). Of course, the individual selections won’t please everybody (Sunday in the Park with George gets one song while Evening Primrose and Into the Woods get four each?) but at least there are clear curatorial decisions. For instance, disc 2 covers only four shows—Company, Follies, A Little Night Music and Pacific Overtures—and clearly puts them up as Sondheim’s iconic works. Disc 4 is incredibly fun, maybe because a lot of the material is new to us. Highlights include "Truly Content" from 1962’s Passionella, excerpts from Sondheim’s superb Jazz Age–style score for Alain Resnais’ 1974 movie Stavisky, and not one but four previously unreleased tracks from Dick Tracy. The physical set comes with a nice booklet that includes, among other things, an essay by Sondheim expert Mark Eden Horowitz and the lyrics of the previously unreleased songs. -- Elisabeth Vincentelli

Customer Reviews

Enchanting, enthralling, entertaining: must have!
"If they asked me, I could write a book . . ." oops, wrong songwriter. But that's the way I feel about Sondheim. Back in 1971 a college pal took me to see "Company" in LA. Thus began my life-long love affair with Sondheim. I am proud to say I saw "Follies" in LA back then too!

I own most of the available CDs (shows and compilations). I put "The Story So Far" into my refurbished, just purchased iPod. (I also created a whole playlist with just Sondheim's work.)

I cried, laughed, sang along for hours today, while riding buses and walking in downtown Santa Monica, doing errands. I feel as if I'm with my best friend, the wisest, wittiest person in the world.

I truly love the alternative versions to his songs. Really shows you the work he puts into his creations. So many settle for "whatev" these days. His craftsmanship, integrity, and pure genius shines through in this compilation.

The packaging is very elegant as well: clean layouts, large photos, beautiful cover, easy to read. I love the behind-the-scenes photos, capturing so many moods of his expressive face, which perfectly match his work. He is truly like wine: his face becomes more beautiful and interesting as the years pass by.

My only complaint is overlooking "Everybody Says Don't" from "Anyone Can Whistle." It's an amazingly life-affirming, courageous song, written in 1964, during a very turbulent climate of radical social change and dissent. I prefer Jerry Herman's "Before the Parade Passes By" from "Hello Dolly" to Sondheim's "A Parade in Town." Both musicals released the same year. I wish they'd retire the latter song and revive "Everybody Says Don't," a truly timeless and universal song of personal freedom and responsibility. Next boxed set, ok?

Love SONDHEIM SINGING! Yes, I know peeps have written re other Sondheim releases they prefer "real" singers. NOT I! I love hearing his voice -- the man behind my fave songs. I could listen to him for hours, longer and more often than trained voices who lack his personality, his warmth, his humanity.

Finally, please, Masterworks Broadway/Sony Legacy promote this wonderful package! I found out about this release because I blogged about Sondheim's Lifetime Achievement Tony Award earlier this year. A good friend read my entry and was surprised I'm such a "Broadway Baby." I'm known as an iconic punk rock photographer and Amazon sells my solo book, and many books and CDs with tons of my photos. But give me Broadway and Sondheim over any genre or songwriter! My friend sent it to me, hot off the presses, so to speak. So please get the word out!

"Sooner or Later" you're gonna buy "STEPHEN SONDHEIM THE STORY SO FAR." Buy it now!

Good if you're not already a collector
The Story So Far is a great collection of highlights from Sondheim shows, with alternate tracks, demos, and cut songs thrown in. If you don't already have at least one recording of a production of a show, then this collection is great. As someone who has, for example, the Original New York, The New York Revival, and London recordings of Into The Woods, I obviously collect Sondheim, and other, recordings. This duplication of material on other discs is abit repetitious. The recording proclaims all of these rare recordings, but many of the Sondheim recordings of his own he released on two CDs, and the Evening Primrose collection already came out on a disc of its own, so they're not that much obscurity there. All of the truly "unreleased" material could have been packaged as one CD, and perhaps sold as a companion to the excellent book content that was prepared for this compilation. The photos, stories, and information in the book is a treasure, and that, expanded, would be worth the purchase. Overall, the package oversells itself by including so many already available songs.

A little bit of everything.
Packaging was poorly designed with nothing holding the booklet in the folder. Many of the recordings are songs from different plays which you probably already have on the cast albums. His writing is excellent as expected but his voice will surely grate on you after a while. Contains many old, original recordings which were never previously released in which he sang and played piano. Would LOVE to hear professional singers perform the songs. This is a "must" for serious collectors of Sondheim.