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Barbara Cook Sings Mostly Sondheim (Live at Carnegie Hall 2001)

Creator: Barbara Cook
Label: Drg
Category: Music

Buy New: $19.98

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Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

23 reviews
Sales Rank: 29378

Format: Live
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 2
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5

MPN: 91464
UPC: 021471146424
EAN: 0021471146424
ASIN: B000059LFF

Release Date: May 8, 2001
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Tracks:

Disc 1

•	Everybody Says Don't
•	I Wonder What Became of Me?
•	The Eagle and Me
•	I Had Myself a True Love
•	Into the Woods / Giants in the Sky (Malcolm Gets)
•	Another Hundred People / So Many People (Malcolm Gets)
•	Let's Face the Music and Dance / The Song Is You (duet with Malcolm Gets)
•	Happiness
•	Loving You
•	You Could Drive a Person Crazy
•	Not A Day Goes By / Losing My Mind

Disc 2

•	Buds Won't Bud
•	I Got Lost in His Arms
•	West Side Story Segment: Something's Coming / Tonight (Malcolm Gets)
•	Move On (duet with Malcolm Gets)
•	Medley: Hard Hearted Hannah / Waiting for the Robert E. Lee / San Francisco
•	Ice Cream
•	Send in the Clowns
•	The Trolley Song
•	Not While I'm Around (duet with Malcolm Gets)
•	Anyone Can Whistle

Similar Items:

•	Barbara Cook's Broadway!
•	Barbara Cook at the Met with Special Guests
•	Barbara Cook at Carnegie Hall
•	No One Is Alone
•	The Champion Season: Live at the Cafe Carlyle

Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com's Best of 2001
Barbara Cook is one of today's most accomplished song stylists, and if you don't believe us, just listen to this live album. It's a master class in the art of singing. It documents an evening at Carnegie Hall during which Cook proved that she can dissect and extract the substance out of the simplest of lyrics. One of the best surprises is "You Could Drive a Person Crazy" (from Company), which is taken at an amiable trot and allows the singer to display its humor. Cook is not a swinging singer and uptempo is not her pace; give her a ballad, though, and she'll wring the last drop of emotion out of it. Her version of "Losing My Mind" (here paired with "Not a Day Goes By") is simply astonishing. The singer also performs songs that Sondheim has said he wished he had written, an awful lot of them by Harold Arlen. No complaints here. Guest Malcolm Gets solos on a few songs and duets with Cook on others, including "Let's Face the Music and Dance." This is classic material done masterfully by a classic singer. --Elisabeth Vincentelli

Customer Reviews: Read 18 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

A Musician Who Appreciates Words, and Has Taste, Brains, and Wit November 5, 2008
"Barbara Cook Sings Mostly Sondheim (Live at Carnegie Hall 2001)," a double CD album, comprises the complete critically-acclaimed live concert that was first heard in February, 2001, at Carnegie, beginning, as it does, with "Everybody Says Don't," and ending with "Anyone Can Whistle." It combines songs by the famous Broadway composer-lyricist, with others that he would have liked to have written, at least in part; and includes the guest appearance of Malcolm Gets. And it goes to prove once again the acuity of legendary Broadway director/producer Hal Prince's well-known remark that his favorite singers are "actors with voices....A musician who appreciates words, and has the taste, brains and quirky wit to make the most of these wonderful show tunes."

Cook, an Atlanta native, made her Broadway bones, and leapt to Tony award-winning stardom, as Marian the Librarian in the 1957 premiere production of Meredith Willson's "The Music Man." She has continued her Broadway career, while, at the same time, carving out further careers in the worlds of concert and cabaret, and initiating the giving of greatly-esteemed master classes in voice: I've a friend, an aspiring singer, who was absolutely bowled over by being accepted for one of Ms. Cook's workshops.

The late Sheridan Morley, author of many greatly praised biographies of theatrical performers, once said, "I have been lucky enough to have been kicking around the New York and London cabaret world for about as long as Barbara Cook has, but I have only ever in my life heard two singers who could match her lyric for lyric: one was Mabel Mercer and the other was Judy Garland."

Well, Morley, Mercer and Garland are no longer with us, but Cook, at 75, still is, her voice still as clear and silvery as a bell, and she is still able to hit her high note in "Ice Cream," a song from "She Loves Me --" she first performed it in the 1950's --that's luckily on Sondheim's list. Her incisive way with a lyric, and her actorly approach are still very much with her. A pair of songs from Sondheim's "Passion," another pair from the Arlen-Mercer St. Louis Woman score, and Irving Berlin's "I Got Lost in His Arms," might be considered especially fine. But I was once lucky enough to see Cook in person, doing this repertory while she was having her greatest success with it, at New York's Brooklyn College. And what blew me away was a simple tune, almost a childish one, "The Trolley Song," from "Meet Me in St. Louis;" one of Judy Garland's signatures. I would not have imagined - no one would have, I expect --that anyone could take it away from Garland. But Cook most successfully at least borrowed it: she acted it as she sang it, and she was "in the moment" all the way.

Ms. Cook is accompanied here by her long-time musical director, unfortunately no longer with us, pianist Wally Harper, who accompanied her throughout her triumphs with this material, in London, Washington D.C., and at Lincoln Center's Beaumont Theater in early 2002. You may never have been lucky enough to catch her live in this - but we have this album.

5 out of 5 stars

Wow! February 20, 2004
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Having read the other reviews there is little more for me to add. I have been a Barbara Cook fan for a longtime and for me, this is one of her best concerts ever. I do, however, prefer the DVD. As with some other reviewers, I do not want to hear Malcolm Gets (as much as I like him) when I want to listen to Barbara. Her flawless interpretation of music is a hard act to follow for any singer! I managed to see this concert 4 times over a year and a half. Each time I saw her the voice was stronger and more assured (I would not have thought that possible). I can't help but think we will have the pleasure of hearing Ms Cook for many years to come. For those people who enjoyed his CD I strongly recommend purchasing the DVD. Barabara's rendition of So Many People is breathtaking (literally, I don't think I breathed once during the entire song). If you ever have opportunity to see her live - go! She has an ability to make you feel as if every song she sings and every word she speaks is directed to you alone. She can take a large venue and make it feel as intimate as your own living room. Having had the pleasure of meeting her I can say she is as youthful and pleasurable in person as she is in her performance.

5 out of 5 stars

Everyone Should Whistle October 11, 2003
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

After being privileged to attend this concert, I had to own the CD. Once a lyric coloratura and the original Cunegonde in Bernstein's Candide, Ms. Cook has become (in her 70s) a true diva, blessed with a velvety, warm sound. Every note has meaning. Her high B-flat on "Ice Cream" is still the envy of any soprano today. Everyone should whistle after hearing the superb performances on this CD. Even better, though, is the experience of having been in the concert hall for the live performance. Brava, Ms. Cook!

5 out of 5 stars

An amazing intro to the body of work of a true master June 16, 2003
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

When I first bought tickets for the 'Mostly Sondheim' show on tour (in San Francisco) I figured it couldn't be too bad. Besides, I had only been exposed to a few of his songs (Anyone Can Whistle, Losing My Mind...) and had only seen "A Little Night Music". On the way out of the theater I immediately picked up this recording of the program. It is truly amazing. I immediately began listening to it and have barely put it down in the last few months. Furthermore, my Sondheim CD collection increased in size from an unflattering zero to five (and it's still growing)! This is an amazing introduction to the works of Stephen Sondheim, who is now my favorite modern musical composer). Buy this now if you don't already have it!

4 out of 5 stars

Beautiful, moving concert April 13, 2003
This is a wonderful CD set with a great selection of songs. I do want to express a slight reservation, however. Barbara Cook has been one of my favorite singers for a number of years and the way her voice defies time is extraordinary -- for her to be singing with such bright, beautiful tone in her mid-70s with no wobble or beat in the voice is an amazing achievment.

I do have to say that by 2001, when this concert was recorded, Cook seemed to have a lost a little bit of power and intensity in her singing. This is only natural for someone of her age. Her voice is still lovely, but you can sense her keeping it in reserve a bit. She's as expressive as ever, but compare the rendition of "I got lost in his arms" on this album to the one on her previous album recorded in 1999, "The Champion Season", and there's less urgency and vocal depth in her singing here. That said, the high B at the end of "Ice Cream" is sensational.

So, despite that caveat, this is, again, a wonderful album, a must for Cook fans, especially for the gorgeous renditions of songs I'd never thought I'd get to hear her perform: "Not a Day Goes By", "Happiness/Loving You", "San Francisco", etc. Buy it!