Sondheim Sings, Vol. II

The track listing for the next volume of Sondheim Sings has been announced. More information at Playbill.com .

These volumes consist of selections from Sondheim’s private collection of home recordings he made of his own songs over the years. Volume I , which was released earlier this year, consists of recordings made between 1962 and 1972, so there is a lot of familiar material on it.

Volume II is comprised of much earlier work, including a Christmas greeting for Oscar Hammerstein from 1943 when Sondheim was 13 years old. Many of the tracks are from his student works of the ’40′s and early ’50′s that pre-date Saturday Night and West Side Story. Being a crazed Sondheim lunatic myself, I had an opportunity a few years ago to hear Track 9, “A Star Is Born”, which he wrote in 1954 for some friends when they had a baby. The lyrics are dizzying, and you can’t believe anyone could come up with this stuff, let alone a 24-year-old.

It can be ordered in advance from Amazon.com.

Related Posts

• Sondheim at Herbst Theater
• Sondheim’s Favorite: “Someone in a Tree”
• Sweeney Fatigue
• Revisiting the Trunk: “You Must Learn”
• Back to the Trunk: “Welcome Home”