Encore

by Sarah Brightman

Overview

Ex-husband Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Records can be accused of scraping the bottom of the barrel in its second compilation of old Sarah Brightman tracks released to take advantage of the singer's international popularity due to her albums Time to Say Goodbye, Eden, and La Luna, all recorded for a different company. Happily, even the bottom of the barrel contains some excellent material, even after the cream was skimmed off with The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection. During and after her marriage to Lloyd Webber, Brightman performed on the Original London Cast recording of The Phantom of the Opera and recorded the albums The Songs That Got Away (1989) and Surrender (1995), and that's the material sampled here, that is, the remaining tracks that weren't used on The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection. There are four songs recorded for those album sessions that were not released -- Lloyd Webber's "Whistle Down the Wind," Burton Lane and Alan Jay Lerner's "One More Walk Around the Garden," Stephen Sondheim's "What More Do I Need," and George and Ira Gershwin's "In the Mandarin's Orchid Garden." The last three, fairly obscure songs by well-known show-music songwriters, are typical of the non-Lloyd Webber choices found on The Songs That Got Away and Surrender. Also typical are the Lloyd Webber oddities, such as Italian-language versions of "With One Look" from Sunset Boulevard and "Memory" from Cats. If the mixed bag of material works, it's because of the unflappable Brightman, who doesn't only gamely undertake the selections, but throws herself into them, making "Piano" (as "Memory" somehow comes out in Italian) sound like an opera selection. "What More Do I Need," a comic celebration of love in dirty old New York, is beyond her, but not much else is. ~ William Ruhlmann

Product Details

Release Date:	04/23/2002
Label:	Decca
UPC:	0731458905028
Rank:	141874

Tracks

1. Whistle Down the Wind, musical play~Whistle Down the Wind
2. Away From You [from "Rex"]
3. Sunset Boulevard, musical~Guardami (With One Look) (Italian Version)
4. Phantom of the Opera, musical~Think of me
5. Carmelina, musical~One more walk around the garden
6. Sunset Boulevard, musical~Surrender
7. The Crooked Mile, musical play~If I ever fall in love again
8. By Jeeves, musical play~Half a moment
9. Cats, musical~Piano (Memory - Italian Version)
10. Saturday Night, musical play~What more do I need
11. Aspects of Love [From There is Moore to Love]
12. Song and Dance, musical~The last man in my life
13. East Is West, musical play (unfinished)~In the Mandarin's Orchid Garden
14. Song and Dance, musical~Nothing Like You've Ever Known
15. La Rondine (The Swallow), opera~Chi il bel sogno di doretta

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Sarah Brightman   Primary Artist,Soprano (Vocal)
Steve Barton   Vocals
Andrew Lloyd Webber   Piano
Michael Reed   Conductor,Musical Direction,Conductor,Musical Direction
Harry Rabinowitz   Conductor

Technical Credits

Simon Fowler   Photography
David Cullen   Orchestration
Larry Wilcox   Orchestration
Andrew Lloyd Webber   Composer,Producer,Orchestration,Piano Accompanist
T.S. Eliot   Composer
Burton Lane   Composer
Trevor Nunn   Composer,Lyricist
Simon Rhodes   Engineer
Christopher Hampton   Composer,Lyricist
Alan Jay Lerner   Composer,Lyricist
Don Black   Composer,Lyricist
David Hunt   Engineer
George Gershwin   Composer
Ira Gershwin   Composer,Lyricist
Charles Hart   Composer,Lyricist
Robin Sellars   Engineer
Richard Stilgoe   Composer,Lyricist
Martin Levan   Engineer
Thomas Z. Shepard   Engineer,Recording
Roberto Ferri   Composer
Toby Wood   Assistant Engineer
Stephen Sondheim   Composer,Lyricist
Sheldon Harnick   Composer,Lyricist
Richard Rodgers   Composer
Jim Steinman   Composer,Lyricist
Nigel Wright   Producer
Giacomo Puccini   Composer
David Caddick   Music Supervisor
Dave Hunt   Engineer
Alan Ayckbourn   Composer,Lyricist
Steve Margoshes   Orchestration
Peter Wildeblood   Lyricist
Giuseppe Adami   Composer,Lyricist
Noel Harris   Assistant Engineer
Amy Powers   Composer
Lee McCutcheon   Assistant Engineer
london Dewynters PLC   Design
Peter Greenwell   Composer
Marco Sabiu   Composer,Lyric Translation