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List Price: $8.99 | | Label: Sony
Salesrank: 11554
Released: May 13, 2003 |
| Our Price: $7.95 |
| Used Price: $5.00 |
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| Media: Audio CD |
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Anyone Can Whistle (1964 Original Broadway Cast) Track Listing:
1. Prelude
2. Me and My Town - Angela Lansbury
3. Miracle Song - Angela Lansbury
4. There Won't Be Trumpets - Lee Remick
5. Simple - Angela Lansbury
6. Come Play Wiz Me - Lee Remick & Harry Guardino
7. Anyone Can Whistle - Lee Remick
8. A Parade in Town - Angela Lansbury & ensemble
9. Everybody Says Don't - Harry Guardino
10. I've Got You To Lean On - Angela Lansbury
11. See What It Gets You - Lee Remick
12. The Cookie Chase
13. With So Little to Be Sure Of - Lee Remick & Harry Guardino
14. I'm Like the Bluebird (bonus) - Stephen Sondheim, piano & vocals (previously unreleased demo)
15. The Lame, the Halt, and the Blind (bonus) - Stephen Sondheim, piano & vocals (previously unreleased demo)
16. Come Play Wiz Me (bonus) - Stephen Sondheim, piano & vocals (previously unreleased demo)
17. Anyone Can Whistle (bonus) - Stephen Sondheim, piano & vocals (previously unreleased demo)
18. With So Little to Be Sure Of (bonus) - Stephen Sondheim, piano & vocals (previously unreleased demo)
Editorial Review:
Give credit (and thanks) to Goddard Lieberson and Columbia Records for preserving the original cast recording of Anyone Can Whistle despite a blink-and-you-missed-it run of nine performances in 1964. That's often blamed on the challenging and confusing book, which features a Mayoress (Angela Lansbury) whose town is economically depressed until the fortuitous arrival of an apparent miracle. Unfortunately, the resulting influx of tourists clashes with 49 patients (known as "cookies") from a local mental hospital led by nurse Fay Apple (Lee Remick) when a traveling physician named Hapgood (Harry Guardino) arrives to sort things out. The score is fascinating early Stephen Sondheim and includes numerous songs that have become staples of Sondheim song collections: "There Won't Be Trumpets," the gentle title tune, "A Parade in Town," "Everybody Says Don't," and "With So Little to Be Sure Of." Almost exactly 31 years later, Anyone Can Whistle was recorded as a gala benefit concert, with 20 additional minutes of music and dialogue, an all-star cast including Lansbury and Bernadette Peters, and the excitement of a live performance. For heart, though, it still doesn't measure up to the original cast recording. --David Horiuchi
Anyone Can Whistle (1964 Original Broadway Cast) Reviews:
Anyone Can Whistle 
2009-03-11 - Several tracks on the CD will not play. Quality of sound is good on those tracks which do play, but the title song is the reason I bought the CD, and it does not play. Overall, very disappointed.
Anyone Can Whistle 
2009-02-09 - Sondheim is an "acquired" taste. I really like some of his works and really dislike some. This CD falls in the really "dislike". I purchased it to listen to a particular song that my friend wants to have played at her funeral. The album is a "downer" and too dreary for me!!!
Anyone Can Whistle CD by Chris G.
2008-05-31 - A terrific show. An excellent CD. Most of the songs are better than anything on Broadway today. It is a shame that it is the paying public that decides what will be a hit or a failure. Alot of the shows that the public makes hits are really bad just like TV shows.
A superb remastering
2008-04-12 - The previous reviews have said pretty much all there is to be said about Anyone Can Whistle, its history, the performers etc. By now all musical theater enthusiasts will know about this show and know whether they like it or not. The musical itself is kind of difficult, certainly a bit snarley (not a surprise with Sondheim), certainly dark and frankly a bit convoluted. The score however is a gem and the performances by the OBC are legendary.
What I want to comment on is Columbia's remastering of the original material. The sound quality is phenominal, much brighter and clearer than the LP and first CD issues. The first CD issue added the cut "There won't be Trumpets" and it is still here. This go around they have restored all the missing snippets of the Cookie Ballet, which by my count consist of one variation and about 40-50 miscellaneous measures. There are still a few missing bits which you can find on the concert recording with Bernadette Peters and Madelyn Kahn. Then there are the 6 Sondheim tracks. There is a reason that he cut some of these numbers and changed others before production, because his later thoughts on them were better, but still they are interesting to hear once or twice. The sonic fidelity needs again to be mentioned. I heard things on the CD that I never heard on the LP or the one time I listened to the first CD issue. A first rate transfer. THANK YOU COLUMBIA FOR YOUR OUTSTANDING JOB.
Gets Better and Better with repeated listenings 
2007-10-30 - The first time I played this soundtrack, I found the lyrical content and subject matter off-putting, and the performances (save for the always great Angela Lansbury) to be servicable at best. Being a Sondheim fan however, I gave this sountrack a second chance. And then a third and fourth...tenth and many more to come. Anyone Can Whistle is now one of my favorites. It is very edgy. And very sharp around those edges. The music often reminds me of Prokofiev and a little even of Shostokovich. Repeated listenings helped me to see how the musical ideas develop. There are some beautiful moments of music that are a bit hidden by the lyrics being sung. And when I realized that the story was about just how insane and bad the Characters in this musical were, rather than indictment of society in general, I was able to digest the lyrics more easily. The extra tracks of Sondheim singing at the piano also do a great service to better understanding the score from the original soundtrack. Perhaps if Anyone Can Whistle had been better cast, it would have run longer. But again, if you are Sondheim fan, this is a must for your collection.
