Some of you may remember me talking about going to see Twelfth Night in Central Park this summer, featuring Anne Hathaway, Audra McDonald, and Raul Esparza, and that I was over the moon to find out that the wonderful music provided by local band Hem (with vocals by the actors) was going to be made available.
Well, the copy that I ordered MONTHS ago (there was a delay in the release) arrived this past weekend and I was able to pick it up yesterday. It is WONDERFUL. Most of the vocals are done by David Pittu, who, playing Feste the Clown, does most of the singing in the play, with the other actors joining him in harmony. The instrumental pieces are all lovely, and conjure a quite vivid memory of the verdurous stage setting and the distinct feeling I got of how much fun this play must have been for its players to perform.
Standout tracks are "Full Phathom Five" (sung by Hathaway and McDonald), "Come Away Death" (Pittu, Esparza, and Hathaway) the joyous finale "The Wind and the Rain" (sung by all the principals).
The weak spot, bizarrely, is Raul Esparza's song "Where is Fancy Bred," which is an extra song that wasn't performed in the play and which is over-instrumentalized and out of place (not to mention, frankly, oversung by Esparza), which is disappointing.
On the whole, though, this is an amazing soundtrack and something that will be in heavy rotation in my CD player and iPod. It's quite short, actually - 28 tracks in 33 minutes - but it manages not to feel choppy, despite many of the tracks being less than a minute long.
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Current Music: "The Wind and the Rain" - Twelfth Night