| And some of those changes were decided upon by Sondheim, who was in charge with Lieberson (who also had a hand, of course, in some of the changes), as Bernstein left for Israel two days after the Broadway opening (and one day before the recording session) to conduct at the opening of the new concert hall for the Israel Philharmonic. Among other things (you may already know about these specific changes made during the session) were the cuts and adjustments that had to be made to "Tonight" because whoever was in charge of estimating the timings of each number had made a very wrong estimate of how long it was (2:40 as opposed to 5:10), and also Lieberson's insistence that the final chorus of "Krupke" be performed "very slow with a heavy vaudeville beat," which Sondheim liked and he thought that Bernstein would also like, although he also thought that "Jerry must have had conniptions." A rare case of something being slower rather than faster on a Lieberson cast recording. In case anyone is wondering, we know about these things from a letter Sondheim wrote to Bernstein a few weeks after the session (while Bernstein was still away). |
