Customer Rating:  
Summary: Fun and easy to follow for a beginner to intermediate
Comment: This was a gift for an 11 yr old girl who loves her keyboard. It is her favorite at this time.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent Piano Music
Comment: For a bit of background, I've played piano for over 10 years and have over 15 Broadway musical piano/vocal sheet music books.
This Sweeney Todd delivers on all counts. The music is not for a beginner, for sure, but would be appropriate for intermediate to difficult players. The piano part is not shortchanged to get vocals, as it so often is; the vocal part is full of the beautiful rhythms. Another nice touch is that the monologue into the songs are included at the top of the music-I've never seen that before.
However, there is one problem. To get the movie down, some of the middles of songs have been cut. One noticeable cut, which happens to be my favorite song, is "Kiss Me" (performed by Johanna and Antony, and then Todd in the 2nd). If your only exposure has been the movie, though, you will find it exactly as seen.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Worth every penny
Comment: When I saw Sweeney Todd, I tried to find sheet music for it. I was able to find both the original "Vocal Selections" book (the one with the white cover and drawing) and the full score/piano reduction version at local libraries. I was sadly disappointed by both. The original Vocal Selections book has stripped down versions of the songs that were probably rushed out to cash in on the success of the musical. "Epiphany", the song I was most interested in, is notably missing. And some of the music sounds disappointing and flat to me in its original keys (e.g., F minor in "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd").
The full score, aside from being extremely bulky, has a lot of extraneous music designed to stretch out the length of the original. Quite a bit of it is little more than filler. I tried playing the Final Scene as it was in the movie, but in the score it is dragged out and broken up by filler material. And the accompaniment seems a little thin in places, as the musical was written for a small Broadway pit orchestra.
The new book (Sweeney Todd: Movie Selections) is exactly what I was looking for: All the major songs from the film; in their entirety (including interspersed dialogue, intros and outros); in the exact same keys as in the film; and with a full, lush piano accompaniment reduced from the newly enlarged orchestral score. The only minor drawback is that, while the cover says "Piano - Vocal - Chords", I can't find any chords printed in my copy. Seeing as I'm playing it on a piano (and not a guitar), this isn't a problem for me.
The book contains the following songs:
- No Place Like London
- The Worst Pies in London
- Poor Thing
- My Friends
- Green Finch and Linnet Bird
- Johanna (Anthony)
- Pirelli's Miracle Elixir
- The Contest
- Wait
- Pretty Women
- Epiphany
- A Little Priest
- Johanna (Anthony, Todd, Beggar Woman)
- God, That's Good!
- By The Sea
- Not While I'm Around
I would have liked to see the Final Scene in the book as well, but as it stands it's great the way it is. If your first exposure to "Sweeney Todd" was the movie, and you don't have any attachment to the original musical, this is the sheet music book to get.
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