Despite a long history of pop and musical-theater success in England,
Sarah Brightman was not well known in the U.S. until her 1997 album
Time to Say Goodbye became a triumph, topping the Billboard classical crossover chart for most of 1998. Really Useful Records, her former husband
Andrew Lloyd Webber's label, took advantage of her sudden popularity to release this compilation of recordings of
Lloyd Webber songs she'd made between 1985 and 1995, and since she had served as a real muse to the composer, many of his most popular songs were included. Several of them -- "Pie Jesu," "All I Ask of You," "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again," and "Amigos Para Siempre (Friends for Life)" -- had been chart hits for
Brightman in the U.K. So had "The Phantom of the Opera," the title song of a musical
Lloyd Webber had written for her and in which she had starred, albeit in a different recording from the one included here, which was the Original London Cast version featuring her co-star,
Michael Crawford. Also included were the most memorable songs from such
Lloyd Webber shows as Evita ("Don't Cry for Me Argentina"), Song & Dance ("Unexpected Song," "Tell Me on a Sunday"), Aspects of Love ("Love Changes Everything"), and Cats ("Memory," "Gus: The Theatre Cat," "Macavity: The Mystery Cat"). Even the songs that had not been tailored specifically for
Brightman had been written for her kind of voice, a full-bodied, dramatic soprano, and she sang with a thorough understanding of the composer's intentions. The result was an excellent primer for anyone who had first encountered
Brightman with "Time to Say Goodbye" and was wondering where she came from. ~ William Ruhlmann