Original Broadway Cast Recording - The Sound of Music: 50th Anniversary Edition
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CD Details
Artist: Original Broadway Cast RecordingEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
Format: Cast Recording
CD Release Date: 2009-11-03
Music Label: SONY CLASSICS
Soundtracks:
- The Sound of Music - Original Broadway Cast Recording; Act I: Preludium (Voice)
- The Sound of Music - Original Broadway Cast Recording; The Sound of Music (Voice)
- The Sound of Music - Original Broadway Cast Recording; Maria (Voice)
- The Sound of Music - Original Broadway Cast Recording; My Favorite Things (Voice)
- The Sound of Music - Original Broadway Cast Recording; Do-Re-Mi (Voice)
- The Sound of Music - Original Broadway Cast Recording; Sixteen Going on Seventeen (Voice)
- The Sound of Music - Original Broadway Cast Recording; The Lonely Goatherd (Voice)
- The Sound of Music - Original Broadway Cast Recording; How Can Love Survive? (Voice)
- The Sound of Music - Original Broadway Cast Recording; The Sound of Music (reprise) (Voice)
- The Sound of Music - Original Broadway Cast Recording; Laendler (Voice)
- The Sound of Music - Original Broadway Cast Recording; So Long, Farewell (Voice)
- The Sound of Music - Original Broadway Cast Recording; Climb Ev'ry Mountain (Voice)
- The Sound of Music - Original Broadway Cast Recording; Act II: No Way To Stop It (Voice)
- The Sound of Music - Original Broadway Cast Recording; An Ordinary Couple (Voice)
- The Sound of Music - Original Broadway Cast Recording; Processional (Voice)
- The Sound of Music - Original Broadway Cast Recording; Sixteen Going on Seventeen (reprise) (Voice)
- The Sound of Music - Original Broadway Cast Recording; Edelweiss (Voice)
- The Sound of Music - Original Broadway Cast Recording; Climb Ev'ry Mountain (reprise) (Voice)
- From Switzerland: The Pratt Family
- Edelweiss (In German)
- Sök dig till bergen (Climb every mountain)
Music reviews of The Sound of Music: 50th Anniversary Edition
Music Review: A historically-important Sound of Music recording.
Rating: 4 Stars
Although I respect the importance of the Sound of Music Original Broadway Cast Album, I find it very hard to give full marks to this recording and I sense people would throw brickbats at me for being underwhelmed by it. Yes it presents the score as it was first heard on the Broadway stage, way before the famous film with Dame Julie. Yes I know we must give Mary Martin her due credit for suggesting that R&H should write the show for her, just like giving Gertrude Lawrence her due for suggesting The King and I. However, when I listen to the recording, I wasn't really taken with the musical in its original form, and a good number of the performances on this album.
I give Mary Martin her due credit for being in her element when portraying Maria. Her rendition of the Sound of Music theme song that follows the chanting nuns that open the musical offers a different perspective from the Dame Julie rendition or even the renditions done by younger Marias with higher-pitched voices. She did a good job on Do-Re-Mi and Lonely Goatherd building her rapport with the children, but I felt uncomfortable as it sounded rather unnatural and a little forced. I must also confess that I wasn't exactly comfortable with the voices of the children either, or of Bryan Davies as Rolf. I was OK with Theodore Bikel's Captain, except that I felt as if Edelweiss was a little rushed, supposedly to fit the music onto the LP. Patricia Neway's Mother Abbess and the Elsa/Max numbers were like the saving grace of this recording. Neway really knew how to deliver Climb Ev'ry Mountain in full throttle with her sheer lung-power, especially the final two notes. At the same time, Kurt Kasznar and Marian Marlowe sang the lesser-known Elsa/Max numbers (How Can Love Survive and No Way to Stop It) with caustic wit, relish and biting sarcasm. I think these numbers are perhaps the most successful on the recording, and they help to make the Captain's dilemma's more real.
I know I'm not a keen fan of this recording as some of you are. However, I respect that it presents the first version of the score, before the revisions that the film made to it. It is fascinating to hear Lonely Goatherd during the thunderstorm scene, even though I feel that My Favourite Things is perhaps more effective here than during Maria's meeting with the Mother Abbess. And I also felt uncomfortable with the love-duet, An Ordinary Couple, as it felt rather pedestrian. Even Rodgers admitted to not liking the song, and that's why he took advantage of the film to write Something Good to replace it. (By the same token Rodgers wrote I Have Confidence for the film with a little help from Ernest Lehman and Saul Chaplin, so this recording pre-dates it and doesn't include it.) So while this recording is historically important in the history of the show, I didn't feel fond of the version of the score that it presents here.
This issue of the recording was released for the 50th anniversary of the original Broadway production, and it uses the same CD transfer as on the 1993 Sony Broadway CD and 1998 Columbia Broadway Masterworks reissue. It would have been lovely to have completely remastered the recording with today's technology, but the recording still sounds good in this transfer. Compared to the 50th anniversary issue of Gypsy, it doesn't include any unreleased music, and so one feels a little short-changed. The booklet includes many rare photos from the recording sessions and a Sound of Music essay by Bert Fink of the R&H offices, and I think it would have been lovely to have included an essay specifically about this production and the recording, rather than about the show in general. The bonus tracks are fascinating in themselves, though I admit more could have been included given the extra space at the end of the disc. It's great to have an accessible recording of the Pratt Family parody from Dame Julie's Carnegie Hall special with Carol Burnett, as well as two excerpts from some non-English cast albums. I'm especially taken by the German-translated version of Edelweiss, as I think the Vienna Volksoper cast has given us one of the most heartfelt renderings of the song available in any language. (Maybe this has inspired me to find the Vienna Volksoper CD from which it comes.) The 1998 CD included the Mitch Miller rendition of Do-Re-Mi that was done with the children from the cast, and it would have been nice to include that just to be complete.
I know you won't like me for saying that this Sound of Music CD isn't one of my favourite things. However, as with the other original cast recording of the R&H musicals, I can only venerate it coldly without really admiring it. There are strengths in this version, but yet I would say that I'm not really as taken with it as you are. It is a worthwhile addition to anyone's Sound of Music collection, but I feel fonder of the film soundtrack and also the 1998 Broadway revival cast as capturing more of the Sound of Music spirit, at least for me.
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Description of The Sound of Music: 50th Anniversary Edition
The world's most beloved musical celebrates 50th Anniversary! Almost six years before the film version with Julie Andrews became an international sensation, The Sounds of Music premiered on Broadway on November 14, 1959 - an instant hit, starring musical theater legend Mary Martin, that went on to win 6 Tony Awards®, including Best Musical. The last musical in the incomparable collaboration of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, The Sounds of Music introduced a spectacular array of songs that immediately became standards - "My Favorite Things," "Climb Ev'ry Mountain," "Maria," "Do-Re-Mi," "Edelweiss" and the soaring title song. The definitive original cast recording returns in this commemorative edition with new liner notes, new photos and rare bonus tracks.Broadway & Vocalists CDs
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