VIA PRESS RELEASE | Craft Recordings is excited to announce a special, 60th anniversary reissue of The Sound of Music—Original Broadway Cast Recording.
Featuring legendary stage actress Mary Martin as Maria von Trapp opposite renowned actor Theodore Bikel, the album includes such unforgettable classics as “My Favorite Things,” “Edelweiss,” “Do-Re-Mi,” “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” and, of course, “The Sound of Music.” Set for a December 6th release date, the soundtrack has been deftly remastered from the original three-track tape by Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound and will be available on CD or 180-gram vinyl. The CD edition features new liner notes by The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization’s Ted Chapin, while the two-LP vinyl set—pressed at RTI—comes housed in a replica of the original album’s gatefold jacket. The remastered album will also be available digitally, including hi-res (192/24).
One of the most enduring and consistently successful musicals of all time, The Sound of Music was based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp: a young Austrian postulant who became the governess—and later stepmother—to the seven children of a widowed naval commander, all while the country was falling under Nazi occupation. Maria and the children—better known as the Trapp Family Singers—began performing regularly as a choir group in Austria and around Europe. At the onset of World War II, the family fled to America, where they would become a popular touring act throughout the next two decades.
The stage show was the brainchild of Vincent J. Donohue, who felt that a play about the Von Trapp family would not only be compelling but also a great vehicle for Mary Martin—who was one of the biggest stars on Broadway at the time. Soon a team was assembled, including producer Leland Hayward, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writing team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, and Donohue as director. But interestingly, the production—known best for its songs—was not initially conceived of as a musical.
In his liner notes, Ted Chapin reveals that “Lindsay and Crouse knew that music would be part of the show. But would the Broadway audience of the late 1950s be all that interested in Austrian folk songs and madrigals? Maybe a few new songs might help and give their star something to hold on to. Someone thought of [Richard] Rodgers & [Oscar] Hammerstein, who were still considered the ongoing and active kings of the Broadway musical. They were attracted to it, but said they felt it would be better suited to be a full-on musical rather than a play with songs. That must have come as very good news indeed to Martin, Halliday, Lindsay and Crouse, because they agreed quickly.” With that, the team set to work on what would become The Sound of Music.
The show opened in November of 1959 at New York’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre to great fanfare. It would go on to run for an awe-inspiring 1,443 performances—becoming the fourth longest-running musical on Broadway at the time—and would score five Tony Awards, including Best Musical. The cast recording, originally released on Columbia Masterworks, marked the label’s first use of a deluxe gatefold jacket. The upgrade paid off, as the album spent 16 weeks at the No. 1 spot on Billboard. In 1965, the play was adapted into an Academy Award–winning film, starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer—taking the popularity of the show’s music to even greater heights.
Sixty years later, The Sound of Music—and particularly its songbook—remains an evergreen favorite in popular culture. Music from the film has continued to resonate with new generations of artists—particularly the track “My Favorite Things.” In 1961, John Coltrane famously recorded his own version of the tune, which became a major hit for the saxophonist and helped catapult him into mainstream popularity. Over the years, a wide variety of artists—from hip-hop duo OutKast to country star Lorrie Morgan to the hugely-popular Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass—would also find chart success with their renditions. Earlier this year “My Favorite Things” was back on the charts in the form of Ariana Grande’s “7 Rings”—a reworking of the iconic song. The track debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed there for eight weeks.
Sadly, The Sound of Music would be Rodgers & Hammerstein’s final collaboration, as Oscar Hammerstein II would succumb to cancer just months after the show’s premiere. Of all of their great works, however, the score from this particular musical has, perhaps, the most staying power. “For seasoned men, who were in their ’60s, to write songs that are so fresh and so often youthful, with clarity of purpose, is pretty astonishing,” observes Chapin. “It just shows how Rodgers & Hammerstein managed to write material that is both completely appropriate to the show and able to stand on its own—well, that’s pretty much what every author of a musical hopes for and wants.”
VINYL TRACK LISTING:
A1. Preludium (Nuns)
A2. The Sound of Music (Mary Martin)
A3. Maria (Elizabeth Howell, Karen Shepard, Muriel O’Malley, Patricia Neway)
A4. My Favorite Things (Mary Martin, Patricia Neway)
A5. Do-Re-Mi (Mary Martin, Children)
B1. Sixteen Going on Seventeen (Brian Davies, Lauri Peters)
B2. The Lonely Goatherd (Mary Martin, Children)
B3. How Can Love Survive? (Kurt Kasznar, Marion Marlowe)
B4. The Sound of Music (reprise) (Mary Martin, Children, Theodore Bikel)
C1. Laendler (Orchestra)
C2. So Long, Farewell (Children)
C3. Climb Ev’ry Mountain (Patricia Neway)
C4. No Way To Stop It (Marion Marlowe, Kurt Kasznar, Theodore Bikel)
D1. An Ordinary Couple (Mary Martin, Theodore Bikel)
D2. Processional (Ensemble)
D3. Sixteen Going on Seventeen (Reprise) (Mary Martin, Lauri Peters)
D4. Edelweiss (Mary Martin, Theodore Bikel, Children)
D5. Climb Ev’ry Mountain (Reprise) (Patricia Neway, Company)
