So did the two new songs penned by Rodgers for the film version, the ebullient "I Have Confidence" and the romantic "Something Good." The original RCA Victor album, produced by Neely Plumb, has never been out-of-print since 1965, a testament to the songs, of course, but also to musical director Irwin Kostal's deft treatment of them. Though Rodgers and Hammerstein's instantly affecting score (the duo's last, as Hammerstein died in August 1960) was altered for director Robert Wise's film version, their songs such as "The Sound of Music," "My Favorite Things," "Do-Re-Mi," "Sixteen Going on Seventeen," and Hammerstein's final lyric "Edelweiss" all ingrained themselves in the American pop culture consciousness. The love for The Sound of Music was nothing new the cast album of the Broadway production, on Columbia Records, spent an even more whopping 276 weeks on the Billboard chart. It won five Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director (for Robert Wise), remained in theatres for over four years(!), and broke records in 29 countries. Billboard chart, becoming one of the biggest-selling albums in history (perhaps the biggest, the label claimed, despite the lack of "certified" sales in today's parlance) even as the film became the highest-grossing movie of its day. RCA's investments paid off the album spent a staggering 233 weeks on the U.S. The release was joined on the label's roster by other albums of the already-famous Rodgers and Hammerstein score in styles from jazz (Gary Burton's The Groovy Sound of Music) to "easy listening" (The Living Strings' Music from The Sound of Music). The label backed the release with a $100,000.00 promotional campaign and arranged for tie-ins at locales including the New York World's Fair. RCA Victor expected its soundtrack album to The Sound of Music to be a juggernaut. It proved a fitting conclusion to the groundbreaking collaboration of Rodgers and Hammerstein which had begun in 1943 with Oklahoma! and continued with such cherished musicals as Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and television's Cinderella. Indeed, Maria Von Trapp's uplifting story captivated audiences and critics alike. Someone thought of Rodgers and Hammerstein, who were still considered the on-going 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. 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. Lindsay and Crouse knew that music would be part of the show. Historian and Rodgers & Hammerstein champion Ted Chapin wrote in his liner notes for Craft's 2019 reissue of the cast album: He initially enlisted writers Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse and producers Leland Hayward and Richard Halliday (Mary Martin's husband) to bring it to life as a vehicle for Martin. The musical, based on the life of Maria Von Trapp, had been the concept of director Vincent J. On December 1, a Super Deluxe Edition arrives as a 4CD/Blu-ray box set and 2CD/3LP as a perfect gift to place the under the Christmas tree. While the original soundtrack to the big-screen phenomenon has been issued and reissued numerous times over the years, even the most deluxe of those reissues pales in comparison to the upcoming title just announced by Craft Recordings (an imprint of Concord and a sister company to the Rodgers and Hammerstein office). But one Sound of Music looms large above all the others: 1965's film version starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. It's spun off revivals in both New York and London, countless tours, regional productions, and local stagings, and well over 100 recordings in various languages. The production starring Mary Martin and Theodore Bikel was described by The New York Times' Brooks Atkinson as a "bountiful musical drama" with an "endless fund of cheerful melodies." It won five Tony Awards (besting stiff competition from Arthur Laurents, Jule Styne, and Stephen Sondheim's Gypsy) and ran for 1,443 performances on Broadway and spun off a West End production that ran even longer, with 2,385 shows. By any standard, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Howard Lindsay, and Russel Crouse's The Sound of Music was a bona fide success from the moment the curtain rose at Broadway's Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on November 16, 1959.
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