The Sound of Music - Cast Recordings

Cast Recordings

Columbia Masterworks recorded the original Broadway cast album a week after the show's 1959 opening. The album was the label's first deluxe package in a gatefold jacket, priced $1 higher than previous cast albums. It was #1 on Billboard's best-selling albums chart for 16 weeks in 1960. It is currently available on CD from Sony in the Columbia Broadway Masterworks series.

The 1960 London production was recorded by EMI and has been issued on CD on the Broadway Angel Label.

The 1965 film soundtrack was released by RCA Victor and is one of the most successful soundtrack albums in history, having sold over 10 million copies worldwide. Recent CD editions incorporate musical material from the film that would not fit on the original LP. The label has also issued the soundtrack in German, Italian, Spanish and French editions.

RCA Victor also released an album of the 1998 Broadway revival produced by Hallmark Entertainment and featuring the full revival cast, including Rebecca Luker, Michael Siberry, Jan Maxwell and Fred Applegate.

The Telarc label made a studio cast recording of The Sound of Music, with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra conducted by Erich Kunzel (1987). The lead roles went to opera stars: Frederica von Stade as Maria, Håkan Hagegård as Captain von Trapp, and Eileen Farrell as the Mother Abbess. The recording "includes both the two new songs written for the film version and the three Broadway songs they replace, as well as a previously unrecorded verse of "An Ordinary Couple"".

The 2006 London revival was recorded and has been released on the Decca Broadway label.

The 2009 Brazilian production, translated into Portuguese, was recorded by the cast in 2008 and released by Sony BMG. Special care was taken by Claudio Botelho to reflect the spirit of the original English within the Portuguese version. This was challenging in songs such as "Do-Re-Mi" which employ puns throughout.

There have been numerous studio cast albums and foreign cast albums issued, though many have only received regional distribution. According to the cast album database, there are 62 recordings of the score that have been issued over the years.