Review

The Sound of Music is perhaps the most loved and most maligned of the Rodgers and Hammerstein hits. Loved because of its familiarity through the phenomenally successful film version... and maligned for pretty much the same reason ("familiarity breeds contempt"). I imagine that most people who are taking the trouble to read this are fans of the score, but if there is anyone who thinks this is a show to be dismissed, I challenge that person to take a real hard listen to the original cast album. I think he or she would be surprised at just how sophisticated the score really is (and I'm not just referring to the songs for Max and Elsa which were cut for the film... though they are an important part of the whole).

Robert Russell Bennett's orchestrations give this album an almost classical sound (never inappropriately so); and Mary Martin turns what could have been a liability (the fact that she was technically too old--by about 20 years--to play Maria) into an advantage by using her maturity to impart the authority necessary to overcome the Captain's initial coldness and the children's mischievousness (without losing her gamine quality which conveys the necessary sense of youth).

Special mention should be made of Patricia Neway whose "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" is not only definitive but blows away years of accumulated kitsch that has attached itself to the song through overexposure from lesser versions.

Finally, one cannot say enough good things about the technical expertise that record producer Goddard Lieberson brought to this album. Regardless of what one thinks of The Sound of Music, the original cast album is one of the great recordings of its era.