Introduction

The period usually referred to as the Golden Age of the Broadway musical encompasses at least the 1940s and 1950s; for some writers it goes back to the premiere of Show Boat in 1927 and perhaps forward to Fiddler on the Roof in 1964. Whatever the terminal dates, surely most commentators would agree that it reached a particular peak from 1943 with the first Broadway collaboration of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, the record-breaking ...

“You Never Seen a Show Like This Before!”

The advent of the compact disc provided another major sea change in the world of Broadway cast albums. Commercially accepted by the mid-1980s, the CD allowed for the recording of a full score of 70 minutes or more. At the same, cast albums became increasingly prohibitive to record and market; many shows opened on Broadway without a recording deal already signed and sealed—something unthinkable in the previous three decades. Still, the compact disc allowed for the reissue of many out-of-print scores, as well as minor pieces by major artists that flew underneath the radar. It also allowed for experimentation of larger, fuller scores, such as EMI’s three-disc archival version of Show Boat, conducted by John McGlinn. The archival opportunities offered by the compact disc were manifold, but the increased duration of the recordings often flew in the face of tradition, taste, and common sense.