Cast recording
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A cast recording is a recording of a musical that is intended to document the songs as they were performed in the show and experienced by the audience. An original cast recording, as the name implies, features the voices of the show's original cast. A cast recording featuring the first cast to perform a musical in a particular venue is known, for example, as an "original Broadway cast recording" or an "original London cast recording".
Cast recordings are (almost always) studio recordings rather than live recordings. The recorded song lyrics and orchestrations are identical (or very similar to) those of the songs as performed in the theatre. Like any studio performance, the recording is of course an idealized rendering, more glossily perfect than any live performance could be, and without audible audience reaction. Nevertheless, the listener who has attended the live show expects it to be an accurate souvenir of the experience.
The British were the first to make cast recordings, and they were also the first to make original London cast recordings of shows that had already opened on Broadway, but had not been recorded with their original Broadway cast. This led to the odd situation of having, for example, a 1928 recording of the London cast of Show Boat, but no recording with the actual 1927 Broadway cast, and a recording of the London cast of Sigmund Romberg's The Desert Song, but not of the 1926 Broadway cast - even though both of these shows are Broadway musicals, rather than British ones.
Prior to the development of original cast recordings, there had of course been recordings of songs from musicals, and collections of several such songs, and recordings of songs performed by cast members; but they were recordings of songs, not recordings of a musical. For example, Danny Kaye made a set of recordings of songs from Lady in the Dark. Even though Danny Kaye was a member of the cast, this was certainly not an original cast recording—not merely because the arrangements and presentation were different, but because in this recording, Danny Kaye performed Gertrude Lawrence's songs!
The first American original cast recording as we know it was probably Decca's 1943 recording of Oklahoma!. Earlier candidates exist, such as Marc Blitzstein's 1938 recordings of songs from The Cradle Will Rock The Decca album, however, was a huge commercial success and was systematically followed up by further recordings from Decca, and, soon, all the other record companies. Cast recordings were particularly well suited for the then-new Columbia Records LP and in the early 1950s Columbia, guided by Goddard Lieberson, ascended to leadership and Columbia's cast recordings came to define the genre. Columbia produced the original cast recordings of such shows as Kiss Me, Kate, South Pacific (musical), My Fair Lady, West Side Story, Gypsy: A Musical Fable, and Camelot (musical), as well as the Soundtrack albums of the film versions of My Fair Lady and West Side Story.
A 1970 documentary by D. A. Pennebaker, Original Cast Album—Company gives a straightforward view of the making of a cast recording. It shows how the recording studio looks, how performers are arranged, and how the director behaves. The cast feels the pressure of delivering a definitive performance, with a degree of perfection beyond that ever required on stage, under a time limit imposed by the high cost of studio time.
Vinyl LP cast recordings were usually released as single discs, and it was not rare for compromises to be made to fit the recording within the forty-to-fifty-minute time limit. For example, obscure songs might be not be included. In the 1980s, the rise of the Compact disc with its 74-minute recording capacity (which was increased to 80 minutes in the 1990s) resulted in improvements in cast recordings, which were now usually capable of including all songs, the full overture and entracte, and, when appropriate, lead-in dialogue to the songs.
In recent years, some cast recordings have been recorded live, but maintaining perfect quality. This is due to theaters that contain recording studios within. The Woman in White for example, was recorded live at the Palace Theatre on opening night, and subsequently edited to remove audience noises. However one number, sung by Michael Crawford, was met with such audible laughter and applause that it had to be re-recorded anyway.
