Cast recording
A cast recording is a recording of a musical
that is intended to document the songs as
they were performed in the show and experi-
enced by the audience. An original cast re-
cording, as the name implies, features the
voices of the show’s original cast. A cast re-
cording featuring the first cast to perform a
musical in a particular venue is known, for
example, as an "original Broadway cast re-
cording"
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.
History
The British were the first to make cast re-
cordings, 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 record-
ing 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 record-
ings 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 mem-
ber of the cast, this was certainly not an
original cast recording not merely because
the arrangements and prese