The soundtrack of the film The Sound of Music was released in 1965 by RCA Victor and is one of the most successful soundtrack albums in history, having sold more than 20 million copies worldwide. The label has also issued the soundtrack in German, Italian, Spanish and French editions.
The soundtrack reached the number one position on the Billboard 200 that year in the United States, remained in the top ten for a record 109 weeks, from May 1, 1965 to July 16, 1967, and remained on the Billboard 200 chart for 238 weeks. In 2015, Billboard named the original soundtrack album the second-best charting album of all time. It was the best-selling album in the United Kingdom in 1965, 1966 and 1968 and the second-best-selling of the decade, spending a total of 70 weeks at number one on the UK Albums Chart. The album also stayed for 73 weeks on the Norwegian charts, and as of December 2017 it is the tenth-best-charting album of all time in that country.
The album has been reissued several times, including anniversary editions in 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015. These CD editions incorporate musical material from the film that would not fit on the original LP, with the 2015 release presenting the songs and score in their entirety.
Three songs from the original Broadway production, "An Ordinary Couple", "How Can Love Survive?", and "No Way to Stop It" were replaced, in the film, with two new songs, "I Have Confidence" and "Something Good". For the original Broadway show, the music was written by Richard Rodgers with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II; both the lyrics and music for the new songs were written by Rodgers, as Hammerstein died in 1960. All songs were arranged and conducted for the soundtrack by Irwin Kostal.
In 2018, it was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or artistically significant."
Reception
The Sound of Music soundtrack sold 500,000 copies in its first two weeks in the United States. Elsewhere, the album achieved large sales in the UK, Japan, Canada and Australia, becoming one of the best selling records of the 1960s. It became the first album to sell over 10,000 units in Finland. The record peaked at number one in Australia, the UK and the US.
Track list
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Decade-end charts
Certifications and sales
References
Sources
Hischak, Thomas. The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia (2007). Greenwood Publishing Group.