Music composed by Jerry Bock.
Principal cast includes: Topol (Tevye); Miriam Karlin (Golde).
Producer: Norman Newell.
Compilation producer: Thomas Z. Shepard.
Engineers include: Charles Harbutt.
Recorded in London, England in Feburary 1967. Includes liner notes by Didier C. Deutsch.
All tracks have been digitally remastered.
Music composed by Jerry Bock. Lyrics written by Sheldon Harnick.
Music adapted and conducted by John Williams, solo violin played by Issac Stern.
Principal cast includes: Topol (Tevye); Normae Crane (Golde); Tzeitel (Rosalind Harris); Paul Michael Glaser (Perchik); Michele Marsh (Hodel);
Molly Picon (Yente); Issac Stern (Fiddler On The Roof).
Compilation producers: Gregg Ogorzelec, Cheryl Pawelski.
Includes liner notes by Didier C. Deutsch.
Digitally remastered by Ron McMaster.
Long-running Broadway musicals owe much of their continuing success to the replacements who people their casts as the original stars move on, but these performers generally go unacknowledged -- not eligible for awards, passed up for cast recordings. Fiddler on the Roof, which went on to become the longest running musical in history up until then, after opening on September 22, 1964, enjoyed several excellent actor-singers in the starring role of the turn-of-the-century Russian-Jewish dairyman Tevye, starting, of course, with Zero Mostel. In November 1965, the part was taken over by Herschel Bernardi, a 42-year-old veteran who had considerable experience with stage works that, like Fiddler on the Roof, were based on the writings of Sholom Aleichem. Bernardi's portrayal was so strong that it earned him a Columbia Records contract and this recording, on which he sings songs from the show. But that's not all. Joseph Stein, the show's librettist, has written a narration that simultaneously gives the songs context and liberates them from the storyline of the musical. Bernardi has a rich, resonant baritone that allows him to inhabit the songs fully, but he stops short of actually playing Tevye. With new, pop-oriented orchestrations by Peter Matz, this is a vocal album, not a cast recording, but it offers an illuminating gloss on the show. Bernardi even sings two songs from the score not heard on Broadway. The amusing, if irreverent "When Messiah Comes" was cut for time during tryouts, and "Fiddler on the Roof," based, like "Tradition," on the familiar "Fiddler's Theme," was written as a promotional pop song and even became a minor hit for the Village Stompers. This album was also a minor hit, entering the charts in the fall of 1966 and reaching the Top 100 in some rankings. It deserves to be better known. ~ William Ruhlmann
Fiddler on the Roof first opened in 1964 in New York. The story of a Jewish milkman who lives in Russia with his family (including three daughters), the original Broadway cast starred Zero Mostel as the milkman. Anti-Semitic notions abound as Tevye and his family find themselves being forced from their village. Tevye's daughters break from their village's "tradition" as they marry for love, not for prosperity. Throughout all of this, a symbolic fiddler lingers over them. Fiddler on the Roof was a notable success, with the original Broadway cast running for over 3,000 performances. It was also the origin of several famous and now-standard songs, such as "Sunrise, Sunset," "Matchmaker, Matchmaker," "Tradition," and "If I Were a Rich Man." The music is beautiful, and haunting at moments. This highlights recording has all of the major hits. ~ Sarah Erlewine
Originally released as a double-LP set and now on one CD, the gold-selling soundtrack album for the screen adaptation of the long-running Broadway musical Fiddler On The Roof, which became the top-grossing film of 1971, stretched out Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick's song score with musical adaptations by conductor John Williams. There was plenty of screen dialogue, too. But the appeal of the work continued to be the wonderful songs, "Tradition," "Matchmaker," If I Were A Rich Man," "To Life," "Sunrise, Sunset," and "Do You Love Me." Topol, who repeated his starring performance as Tevye from the London stage version, wasn't as funny as Zero Mostel, who created the part on Broadway, but gave it more gravity. Occasionally on the soundtrack, he sounded so tired, though, that he barely got his lines out. Happily, he nailed "If I Were A Rich Man," which is Tevye's real showcase number. Still, the Fiddler album to buy is the original Broadway cast recording. (The original cassette version of the album contained two extra tracks and deleted some dialogue.) ~ William Ruhlmann
Fiddler on the Roof first opened in 1964 in New York. The story of a Jewish milkman who lives in Russia with his family (including three daughters), the original Broadway cast starred Zero Mostel as the milkman. Anti-Semetic notions abound as Tevye and his family find themselves being forced from their village. Tevye's daughters break from their village's "tradition" as they marry for love, not for prosperity. Throughout all of this, a symbolic fiddler lingers over them. Fiddler on the Roof was a notable success, with the original Broadway cast running for over 3,000 performances. It was also the origin of several famous and now-standard songs, such as "Sunrise, Sunset," "Matchmaker," "Tradition" and "If I Were a Rich Man." The music is beautiful, and haunting at moments. This is the original London cast recording and features Israeli actor/singer Topol in the starring role of Tevye. Topol has since gone on to play the part on film and in a Broadway revival, which means his version is by now more familiar than that of the role's originator, Mostel. Topol's Tevye is notably less comic than Mostel's, but he brings great warmth to his performance, and this, not the film soundtrack, is his definitive rendition. ~ William Ruhlmann and Sarah Erlewine minimize