Abstract
To date, no one has published the full score of an American Broadway musical and offered it for sale.1 Traditionally, publishers have printed only popular, simplified arrangements of songs in sheet music format and/or a piano-vocal score which might, or might not, have been approved by the composer before publication. A handful of American scholars are now committed to preserving the most important of these works in schol arly editions, for collectively they represent one of America's unique and ubiquitous contributions to 20th-century music. For the most part, my comments pertain to those musical theater works created for the com mercial, Broadway theater between 1935 and 1970, but certain aspects will be relevant to works dating backward to those of Victor Herbert and forward to the present day. Because time is limited, I will exclude from the discussion all issues not directly related to source studies and editor ial decisions, such as copyright obstacles, questions relating to selection criteria, and the justifications for undertaking such editions in the first place. Two efforts to grapple with the editorial problems inherent in this venture are now in the formative stages. The American Musicological Society is considering including a number of ?Broadway musicals? in its projected ?Music in the United States? (MUSA) series. The steering committee for the series has thus far made only an informal analysis of
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