Rodgers and Hammerstein, without Hart

Press, 4 November 1978, Page 17

Rodgers and Hammerstein, without Hart

The Sound of Their Music. By Frederick Nolan. Dent. 272 pp. $17.10. Encyclopaedia of the Musical. By Stanley Green. Cassell. 488 pp. $22.25. W. S. Gilbert Stage Director. By William Cox-lfe. Introduction by William Dartington. Dobson. 112 pp. $lO.BO. (Reviewed by A. K. Grant) "The Sound Of Their Music” is ostensibly a history of the collaboration of Richard Rodgers with Oscar Kammerstein. In fact it is much more than that. It deals with Rodgers’s collaboration with Lorenz Hart, and incorporates an engrossing, if potted, history of the Broadway musical stage. It is extensively illustrated, and well, if not spectacularly written. For anybody interested in popular music, and in particular for anybody who thinks (as I do) that songs like “The Lady Is A Tramp” or “My Heart Stood Still” are among the finest works of art iroduced in this century, it is totahv absorbing. One reads about Rodgers, Hart and Hammerstein in the same way that one reads about Tolstoy or Gauguin. Indeed, one’s interest is greater, because Tolstoy and Gauguin were utterly insignificant as songwriters.

And there is a tragic dimension to

the story. The collaboration of Rodgers with Hammerstein resulted in a string of unparalleled successes: “Oklahoma,” “South Pacific” and “The Sound of Music” to name but three. But the collaboration only came about because Rodgers found he could no longer continue his brilliantly successful collaboration with Hart. Both Rodgers and Hammerstein were reliable, methodical men, whereas Hart was not just the most brilliant lyricist of the century, but also an alcoholic homosexual who kept shooting through to Mexico City, or merely to the nearest bar, whenever the boredom or the pressure got to be a bit intense. Hart took Rodgers’s decision to end the collaboration like a gentleman, but be was dead with three years of it. Rodgers did not kill Hart by, breaking up the partnership, but he certainly hastened the process of Hart killing himself.

One must of course sympathise with Rodgers in his difficulties with Hart, and the fabulous success of the collaboration with Hammerstein is a justification of it. But one wonders: did Rodgers sometimes, as he listened to “I Whistle A Happy Tune” or “Edelweiss,” think of the two songs earlier mentioned, “The Lady Is A Tramp” and “My Heart Stood Still,” or of “This Can't Be Love” or “My Funny Valentine,” and wonder whether the collaboration with Hammerstein represented a development or a sealing-off of his powers? The “Encyclopaedia of the Musical” is an admirably comprehensive work of reference. It covers London as well as Broadw r ay, providing ample information about shows, songs, composers and lyricists. However it is not perfect. Somebody told me that one of the most perfect of popular songs, “These Foolish Things” was written by a man who never wrote anything else memorable in his life. This seemed to be the very serrt of intriguing piece of information which the “Encyclopaedia” could confirm. Well, it provided the information that the music was by Jack Strachey and the lyric by Eric Maschwitz. But although there is an extensive entry under “Maschwitz, Eric,” listing his other lyrics, (including “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square”), there is no entry for Strachey. Despite this minor imperfection, the “Encyclopaedia” is excellent value for money, and 1 look forward to settling many an argument with it, even if 1 have to start them myself.

“W. S. Gilbert Stage Director” put me in mind of the little girl Thurber

wrote about, who, asked by her teacher to comment on a book about penguins, delivered the devastating critique, “This book told me more about penguins than I wanted to know.” Mr Cox-Ife was an authority on Gilbert and Sullivan, and if you want to know how Gilbert grouped the chorus in “Patience,” or the appropriate gestures for Sir Despard’s song in Act One of “Ruddigore,” then this is the book for you. However, if you don’t want to know about these things, then you would be better off with a book on penguins, unless you don’t want to know about them either.