Richard Rodgers

gigatos | April 4, 2022

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Summary

Richard Charles Rodgers (June 28, 1902, New York – December 30, 1979, New York) was an American composer, considered one of the most important composers of Broadway musicals of the time along with Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Cole Porter or Jule Styne. He composed classic songs such as Blue Moon (1934) as well as numerous musicals such as The Sound of Music (The Sound of Music).

He studied at Columbia University where he met his next classmate Lorenz Hart and later studied composition at the Institute of Musical Art. His first hit with Hart was a revue entitled “The Garrick Gaieties” from 1925. His 1936 comedy “On Your Toes” with the jazz ballet “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” formally established dance as a fixture of musical comedy.

Rodgers and Hart worked together on other works such as 1937”s Babes in Arms, 1938”s The Boys from Syracuse and 1940”s Pal Joey. After Hart”s death, Rodgers collaborated with librettist Oscar Hammerstein II on, among others, The Sound of Music, which was made into a big screen play starring Julie Andrews. His 1943 Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Oklahoma! enjoyed an unprecedented 2,248 performances on Broadway.

His daughter Mary Rodgers also became a composer.

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Education and early life

Born into a Jewish family in Queens, New York, Rodgers was the son of Mamie (Levy) and Dr. William Abrahams Rodgers, a prominent physician who had changed his last name from Rogazinsky. Rodgers began playing the piano at the age of six. He attended PS 166, Townsend Harris Hall and DeWitt Clinton High School. Rodgers spent his early teenage summers at Camp Wigwam (Waterford, Maine) where he composed some of his first songs.

Rodgers, Lorenz Hart and his later collaborator Oscar Hammerstein II attended Columbia University. At Columbia, Rodgers joined the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity. In 1921, Rodgers transferred his studies to the Institute of Musical Art (now the Juilliard School). Rodgers was influenced by composers such as Victor Herbert and Jerome Kern, as well as by the operettas his parents took him to see on Broadway as a child.

Rodgers and Hart

In 1919, Richard met Lorenz Hart, thanks to Phillip Levitt, a friend of Richard”s older brother. Rodgers and Hart struggled for years in the musical comedy field, writing several amateur shows. They made their professional debut with the song “Any Old Place With You,” which appeared in the 1919 Broadway musical comedy A Lonely Romeo. Their first professional production was 1920”s Poor Little Ritz Girl , which also had music by Sigmund Romberg. His next professional show, The Melody Man, was not released until 1924.

When he was fresh out of college, Rodgers worked as musical director for Lew Fields. Among the stars he accompanied were Nora Bayes and Fred Allen. Rodgers was considering leaving show business altogether to sell children”s underwear when he and Hart finally broke through in 1925. They wrote the songs for a benefit show presented by the prestigious Theatre Guild, called The Garrick Gaieties, and critics found it fresh and delightful. Only intended to run for one day, the Guild knew they had been successful and allowed it to reopen later. The biggest hit of the show, the song that Rodgers believed “made” Rodgers and Hart, was ” Manhattan.” The two were now a Broadway songwriting force.

During the rest of the decade, the duo wrote several successful shows for both Broadway and London, including Dehest Enemy (1925), The Girl Friend (1926), Peggy-Ann (1926), A Connecticut Yankee (1927) and Present Arms. (1928). His 1920s programs produced such standards as “Here in My Arms,” “Mountain Greenery,” “Blue Room,” “My Heart Stood Still,” and “You Took Advantage of Me.”

With the Depression in full swing during the first half of the 1930s, the team sought greener pastures in Hollywood. The hard-working Rodgers later regretted these relatively inactive years, but he and Hart wrote some classic songs and movie soundtracks while out west, including Love Me Tonight (1932) (directed by Rouben Mamoulian, who would later direct Oklahoma! Rodgers” Oklahoma! on Broadway), which introduced three standards, “Lover,” “Mimi,” and “Ain”t It Romantic?” Rodgers also wrote a tune for which Hart wrote three consecutive lyrics that were either cut, not recorded or were not a hit. The fourth lyric resulted in one of his most famous songs “Blue Moon.” Other film work includes the soundtracks for The Phantom President (1932), starring George M. Cohan, Hallelujah, I”m a Bum (1933), starring Al Jolson and, in a quick return after leaving Hollywood, Mississippi (1935), starring Bing Crosby and WC Fields.

In 1935, they returned to Broadway and wrote an almost unbroken series of successful shows that ended shortly before Hart”s death in 1943. Among the most notable were Jumbo (1935), On Your Toes (1936, which included the ballet “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue “, choreographed by George Balanchine), Babes in Arms (1937), I Married an Angel (1938), The Boys from Syracuse (1938), Pal Joey (1940), and their last original work, By Jupiter (1942). Rodgers also contributed to the book on several of these programs.

Many of the songs from these programs are still sung and remembered, such as “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World”, “My Romance”, “The Blue Girl”, ” I”ll Tell the Man in the Street”, “There”s a Little Hotel”, “Where or When “, “My Funny Valentine”, “The Lady is a Tramp”, “Falling in Love with Love”, “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” and “Wait till You See Her”.

In 1939, Rodgers wrote the ballet Ghost Town for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, choreographed by Marc Platoff.

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Rodgers and Hammerstein

Rodgers” association with Hart began to run into problems due to the lyricist”s unreliability and declining health. Rodgers began working with Oscar Hammerstein II, with whom he had previously written songs (before working with Lorenz Hart). His first musical, the groundbreaking hit Oklahoma! (1943), marked the beginning of the most successful partnership in American musical theater history. Their work revolutionized the musical form. What was once a collection of songs, dances and comic turns tied together by a tenuous plot became a fully integrated piece.

The team went on to create four more hits that are among the most popular in music history. Each became a hit movie: Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1950), The King and I (1951) and The Sound of Music (1959). Other programs include the minor hit Flower Drum Song (1958), as well as the relative flops Allegro (1947), Me and Juliet (1953) and Pipe Dream (1955). They also wrote the score for the film State Fair (1945) (which was remade in 1962 with Pat Boone) and a television musical special of Cinderella (1957).

Their collaboration produced many well-known songs, such as “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin,” “People Will Say We”re in Love,” “Oklahoma” (which also became the state song of Oklahoma), “It”s A Grand Night For Singing,” “If I Loved You,” “You”ll Never Walk Alone.” “Might As Well Be Spring,” “One Enchanted Night,” “Younger Than Spring,” “Bali Hai,” “Know You,” “My Favorite Things,” “The Sound of Music,” “Sixteen Going on Seventeen,” “Climb Ev”ry Mountain,” “Do-Re-Mi” and “Edelweiss,” Hammerstein”s final song.

Much of Rodgers” work with Hart and Hammerstein was orchestrated by Robert Russell Bennett. Rodgers composed twelve tracks, which Bennett used in preparing the orchestral score for the 26-episode World War II television documentary Victory at Sea (1952-1953). This NBC production pioneered “compilation documentary”-programming based on pre-existing footage-and was eventually broadcast in dozens of countries. The melody of the popular song “No Other Love” was later taken from the Victory at Sea theme song titled “Beneath the Southern Cross.” Rodgers won an Emmy for music for the ABC documentary Winston Churchill: The Valiant Years, scored by Eddie Sauter, Hershy Kay and Robert Emmett Dolan. Rodgers composed the theme song, “The March of the Clowns,” for the 1963-64 television series The Greatest Show on Earth, which ran for 30 episodes. He also contributed the main title theme for the 1963-64 historical anthology television series The Great Adventure.

In 1950, Rodgers and Hammerstein received the New York Hundred Year Association Gold Medal “in recognition of outstanding contributions to the City of New York.” Rodgers, Hammerstein and Joshua Logan won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the Southern Pacific. Rodgers and Hammerstein had won a special Pulitzer Prize in 1944 for Oklahoma!

In 1954, Rodgers conducted the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in excerpts from Victory at Sea , Slaughter on Tenth Avenue and Carousel Waltz for a special LP released by Columbia Records .

Rodgers and Hammerstein”s musicals won a total of 37 Tony Awards, 15 Academy Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes, two Grammy Awards and two Emmy Awards.

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After Hammerstein

After Hammerstein”s death in 1960, Rodgers wrote both the lyrics and music for his first new Broadway project No Strings (1962, which won two Tony Awards). The show was a minor hit and featured the song, ” The Sweetest Sounds “.

Rodgers went on to work with lyricists Stephen Sondheim ( Do I hear a waltz? ), who was a protégé of Hammerstein, Martin Charnin ( Two for Two , I remember Mom ) and Sheldon Harnick ( Rex ).

At its 1978 graduation ceremony, Barnard College awarded Rodgers its highest honor, the Barnard Medal of Distinction.

Rodgers was an honoree at the first Kennedy Center Honors in 1978.

At the 1979 Tony Awards ceremony, six months before his death, Rodgers received the Lawrence Langner Memorial Award for Distinguished Lifetime Achievement in American Theatre.

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Death and legacy

Rodgers died in 1979, at the age of 77, after surviving jaw cancer, a heart attack and a laryngectomy. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea.

In 1990, the 46th Street Theatre was renamed the Richard Rodgers Theatre in his memory. In 1999, Rodgers and Hart were commemorated on separate U.S. postage stamps. In 2002, the centennial year of Rodgers” birth was celebrated worldwide with books, retrospectives, performances, new recordings of his music and a Broadway revival of “Oklahoma!”. The BBC Proms that year devoted an entire evening to Rodgers” music, including a concert performance of Oklahoma! The Boston Pops Orchestra released a new CD tribute to Rodgers that year, entitled My Favorite Things: A Richard Rodgers Celebration.

Alec Wilder wrote the following about Rodgers:

Of all the writers whose songs are considered and examined in this book, Rodgers” show the greatest degree of consistent excellence, inventiveness, and sophistication….. After spending weeks playing his songs, I am more than impressed and respectful: I am in awe.

Rodgers is a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame….

In conjunction with the Academy of Arts and Letters, Rodgers also launched and endowed an award for non-established musical theater composers to perform new productions, either through full productions or staged readings. It is the only award for which the Academy of Arts and Letters accepts applications and is presented each year. Previous winners of the award are listed below.

Personal life

In 1930, Rodgers married Dorothy Belle Feiner (1909-92). Their daughter, Mary Rodgers (1931-2014), was the composer of Once Upon a Mattress and a children”s book author. The Rodgers subsequently lost a daughter at birth. Another daughter, Linda (1935-2015), also had a brief career as a songwriter. Mary”s son and Richard Rodgers” grandson, Adam Guettel (born 1964), also a musical theater composer, won Tony Awards for Best Score and Best Orchestration for The Light in the Piazza in 2005. Peter Melnick (born 1958), son of Linda Rodgers, is the composer of Adrift Macao, which premiered by Philadelphia Theatre Company in 2005 and was produced Off-Broadway in 2007.

Rodgers was an atheist. He was prone to depression and alcohol abuse, and was once hospitalized.

In other languages

Richard Rodgers in Internet Movie Database. Richard Rodgers collection. Music Division, Library of Congress.

Sources