Richard Rodgers / Edward K. Kaplan, Samuel H. Dresner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kaplan, Edward K., Author.

Dresner, Samuel H., Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rodgers, Richard, 1902-1979.

Rodgers, Richard.

Composers--United States--Biography.

Composers.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, [1998]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Richard Rodgers, a musical genius whose Broadway career spanned six successful decades, composed more than a thousand songs for the American stage. Although he reaped wealth, success, and recognition that included two shared Pulitzer Prizes, Rodgers found happiness elusive. In this first comprehensive biography of Rodgers, William G. Hyland tells the full story of the complex man and his incomparable music.Hyland's portrait of Rodgers (1902-79) begins with his childhood in an affluent Jewish family living in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan. During college years at Columbia University and early work on the amateur circuit and Broadway, Rodgers entered into a historic collaboration with the lyricist Lorenz Hart. The team produced a dozen popular shows and such enduring songs as "The Lady Is a Tramp." Rodgers' next partnership, with Oscar Hammerstein II, led to the creation of the musical play, a new and distinctively American art form. Beginning with Oklahoma! in 1943, this pair dominated Broadway for almost twenty years with a string of hits that remain beloved favorites: Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music. When Hammerstein died in 1960, Rodgers began a new phase in his career, writing the lyrics to his own music, then joining lyricists Stephen Sondheim, Sheldon Harnick, and Martin Charnin. Despite periods of depression, excessive drinking, hypochondria, and devastating illness at different points in his life, Rodgers' outpouring of music seemed little affected, and he continued to compose until his death at age seventy-seven. An icon of the musical theater, Rodgers left a legacy of timeless songs that audiences return to hear over and again.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Overture

Acknowledgments

1. Campfire Days

2. Fly with Me

3. Melody Man

4. The Garrick Gaieties

5. The Girl Friend

6. Peggy-Ann

7. A Connecticut Yankee

8. Simple Simon

9. Hollywood

10. On Your Toes

11. The Boys from Syracuse

12. Pal Joey

13. Oklahoma!

14. Carousel

15. Allegro

16. South Pacific

17. The King and I

18. R&H

19. Me and Juliet

20. Cinderella

21. The Sound of Music

22. Words and Music

23. No Strings

24. Do I Hear a Waltz?

25. Time

Notes

Bibliography

Discography

Credits and Permissions

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9780300143508

0300143508

OCLC:

861792770