Rodgers and Hammerstein

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Rodgers (left) and Hammerstein (right), with Irving Berlin at rehearsals in the St. James Theater - New York

Rodgers and Hammerstein is a name for the "songwriting team", consisting of the composer Richard Rodgers and the songwriter Oscar Hammerstein II .

In the early 1940s, Richard Rodgers tried in vain to find his first partner Lorenz Hart to work on the later musical Oklahoma! to be interested. He looked for and found Oscar Hammerstein for this project, whom, like Hart, he already knew from his student days. After Hart died in 1943, Rodgers entered into his second artistic and business partnership with Hammerstein.

During their collaboration, they created many very successful musicals that were style-defining for their time. Their partnership lasted for almost twenty years until Hammerstein's death in 1960.

Musical play

Hammerstein continued with Rodgers the path he had already taken with Show Boat (1927). He didn't just want to entertain, he wanted to create some kind of American folk opera with serious historical material. In this context he was able to induce Rodgers to forego jazz elements (which he took up again after Hammerstein's death, e.g. in No Strings , 1962). In addition, repetitions (reprises) of the music numbers had to have a dramaturgical sense and leitmotifs create a musical connection between the music numbers. Dance routines should emerge from the plot. This deliberate distance to conventional musical comedy resulted in the genre of musical play that is characteristic of this duo .

Works

Show musicals

Film work

  • 1945: State Fair - First stage performance in 1996
  • 1957: Cinderella - TV

Songs (selection)

Films about Rodgers and Hammerstein

  • 1996 Rodgers & Hammerstein: The Sound of Movies (TV documentary)

See also

Web links