Fav. Richard Rodgers score- Page 2

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 6/6/07 at 2:17am

CAROUSEL, hands down.

[HeyMrMusic]

Posted: 6/6/07 at 2:25am

Carousel. South Pacific is a close second for me. But goodness, Carousel. You can sense optimism and tragedy by listening to any one song from that show. It's heartbreaking.

~Steven

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 6/6/07 at 2:51am

I think "The Carousel Waltz" is one of the most glorious pieces of concert music to emerge from the 20th century...right up there with Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and Gliere's Harp concerto.

Rodgers was so gifted melodically that he once quipped "I can pee a melody."

Among my favourite songs he wrote with Hart: Spring is Here, Maybe it's Me, You Took Advantage of Me, Glad to be Unhappy, The Lady is a Tramp, and Bewitched. I know BABES IN ARMS has more hits songs (but a really terrible book which precludes its revival) and PAL JOEY regarded as their most mature work, but for me the score of ON YOUR TOES is a source of endless joy capped by the brilliant Slaughter on 10th Avenue ballet.

With Hammerstein CAROUSEL is a score if incomparable beauty but the breathtaking simplicity of OKLAHOMA! makes it a score I never tire of. Actually with teh possible exception of ME AND JULIET I never tire of any R & H score.

Then there's his VICTORY AT SEA music which was arranged into a Symphonic Scenario by Robert Russell Bennett that deserves to be included in more concert programs.

[kec]

Posted: 6/6/07 at 3:31am

Oklahoma and Sound of Music. I also like Cinderella.

Posted: 6/6/07 at 4:05am

Whenwas the Carousel Waltz composed? I read in a book (I think they were defending people liek ALWebber writing tunes and hiding them away until he foudn a use for them--saying that Rodgers had written the Waltz years before the musical--of course he did eventually use some of his Victory at Sea score as songs, among other similar examples)

*makes note to try to track down Me and Juliet and more Allegro*

Posted: 6/6/07 at 4:08am

"Can you just imagine what it must have been like the day Hans Spialek came in and played the arrangement for "Slaughter On Tenth Avenue" for the first time?

I get chills on my chills.

On Your Toes. "

Not to mention that the great George Balanchine did the original choreography! people who credit Agnes DeMille with bringign ballet to Broadway seem to forget that Balanchine was responsible for dances in a number of Rodgers and Hart shows (there's a great pic of a bizarre looking Egyptian ballet with costumes made out of towels he did for Babes in Arms I've found)

E

Posted: 6/6/07 at 4:13am

"I also love the score to FLOWER DRUM SONG. I think it is under-rated. I also wonder what is specifically politically incorrect about it. I saw it in 1959 with its largely Asian cast and did not consider it offensive in any way.(Then, again, I am not Asian). I never get tired of listening to the score. The song "Love Look Away" is one of the most beautiful show tunes ever written. "

I agree--I think the main "trouble" with Flower--why it's not listed in the "great 5" (though it almost always comes before Pipe Dream, Allegro and Me and J) is the book has dated a lot more than the others (is that because it was--along with I suppose Me and Juliet and Pipe--their only show set in the present day--S Pacific of course being set 5 or so years earlier than it was written). It kinda comes off liek a dated sitcom in parts (though I think some parts still work very well)--but the score is great.

I don't think it's inherently racist--(sexist could be argued more so but again it's of its time) but I'm not sure that the people for instance who felt it had to be re-written were objecting to racism as much as just trying to make a more contemporary libretto (although I don't personally feel they suceeded) to make the score and show a hit again.

E

[JBSinger]

Posted: 6/6/07 at 8:38am

with Hammerstein: it's a tie between CAROUSEL and SOUTH PACIFIC
with Hart: PAL JOEY

And yes, Jo, in most cases with the Rodgers/Hammerstein collaboration, the words did come first. There were a few exceptions like Me & Juliet when Rodgers had some pop tunes in his head and wanted them in a show. Their relationship was professional but frustrating. Hammerstein would slave for weeks on a lyric, give it to Rodgers who'd say "That'll do" and then set the song in about 15 minutes. I think there's a story about "Bali Hai" when Hammerstein dropped off the lyric, drove home, then got a call from Rodgers with the finished songonc ehe walked in the door. What can we say - they both had tremendous gifts!

[me2]

Posted: 6/6/07 at 11:50am

Count me in as a big FLOWER DRUM SONG fan. I have the new CD with Lea Salonga and Jose Llana. I love that score. After listening to it over and over, it losing some of its spark (I think it's the length of some of the songs . . . though I'm glad we get the whole thing). But I love that score.
Broadway Blog: . . . The Jane Eyre Altercation (a sad but true story)

[Andante]

Posted: 6/6/07 at 1:24pm

Carousel. No question in my mind. Gorgeous music, and "If I Loved You" makes me cry every time I hear it.

[Piercemn]

Posted: 6/6/07 at 1:26pm

My favorite score of his is South Pacific, but my favorite musical of his is The King and I. I also love the music for Pal Joey.

[acrocksyo]

Posted: 6/6/07 at 2:33pm

Glad to see there are some other Flower Drum Song fans out there. It's both sexist and racist. It's writing about the Asian experience as two white guys. I mean granted it was the first show on Broadway to use an all Asian cast(minue Juanita Hall who was Africian American) but some of the songs like Fan Tan Fannie and Flower Drum Song harken back to a time when Asian stereotypes were more out in the open. But nonetheless I still love it racism/sexism and all!

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 6/6/07 at 2:42pm

Rex

*chuckles*

[Gypsy9]

Posted: 6/6/07 at 5:46pm

Re. FLOWER DRUM SONG, one of the leads was a white American: Larry Blyden who was also in THE APPLE TREE with Barbara Harris. Blyden used make up to appear Asian. That was the only major role where that was done, and that was unfortunate.

"Fan Tan Fannie" was a spoof of a 2nd rate vaudeville type number. The scene where it takes place is a night club where the parents of Wang Ta end up being horrified by the rowdy goings on, which is just what the character Sammy Fong wants. The scene was really quite funny in the 1959 production and the whole night club scene is captured on the OBCR. I laugh every time I hear Jack Soo singing "Gliding Through My Memoree". He went on to play one of the detectives on the TV sitcom BARNEY MILLER, and had one of the lead roles in the movie version of FLOWER DRUM SONG.

Incidentally, Gene Kelly directed the Broadway FLOWER DRUM SONG, but it was choreographed by the talented Carol Haney of THE PAJAMA GAME fame. She unfortunately died young, in 1963. And Baayork Lee, who is associated with A CHORUS LINE both in 1975 and now, was in the dancing ensemble of FLOWER DRUM SONG.

Enough of all this trivia. I got carried away.

Updated On: 6/6/07 at 05:46 PM

[bob8rich]

Posted: 6/6/07 at 5:47pm

South Pacific. Close second and third - Carousel and Babes In Arms.

Updated On: 6/6/07 at 05:47 PM

Posted: 6/6/07 at 6:47pm

"Glad to see there are some other Flower Drum Song fans out there. It's both sexist and racist. It's writing about the Asian experience as two white guys."

I don't buy that though. Ofcourse that has been a big part of the fight about whether Porgy and Bess is racist as well... I think both are definetly of their time but...

But by that belief--you'd be subscribing to Clive Barnes' hideous articles in the 60s about the homosexualizing of Broadway because these gay playwrights (williams, Albee, Inge...) were writing about straights but only hd knowledge of their own gay relationships, or that a white writer should never have any character of any other race in his works, a man write about a woman, etc. That's bull****

E

[allofmylife]

Posted: 6/6/07 at 10:14pm

Actually, Bigfatblonde, Rex does have some nice melodies and Ed Evanko's lullabye is haunting.

[best12bars]

Posted: 6/6/07 at 10:19pm

allofmylife---I'm completely with you on this...

"On Your Toes"

It's a Tiffany's diamond.

But to say it's a tough call would be an understatement.

[best12bars]

Posted: 6/6/07 at 10:28pm

Oh, and Eric... I agree with your last post 100 percent. It is bullsh*t.

If you only "write what you know" as so many are quick to advise, then you have no imagination and you are not an artist. I'll even go so far as to say you're a coward.

The TRUTH is in the emotion, nothing else.

The rest is up to you (the writer) and your vision. And your talent.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 6/7/07 at 12:59am

FLOWER DRUMN SONG makes a great cast album. From the productions I have seen the basic story holds together but it isn't all that compelleing. But the songs are so good..who cares?

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 6/7/07 at 1:35am

I agree with Eric and Best12 to a point. I think many white authors have been able to portray race relationships incredibly well: Rodgers & Hammerstein did it with SOUTH PACIFIC (I think the fact that two white men wrote "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught" makes the song even more poignant and valid), Flaherty and Ahrens did it brilliantly so with RAGTIME, Jerome Kern and Hammerstein (again) did it with SHOW BOAT, Sondeim, Laurents, and Bernstein did it with WEST SIDE STORY, and Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori did it with CAROLINE OR CHANGE. However, a show like THE KING & I (which is my favorite R & H) is obviously a fantasized view of an Asian country through the eyes of two white males--though it can be argued we, as the audience, see the show through Anna's eyes which justifies some of the offensive choices in the script. I for one am bothered by the portrayal of ethnic figures in RENT being Latino myself.
Perhaps it isn't the fact that white men cannot write about minorities efficiently, but it is easier to blame certain offensive choices in a script to the fact that an author is white when this may not be the reason.