Your ten favorite Rodgers and Hammerstein songs — Page 2

best12bars--

are you also, I hope, a fan of the other R&H, ie Rodgers and Hart? Especially my beloved "On Your Toes" (as if my avatar doesn't scream that) which I think is the greatest show of the 1930's?

Wonderboy--
As I said before, I think "Carousel Waltz" is a legit entry because I don't believe for a minute that Hammerstein didn't have a major imput on the shape, tone and story that the music is telling. These guys really were a team. The wrote like a team, thought like a team, apparently were very tough businessmen like a team (I'm being polite here) so I think you could legitimately say CW was a team effort.

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allofmylife---I'm a huge Rodgers & Hart fan as well... and the very first Broadway show I ever saw was the 1983 revival of "On Your Toes." It was pure magic to see it directed by George Abbott (in his 90s and with a LOT of help), and with the original Ballanchine choreography. I got chills when the overture started, and it took me right through to the curtain call.

As far as Lorenz Hart, he is at the top of a short list of the best lyricists EVER.

The fascinating thing to me is that Rodgers wrote differently with Hart than with Hammerstein. It's almost like he is a different composer altogether. Two different sides of his personality came to the surface with these writing partners, and I find that pretty amazing.

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Though some people at the R&H Organization dispute some (though not all) of this, "The Carousel Waltz" probably pre-existed the creation of Carousel. In fact, most, perhaps all, of the themes were written years before for Hallelujah, I'm a Bum. (There's no question about that.) Some of them were used for the film, many were not. Manuscripts are in the Library of Congress. I believe those manuscripts are titled Central Park Waltz 1, Central Park Waltz 2, and so on.

In the 1940s, Paul Whiteman commissioned concert pieces from a variety of American composers, including Rodgers. Some writers (including David Ewen in his Rodgers biography, written when Rodgers when alive) believe that the piece that Rodgers wrote for Whiteman (or rather pieced together from the Central Park waltzes he wrote for Hallelujah, I'm a Bum), titled "Tales of Central Park," was the "Carousel Waltz." It may be that Whiteman rejected the piece or that Rodgers, realizing that it would be perfect for Carousel, withdrew it.

It's also funny that in 1944 the musical Up in Central Park opened and was a hit. And it included a song (a waltz) titled "The Carousel in the Park."

In no order...

If I Loved You from Carousel
You've Got to Be Carefully Taught from South Pacific
No Way to Stop it from The Sound of Music
How Can Love Survive? from The Sound of Music
Grant Avenue from Flower Drum Song
Shall I Tell You What I Think of You? from King and I
People will Say We're in Love from Oklahoma!
It Might as Well be Spring from State Fair
Hello, Young Lovers from King and I
The Gentleman is a Dope from Allegro

oK..Hmmm
1) If I loved You
2) What's the Use of Wondrin
3) Many a new Day
4) We Kiss in A Shadow
5) Something Wonderful
6) Do Re Mi
7)Climb Every Mountain
Ten Minutes Ago
9)A Wonderful Guy
10)Bali hai

1. If I Loved You, Carousel - heartbreaking
2. I Have Dreamed, The King and I - romantic
3. Climb Ev'ry Mountain, Sound of Music - hopeful
4. We Kiss in a Shadow, The King and I - I agree with PlaysSaveTheWorld...it is quite touching.
5. Love Look Away, Flower Drum Song - another heartbreaking song
6. Something Good, Sound of Music - heartwarming
7. I Enjoy Being A Girl, Flower Drum Song - cheerful
8. Bali Hai, South Pacific - mystical or Edelweiss, Sound of Music - touching, patriotic
9. Maria, Sound of Music - funny
10. Sixteen Going On Seventeen, Sound of Music - youthful

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