The Great American Songbook

Ah monkey, I see now what an old romantic you are. Good for you!

Richard Rodgers was marvellous both with Larry Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II, by far my favourite composer from the GAS.

Only Pal Joey and Babes in Arms remain that well-known from that first collaboration, but what a collaboration that produced Manhattan, Mountain Greenery, My Funny Valentine, If You Asked Me I Could Write A Book, The Lady is a Tramp, My Heart Stood Still, Zip, My Romance, Ten Cents a Dance, You Are Too Beautiful (an Al Jolson keeper), and With a Song in My Heart.

Wow!

The second teaming gave us the big, big shows like Carousel, Oklahoma, The King and I, The Sound of Music, and South Pacific, and who could live without Soliloquy, If I Loved You, When I Marry Mr Snow, People Will Say We're In Love, The Farmer and the Cowman, Surrey With The Fringe on Top, Something Wonderful, Shall We Dance, Hello Young Lovers, Climb Every Mountain, Sixteen Going on Seventeen, The Lonely Goatherd, Bali Ha'i, Some Enchanted Evening, and Happy Talk!

Then they gave us Cinderella, superb for TV with Julie Andrews. Flower Drum Song (I Enjoy Being A Girl). And to add even more riches Hamnerstein wrote lyrics for Jerome Kern's Show Boat, Rudolf Friml's Rose Marie, and Sigmund Romberg's New Moon.

Neither have I, and only one amateur production. Does it get done less often than R & H's other major shows or am I just biased because I haven't happened to see it? In the last 10 years I've seen 3 pro Sound of Music productions, 2 Carousels (skipped ENO's) & 1 each of South Pacific & Oklahoma but zero King and I.

Seconding that. It was well worth the trip to Leicester. I was especially impressed by Michael French as Captain von Trapp, who I think was the best of the 5 actors I've seen in the role over 3 productions.

^Yes, I saw Hairspray & Hello Dolly, also Finding Neverland & The Light In The Piazza. Leicester's not too bad for me to get to, 1h40 each way, so I go up when there's something I want to see with a cast that appeals.

Nice to hear from Dawnstar and loureviews. Despite its wonderful score, I find South Pacific hard to take. I had seen it onstage only once before, which was the original Australian production back in the very early 1950s and I remember nothing about it although I can still see every scene in Annie Get Your Gun and Kiss Me, Kate from a few years earlier. When I saw the recent NT production I firstly sat there in great irritation that they had rearranged the order of the scenes in Act I. My motto is: 'If you don't trust the material, don't do the show!' Most legendary iconic Broadway musicals don't need fixing, especially if they originally ran for 1,925 performances. Having said that, I really wanted to give Nellie Forbush a good slap in Act II, just I always want to slap Pamina in Act II of The Magic Flute. Please forgive me ladies, but that's just my reaction. I hope I would be just as annoyed if it was a man being that silly. Can anybody think of equivalent situations involving male characters in a musical or an opera?
Anyway, after my annoyance at finding the first act rearranged, I was then struck in the second act as to how much it stopped being a musical and became a war-time play.

I have of course seen the movie, which I feel melds that war action scenes more successfully with the earlier scenes, but the somewhat surreal use of colour washes makes it hard for me to take seriously.
None of this takes away from the achievement of Rodgers and Hammerstein in creating a fabulous score and maybe a proper concert performance by John Wilson without staging might make me happy!

I saw the film of South Pacific years before seeing it onstage & was therefore slightly confused by the scenes in Act 1 of the stage version, especially at the start, with the stage version having much less preliminary scene-setting than the film.

Not equivalent situations but I usually want to slap Rudolfo in Act 3 of Boheme & Calaf in Act 3 of Turandot.

I'd kinda like to slap Pinkerton in Butterfly but I suppose that's a bit obvious!

Rodgers and Hammerstein - 'Odds and Sods.'

There are a few other excellent songs from some of their much less successful shows.

From Allegro:

So Far
A fellow needs a girl
What a lovely day for a wedding
Come Home

Southwark Playhouse  did an excellent production  of this a few years back. The Union also had a valiant attempt at Pipe Dream but frankly I don't think they should have bothered!

I would have thought Flower Drum Song definitely worth an airing with some top-notch songs:

I enjoy being a Girl
Sunday
Grant Avenue

but I think getting the ethnicity of the cast right in these sensitive times is what is preventing a revival ( that's probably why there have been few performances of The King and I.)

However, I have left my favourite R&H song of all time 'til last (roll of drums):

It might as well be Spring
- this might almost be the loveliest music-theatre song ever written (L&L's Heather on the Hill runs it close.) It's an absolutely exquisite melody that I never tire of hearing or playing. I love how Rodgers goes to the flattened 7th at the end of the first phrase on the word 'string' and then the middle 8 just compliments the first section so well and there is a delicious extension to the 'A' section at the end. You would die happy if you'd just written this one song,  but then there's all the rest.
Bryn Terfel does a superb version of this,  but my actual favourite is by the jazz guitarist and vocalist John Pizzarelli, of whom I'm a massive fan for any of the Great American Songbook.

This song comes from State Fair which, as you all know was originally a film musical, but Finborough/Trafalgar did an excellent production a number of years ago.

No, that's not really what I meant. Pinkerton is an out and out cad and reveals himself in his true colours when he proposes a toast in the opening scene to his real American bride (his 'sposa americana'). And the Queen of the Night seems to be a thoroughly bad person when she instructs Pamina to kill Sarastro. But I liked Dawnstar's idea of Calaf needing a slap, or perhaps two. There's no reason why he shouldn't be a good chap, just that he's dazzled by the apparently unattainable beauty of Turandot – silly man, when there's the lovely Liu right under his nose!

Following on from my previous post, Flower Drum Song ran for just over a year at the Palace and it was followed in May 1961 by The Sound of Music,which I loved. I saw it only once but my memory of it stays bright. And I was intrigued to find Constance Shacklock singing 'Climb ev'ry mountain' as I had heard her as Carmen a few years earlier in Sydney. Apparently she stayed with the show for six years – that sure is a lot of mountains!

My current avatar is me tinkling in the lounge bar of a hotel in Sydney about 60 years ago. I was probably playing 'It had to be you' as I so often did! It was a great luxury to have a drummer for that kind of gig. As usual, I was filling in for the regular pianist who was taking a few weeks holiday. I remember it was a very easy gig – the crowd was friendly, the money was good and it was a decent piano. And it was five minutes walk from my home!