Hyland, former editor of Foreign Affairs, continues his exploration
of the giants of American popular song, begun in The Song Is Ended
(1995), with a biography of the man who may have been the greatest
of them all. Richard Rodgers was in many ways unique among the
great composers of American theater music. He enjoyed lengthy
partnerships with two very different lyricists of the first
caliber, Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein. He established himself
not only as a great songwriter but as a highly regarded composer of
soundtrack music, winning awards for his scores for Victory at Sea
and The Valiant Years. His career - after some inconclusive
noodling around after college - consisted of an ever-upward
trajectory with few bumps along the way until he was well into his
50s. And unlike the other great Jewish tunesmiths who dominated the
Broadway stage in the golden era of musical theater, he was the
product of a well-to-do family, never experiencing poverty, never
struggling for his next dollar. The last two facts may go some way
in explaining why Hyland's new biography of Rodgers is such a dull
read: There just isn't much drama in this life. On the other hand,
Hyland doesn't help himself with his approach, an awkward veering
between biographical detail and musical analysis that is too
perfunctory with both. As a result, one never has much sense of
Rodgers as a personality, despite lengthy descriptions of his
behavior and attitude toward colleagues and friends, nor much
understanding of what made him such a fine composer. Nor does
Hyland really give much context for the innovations of Rodgers's
work with each of his great partners. The book is constructed
entirely out of library research, with no interviewing, and it has
the musty air of the library throughout. Intelligent, but utterly
lifeless. (Kirkus Reviews)
"This is an excellent and authoritative book -- one that will no
doubt become the standard biography of Richard Rodgers". -- Allen
Forte, Yale University
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 untilhis 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.
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