The Sound of Lyrics: The Search for Hammerstein's Gold
By Kenneth Jones
18 Dec 2008
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The book from Knopf was released Dec. 1.
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The editor of "The Complete Lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II" climbed mountains and forded streams to collect the master's work.
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In the six-book "Complete Lyrics" series from Knopf, "The Complete Lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II," released Dec. 1, is the volume that might be most valuable to musical theatre fans. Hammerstein is regarded by many as the father of the modern musical.
Scion of a theatrical dynasty, Hammerstein, who was born in 1895, came of age during the era of operetta, contributing to Desert Song, The New Moon and Rose-Marie and more. He broke new ground in 1927 with the landmark (serious-themed) musical Show Boat (music by Jerome Kern), and pushed the musical theatre even further in his shows (starting in 1943 with Oklahoma!) with composer Richard Rodgers. He died in 1960. His last musical was The Sound of Music.
A seven-year project for editor Amy Asch (who is an editor of the Playbill Broadway Yearbook and Playbill.com's regional listings editor), the book boasts all of Hammerstein's lyrics — 850, more than a quarter published for the first time. A lean volume of Hammerstein's selected (by him) lyrics, under the title "Lyrics," was the only compilation available prior to this. His essay "Notes on Lyrics" is treasured by musical theatre songwriters.
The new 448-page "Complete Lyrics" has 81 photos, a foreword by daughter Alice Hammerstein Mathias and an introduction by Ted Chapin, president of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization. Critic Charles Isherwood of the New York Times recently recommended it to his readers.
Asch traveled the world in search of Hammerstein's lyrics.
"I really loved doing the research for this book," Asch told Playbill.com. "In New York, I studied published and unpublished scripts, lyrics and musical material, clippings and programs at the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, the New York Public Library for Performing Arts, Tams-Witmark, the Shubert Archive, and the Museum of the City of New York.
"The music division of the Library of Congress has several relevant collections — the papers of Hammerstein, Rodgers, Jerome Kern, Sigmund Romberg, plus the Warner-Chappell treasures from Secaucus, and copyright deposit copies of libretti and sheet music.
"In Los Angeles, I consulted Miles Kreuger's Institute of the American Musical, the Margaret Herrick Library, USC's Cinema-Television Library, USC's Warner Bros. archive, and special collections at UCLA.
"In London I saw material at the British Library (Lord Chamberlain's Plays) and the Theatre Museum."
Among the treasures she sifted through were personal and business letters.
"I loved reading Hammerstein's incoming and outgoing correspondence — bossy letters from Jerome Kern, playful letters to John Van Druten and Joshua Logan, reflective letters to his older son Bill," Asch said. "I liked getting to know the handwritings of his various collaborators and office assistants."
The job required a keen eye. Asch explained, "As I attempted to account for 800-900 song titles, I expected to encounter lyrics that changed as they were developed. But sometimes even the published material — which one might expect to be the final version — changed. A script might have a slightly different wording than a vocal score. Is the difference a new mistake that has crept in, or is it an old mistake being corrected?
"And some songs were very sneaky. For instance, two 'Marianne' songs were written for The New Moon. They were both published as sheet music, and the covers are almost identical. But inside, the music and lyrics are different. In the case of Sunny, the song 'Sunshine' found in the vocal score is entirely different than the song 'Sunshine' published as an individual sheet." Continued...
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