![]() ![]() (In The Complete Lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II, edited by Amy Asch, we’re told that the word that pops up most frequently in his lyrics is “dream.”) Having cut his teeth on operetta, his later work can regress into florid overstatement. Additionally, he wrote or co-wrote many of the shows' libretti, allowing him to create a vitally intimate relationship between song, story, and character.īut Hammerstein can be something of a square, at least on the surface, with a sensibility that favors optimism and hope over despair. By the time of his relatively early death 40 years later, he had contributed to dozens of musical plays and written the 800+ lyrics that fill these pages. The grandson of a famous opera impresario for whom he was named, and the son of a theatrical producer, Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein was born in 1895 and saw his first Broadway show produced at the age of 26. And he was the controlling intelligence behind more shows still playable onstage (and still produced) than probably all of his peers combined could claim.His lifelong devotion to the theater seemed preordained. He collaborated with some of the supreme composers of the era, most notably Jerome Kern and Richard Rodgers, who supplied the sublime melodies that cushioned his words and made them truly, well, sing. Twice, with Showboat (1927) and Oklahoma! (1943), he transformed the genre, wresting the form from its banal complacencies and pushing it to greater seriousness and maturity. For over four decades, Hammerstein worked prodigiously in the Broadway musical theater (with intermittent sojourns in Hollywood) at a time when the form held powerful sway over popular culture: most of the songs on the airwaves and turntables originated in shows and films. (And if it weren't already apparent, to those for whom musical theater is the cultural equivalent of a Happy Meal: move along, nothing to see here.) Now, a quarter of a century later, the Knopf spotlight shines on Oscar Hammerstein II.Īnd high time, too.While his work can't claim the cleverness of Porter, the aching simplicity of Berlin, or the ingenuity of Gershwin, Hammerstein deserves recognition by virtue of his theatrical longevity, his rhetorical diversity, his dramatic skill, and his profound influence on his peers and acolytes, one of whom, Stephen Sondheim, reigns today as the musical theater's premier composer/lyricist. These fascinating, exhaustive books are filled with the kind of historical detail, photos, and trivia that make aficionados swoon. Cole Porter won the first nod, followed at irregular intervals by Irving Berlin, Ira Gershwin, Lorenz Hart, and Frank Loesser. ![]() In 1983, Knopf published the first of a series of handsome oversized books dedicated to the collected lyrics of musical theater giants. The Complete Lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II ![]()
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