Release Date: 09 January 2004
Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 747313502424
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: The Sound of Music
Description
Richard Rodgers (1902-1979)Enchanting Melodies of Rodgers and Hammerstein IIPre-eminent in his contributions to musical theatre andthe film-musical, and one of the finest of twentiethcenturypopular songwriters, pianist-composer andproducer Richard Charles Rodgers was born at LongIsland, New York on 28th June, 1902. The son ofdoctor of medicine William Abraham Rodgers andpianist Mamie Levy, his keyboard skills and composingflair were encouraged from an early age and as aschoolboy 'Dick' reputedly spent his pocket-money atSaturday matinees of Jerome Kern musicals. He is alsosaid to have written his first song at the age of elevenand his earliest surviving song, 'My Auto Show Girl',when he was fourteen, yet for several years his activitywas confined to writing music and occasionally lyricsfor social club shows until his talent was firstrecognised, by Max Dreyfus of Harms musicpublishers, around 1917. The following year, at sixteen,he enrolled at Columbia University and there met hisfirst major collaborator in a fellow New Yorker, thelyricist Lorenz Hart (1895-1943).Hart had already had experience as a 'ghost' lyricistfor, among others, Billy Rose, before he co-wrote withRodgers a single item for the short-lived 1919Broadway musical A Lonely Romeo. The Rodgers-Hartteam began to write for Broadway in earnest with PoorLittle Ritz Girl (1920) but their first real Golden Milebreak came in 1925 with their contributions to TheGarrick Gaieties. In the media of stage and screen (theywere based in Hollywood from 1931 to 1935), theywere soon to become the most applauded of the inter-War-year song-writing duos, co-writing (or at leastcontributing to) 35 musicals and 23 films, in a 25-yearworking partnership that ended only with Hart'spremature death, after a long illness, on 22ndNovember, 1943.Hart survived long enough to attend the premi?¿re ofOklahoma!, the show which launched Rodgers'working association with an old friend who was tobecome his second major lyricist. The grandson of thecelebrated German-born entrepreneur and operaimpresario Oscar Hammerstein I (1846-1919), lyricistauthorand producer Oscar Greeley ClendenningHammerstein II had the theatre in his blood. He had,moreover, during the 1920s and 1930s, acquired areputation in operetta equal to Rodgers's own standingin musical comedy. Born in New York City on 12thJuly, 1895, Oscar Jr. grew up a scion of one ofBroadway's most formidable dynasties (his uncle,Arthur Hammerstein, was the acclaimed producer of,among other shows, Naughty Marietta, Firefly and RoseMarie), although he took no real interest in the theatreuntil his college days.A student at New York's Hamilton Institute from1904, in 1912 Oscar Hammerstein enrolled at ColumbiaUniversity, graduating with a B.A., in law, in 1916.While at Columbia he took various acting leads, andeven wrote books and lyrics for Columbia Players'productions, but was a practicing attorney beforedeciding, after some persuasion from his uncle, to makethe theatre his ni
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Yaqi Yang; Margarita Parsamyan; Robynne Redmon; Minghao Liu; Frank Ragsdale; Kim Josephson; Kevin S
Vilmos Csikos; Olivier Lechardeur; Manon Lamaison
Tomas Cotik; Martingale Ensemble; Ken Selden
