Q.
Creative partnerships are notoriously combustible. Yet, somehow, composer Richard Rodgers (1902-79) and dramatist/lyricist Oscar Hammerstein (1895-1960) managed to collaborate for nearly two decades, producing beloved musicals from The Sound of Music (💐) to Oklahoma, Carousal, South Pacific, The King and I. The pair also created the Cinderella musical for TV, and State Fair for the silver screen.

Did the powers-that-be have faith in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s combined brilliance from the start?

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A.

Hardly. Studio brass were, in fact, convinced that Rodgers and Hammerstein could not build good musicals together. Though the two had collaborated on two varsity shows at Columbia University in the 1920s, both went on to partner successfully with others.

Rodgers worked from the late 1920s into the 1940s with Lorenz (Larry) Hart. Hart suffered great difficulties in his life, but he and Rodgers co-created successful songs – like ‘Blue Moon’ – and musicals, like Babes in Arms, and Pal Joey.

Meanwhile, Hammerstein built fruitful operetta collaborations with various composers, most famously Jerome Kern. Their partnership led to the creation of 8 musicals including Sweet Adeline and Showboat, which premiered in 1927.

As Rodgers said in a 1960 interview re-released by NPR: “There was an almost superstitious feeling on the part of the people in the business – that anybody who had worked for 24 years with one man, as I had with Larry (Hart), simply couldn’t hit it off with a brand-new partner.’

There were, indeed, significant adjustments to be made when Rodgers and Hammerstein reunited. Which would come first: music or lyrics? With Rodgers and Hart, it had been music first, lyrics to follow.  Not so with Rodgers and Hammerstein.

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Richard Rodgers + Oscar Hammerstein II

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“Oscar,” Rodgers explained, “is one of the few people in the entire world who has a – I’m talking about lyric-wise, of course – who has a tremendous sense of construction. And without a tune, his lyrics are beautifully built. And he likes the latitude of being able to write first without the constriction of a melody. On the other hand, I find that having the lyric in addition to the situation in the play is very helpful to me. It gives me an extra push into the solution of the problem of finding the tune.”

The Sound of Music was the last musical Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote together – ‘Edelweiss’ the  last song – before Hammerstein passed in August of 1960. Below, we hear Christopher Plummer’s original vocals, versus Bill Lee’s version which was dubbed in the 1965 film and soundtrack. 🙀

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So, how successful was the Rodgers and Hammerstein pairing?

Over the years, the duo’s musicals have won 42 Tony Awards, 15 Academy Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes, two Grammy Awards, and 2 Emmy Awards. Visitors to 1953 New York would have found four Rodgers and Hammerstein shows running at the same time: The King and I, South Pacific, Me & Juliet, and Oklahoma.

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