Richard Charles Rodgers

Young American Musician

• Born June 28, 1902 on Long Island, NY to a middle-class family who supported his musical talents.
• Expressed his love for music and theater by age four. Learned to play Chopsticks by age six (Beer).
• Began composing his own melodies by age nine and enjoyed visiting the $.50 theater matinees on Saturday afternoons (Beer).
• Wrote two popular songs by age fourteen and composed music for two amateur shows before attending Colombia University in 1919 ("Richard Rodgers Biography").

Rising to Musical Success: Rodgers and Hart

The First Duo

• Rodgers loved composing music, but doubted making it a career until he met his first musical partner, Lorenz Hart.
• Rodgers and Hart met in 1918, but their first break was in 1925 after they were hired to write for a big benefit show, Garrick Gaieties, which was a show of that turned parodied subjects of that time into musicals.

The First Duo (cont.)

• From there on, the duo began creating successful Broadway ballads with a style that was original, charming, and witty. One example is a play called "Dearest Enemy" which highlighted American history while using unpredictable musical sections.

Rodgers and Hart Productions

• Rodgers and Hart had success writing romantic ballads such as "My Heart Stood Still" (1927), "Dancing on the Ceiling" (1930), and "Lover" (1932) . They also wrote stage shows including Slaughter on Tenth Avenue; Babes in Arms (1937); The Boys from Syracuse (1938) .

Rodgers and Hart Productions (cont.)

• Their most durable songs written are "There's a Small Hotel," "Where or When," "My Funny Valentine," "This Can't Be Love," and "The Lady Is a Tramp." Read more: http://www.notablebiographies.com/Pu-Ro/Rodgers-Richard.html#ixzz57WO2l8kl

The Musical Magic Begins:

The Perfect Pair

• After Hart died in 1943, Rodgers teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein II, forming one of the best known songwriting teams in the history of the American musical.
• This partnership lasted for fifteen years.

Success at First Sight

• Oklahoma!: an innovative play that fully integrated music and dance into the plot, winning a Pulitzer Prize award.
• First collaboration Rodgers and Hammerstein composed together.

Oklahoma!

From Stage to Big Screen

• Many of their musical theater compositions became motion pictures, but the most profitable exchange was The Sound of Music.
• This included some of their best loved songs: "Carousel", "The King and I", "My Favorite Things", and "If I Loved You".

"Music is what feelings sound like"-The Sound of Music

The Beginning to a Beautiful End

• After Hammerstein's death in 1960, Rodgers served as his own lyricist for the first time and made the score of No Strings (1962).

The legacy of Richard Rodgers remains even after his death on December 30, 1979. His musical works have enjoyed numerous revivals and resonate through televisions, onstage performances, and music players around the world.