Oscar Hammerstein II, songwriter: Reference Sources

Overview and Commentary Oscar Hammerstein II

Perhaps the best characterization of Hammerstein, if not exactly an overview, comes from his protégé Stephen Sondheim. The following is the first paragraph of Sondheim's essay on his mentor:

Hammerstein is usually thought of as the Norman Rockwell of lyricists: earthy, optimistic, sometimes ponderously bucolic, a proponent of small-town American values, a purveyor of generosity and kindness toward the world and his fellow humans and of empathy with their small sufferings and dreams. Like Rockwell, he has been both underestimated (for his craft) and overestimated (for his philosophy). The more apt comparison would be to Eugene O'Neill. That may seem a bizarre linking -- the cozy lyricist with the mighty playwright -- but they have more in common than immediately meets the eye (and ear). Both use language which often aspires to poetry but is usually more earthbound than earthy and tends to veer off into preachment, in contrast to their theatrical imaginations, which soar. They are both experimental playwrights with things to say profound enough to override their literary limitations (Sondheim, Finishing the Hat , p. 36) .

Hammerstein rarely has the colloquial ease of Berlin , the sophistication of Porter , the humor of Hart and Gershwin the inventiveness of Harburg or the grace of Fields , but his lyrics are sui generis, and when they are at their best they are more than heartfelt and passionate, they are monumental (p. 37) .

In his book Lyrics, Hammerstein minces no words on two crucial aspects of writing lyrics: the integration of a song into a show's story and the usefulness of a rhyming dictionary:

There are few things in life of which I am certain, but I am sure of this one thing, that the song is the servant of the play, that it is wrong to write first what you think is an attractive song and then try to wedge it into a story (p. 19). A rhyming dictionary is of little use and may, in fact, be a handicap when one is writing a song which makes a feature of rhyming. If you would achieve the rhyming grace and facility of W. S. Gilbert or Lorenz Hart, my advice would be never to open a rhyming dictionary. Don't even own one (p.20).

GREAT PERFORMANCES: Your father was always so dapper in his dress, and looked more like a successful banker than a major Broadway composer.

Mary Rodgers: I know. We made lots of jokes about that in the family, for he was a man who was very caring when it came to clothes. And although poor Oscar [Hammerstein II] was always concerned about his dress, no matter what he did, he looked as if he had just gotten out of bed!

In an interview with Richard Rodgers, Max Wilk quotes Rodgers on his collaborator's love of nature images and on other major themes in his lyrics:

What was truly remarkable was his never-ending ability to find new ways of revealing how he felt about three interrelated themes -- nature, music and love. In "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning," the first song we wrote together, for Oklahoma! , Oscar described an idyllic summer day on a farm when "all the sounds of the earth are like music." In "It's a Grand Night for Singing" he revealed that the things most likely to induce people to sing are a warm, moonlit, starry night and the first thrill of falling in love. In "You Are Never Away" he compared a girl with "the song that I sing," the rainbow I chase," "a morning in spring," and "the star in the lace of a wild willow tree." In " Younger than Springtime " another girl is "warmer than the winds of June" and sweeter than music." In our last collaboration, The Sound of Music , just about everything Oscar felt about nature and music and love was summed up in the title song (p.79) .

Cafe Songbook Music-Video Cabinet: Oscar Hammerstein II (This section remains in preparation)

The first two videos below are excerpts from Oscar Hammerstein II -- Out of My Dreams
which aired March, 2012 on PBS. The third video may or may not be from the same show.

• Bali Ha'i
• A Cockeyed Optimist
• The Gentleman Is a Dope
• Getting to Know You
• Happy Talk
• Hello Young Lovers
• I have Dreamed
• If I Loved You
• It Might As Well Be Spring
• A Kiss to Build a Dream On
• The Last Time I Saw Paris
• Love, Look Away
• My Favorite Things
• No Other Love
• Out of My Dreams
• People Will Say We're In Love
• Shall We Dance?
• Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise
• Some Enchanted Evening
• Surrey with the Fringe on Top
• That's for Me
• This Nearly Was Mine
• We Kiss in a Shadow
• When I Grow Too Old To Dream
• A Wonderful Guy
• Younger Than Springtime

Research Resources: Oscar Hammerstein II

• Amazon (publications by and about, recordings, videos, sheet music, etc.)
• BBC Music (Bio. links, blog posts, etc.)
• DBOPM (Database Of Popular Music: song list; awards; hit songs; co-writers)
• Discogs.com (songwriting and arranging credits)
• Indiana University Sheet Music Collection (In Harmony): Oscar Hammerstein II
• Internet Broadway Database (Broadway productions and song credits)
• Internet Movie Database (brief biography, filmography, movie song credits)
• Michael Feinstein's American Songbook (bio., photos, back stories, songs)
• New York Public Library (catalog entries for books, personal papers, recordings, scores, etc.)
• The New York Times (articles about or related to the songwriter)
• NPR Music (archive of relevant programs often including audio segments)
• PBS.org Broadway (biography, with related web and teacher resources
• Rodgers and Hammerstein website (biography and related material)
• Songwriters Hall of Fame (biography and song list)
• Wikipedia (Oscar Hammerstein II article)
• Oscar Hammerstein II. Lyrics. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1949 (revised and updated in an edition edited by William Hammerstein and published by Hal Leonard, 1985).
• Hugh Fordin. Getting to Know Him A Biography of Oscar Hammerstein II. New York: Ungar, 1977; reprinted by Da Capo Press, 1995; with introduction by Stephen Sondheim.
• David Ewen. American Songwriters, An H. W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary. New York: The H. W. Wilson Co., 1987 (includes 146 bios of composers and lyricists). -- a wide selection of used copies is available at abebooks.com (entry pp. 199-203).
• Thomas S. Hischak. Word Crazy: Broadway Lyricists from Cohan to Sondheim. New York: Praeger, 1991 (pp. 31-43 and others).
• Gary Marmorstein, Hollywood Rhapsody: Movie Music and Its Makers, 1900-1975,
  New York: Schirmer Books, 1997 (multiple references).
• Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball (Eds.), Reading Lyrics, New York: Pantheon Books, 2000 (225-246, brief biography and multiple lyrics)7.
• William Zinsser. Easy to Remember The Great American Songwriters and Their Songs. Jaffrey, New Hampshire: David R. Godine, 2001 (179-183 plus multiple other references).
• Frederick Nolan The Sound of Their Music: The Story of Rodgers & Hammerstein New York: Applause Cinema and Theater Books, 2002.
• Ken Bloom. The American Songbook, The Singers, The Songwriters and the Songs. New York: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, 2005 (multiple references).
• Amy Asch (Ed.). The Complete Lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II. New York: Alfred A. Knoph, 2008.
• Thomas S. Hischak. The Oxford Companion to the American Musical: Theatre, Film, and Television. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008 (entry--pp. 321-322).
• Oscar Andrew Hammerstein. The Hammersteins: A Musical Theatre Family. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2010.
• Oscar Hammerstein II -- Out of My Dreams (two videos): PBS
• Stephen Sondheim on Hammerstein: Andrei Strizek

Notes

• Close to the end of the essay we have this:

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