Professor David Peimer
Oscar Hammerstein II: A Giant of the American Musical

Professor David Peimer - Oscar Hammerstein II: A Giant of the American Musical

Audio and visuals play throughout the lecture.

- Okay. So hi, everybody, and hope everybody is well. So today we are going to dive into Mr. Oscar Hammerstein II 1895, 1960, as you can see. And some of, for me, the remarkable qualities that he had and what he contributed to the huge development of American and global musical theatre. And also trying to understand a few questions that I’m going to pose about him and his work. And then after a little bit of introduction and a little bit about his life, and I’m going to look at a bit of the Jewish connection, and I believe the Jewish influence on his work. And then show some clips from some of the great movies that we all know, and some of the songs we all know so well, obviously Sound of Music and others. And I think that people often, It’s very easy to denigrate people like Oscar Hammerstein, Richard Rogers, even Irving Berlin, whoever, many of them. But I think they were great in the times that they live and still with us. And there’s a reason why they’ve lasted. So just to begin by saying that, when I studied at Columbia on a Fulbright, and I had the honour of being taught by Hammerstein’s son, Jamie, and he taught us, obviously his father’s work and some of the others, not only great musical theatre, but other music in film, music in theatre, and other things as well.

So I’m going to include a couple of little things that his son, Jamie Hammerstein, used to share with us as eager young students at the time when we were studying, doing our post-grad stuff there. And Oscar Hammerstein donated, at that time, a million dollars, to set up the theatre department at Columbia, which is what I was a part of in the end of the late 80s to the early 90s. And it was his money and legacy that, Basically, it was called Oscar Hammerstein Centre for Theatre Studies. So there’s an extra connection in that way on a very minor personal level for me to good old Oscar. And it was an amazing set of people and everything that were there because of, I think his name, that it brought in. So, Mr. Hammerstein. The two questions that I really want to look at during today. The first is Steven Sondheim said that he regarded Oscar as the great innovator of American musical theatre and why. And that fascinates me ‘cause Sondheim uses the word, he chooses the word innovator. I mean, he then goes on about creating and et cetera, et cetera. But that word innovator is profound. And I’m going to try and tease out as we go through today what I think Sondheim was getting at in terms of actual musical theatre itself. And then the second question I really want to look at is, of course, a lot of it is sentimental. Of course, a lot of it is highly romanticised and all that. But I want to propose that because it’s sentimental doesn’t mean it’s naive.

And it doesn’t mean that it’s therefore that we can somehow sit outside and say, well, this is just schmaltz and sugary sweet entertainment, goodbye. The real question is why do so many people love the work of Hammerstein and many others, Rogers, Irving Berlin, and many, many others. Why do people love the Beatles, the pop songs, and so on? What is it about, yes, let’s call it sentimentality or highly romanticised versions of something, of a love story or whatever it might be, why is it that people like it so much? Why do people pay good money to go and watch it in theatre, in film, wherever? And that’s what fascinates me. So it’s not quite a binary sort of pro and con. I think it’s a much more nuanced thought of, well, what do we actually mean when we say something sentimental or highly romanticised, or there’s got nothing to do with reality and we just dismiss it out of hand instead of asking the deeper question, well, why do we go out humming the tune, and why decades later do we still hum the tune? Why do we still remember it? And as I’ve said, it could relate to The Beatles, just so many, Hammerstein as well. Okay, so to start, can you go on to the next slide, please? This is for me, an amazing picture. On the left of your screen is Richard Rogers, Jewish, in the middle, Mr. Irving Berlin, Jewish, and on the right hand side, Mr. Oscar Hammerstein, half Jewish, the father was, and his mother was Scottish Presbyterian. So look at this amazing picture for me has always struck me. Here, we have Rogers, Irving Berlin, and Hammerstein.

This was taken while they were auditioning for something they were working on. And I’ve always loved it because they not focused on the camera and trying to be cheesy and smile and all the rest of it. They focused on the audition process and the pictures just snapped while they’re in the focus and while they’re working. So for me, a fascinating of three of the greats, true greats of American musical theatre and what they contributed to the development of the art. Okay, we’ve gone to the next slide, please. So these are some of the works that Hammerstein did. Let’s just look at this, Show Boat, Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, The Sound of Music. This is Rogers and Hammerstein. Okay, Show Boat was Jerome Kern. But this is some of the, and there were a whole lot of others as well, but this is just some, and I mean, my God, if you think about these things are done everywhere in the world, not only in New York and America, they’re done all over.

Why? What is it that makes them so popular in a global way and that they’ll still done so many decades later? Just a few, a handful of a few of their great works and why do they last. Okay, we go to the next slide, please. So we can hold that before we start showing it. I just want to say this is going to be an interview with Mike Wallace, where he interviews Oscar Hammerstein, and it’s a beautiful, You know, it goes way back to the 60s interview, but it’s such a, I think it’s a thoughtful way Mike Wallace interviewing Hammerstein and the thoughtful, yet precise answers that Hammerstein gives. Okay. So if we can play it, please?

Video plays.

• Good evening. Tonight, we go after the story of a great Including the Rogers and Hammerstein classics, Oklahoma, Carousel, The King and I, and South Pacific, which has just been made into a Hollywood film. If you’re curious to know why Oscar Hammerstein believes his musical plays are serious commentaries on life. If you’d like to hear the social and political conviction that go into his work, and if you want to know why Mr. Hammerstein prefers sentiment to sophistication, want to worldliness, we’ll go after those stories in just a moment. My name is Mike Wallace, the cigarette is Parliament. And now to our story. Oscar Hammerstein is a gentle, kindly man who write sentimental love stories for the stage like Oklahoma, Carousel, and South Pacific. Set to music by Richard Rogers, these shows are among the most vivid and successful works done in the American theatre. And Rogers and Hammerstein probably made more money than any two men in the history of music. Oscar, an article about you in Holiday magazine once said this, it said that you are possessed of a vague humanitarian fervour. That way back in 1924, Alexander Woollcott reviewed one of your shows and said that its message was, quote, “That we should all have faith and be very, very good.” And Holiday concludes that your present credo is just about as vague. What do you think of that criticism?

• What’s vague about that? Nothing vague about having faith. And of course, the play that Alex Woollcott was reviewing was one of my earlier efforts. And during those earlier efforts, I very often may have spilled over a little bit in sentiment.

• [Mike] That was Gypsy Jim.

• Yes, Gypsy Jim I thought it was. I think whatever he said about that, we deserved. But I would like to talk about sentiment for a moment, if you let me, in contradistinction to sophistication.

• [Mike] Fine.

• The sophisticated is a man who thinks he can swim better than he can, and sometime drowns himself. He thinks he can drive better than he really can, and sometimes causes great smash ups. So in my book, there’s nothing wrong with sentiment because the things we’re sentimental about are the fundamental things in life. The birth of a child, the death of a child or of anybody, falling in love. I couldn’t be anything but sentimental about these basic things. I think to be anything but sentimental is being a poser.

• [Mike] Well, Oscar, this article that I have referenced to was written by a man by the name of Kenneth Tynan. He says that you and Richard Rogers are so infatuated with your, quote, “love for trees and earth and the simple life” that you forfeited the civilised virtue of mature wit and urban irony.

• Or maybe I have. I’m not very interested in urban irony. I’m not that kind of man. I’m not ironic, I’m not very urban, but I love trees. I hope I’ll never stop loving them. Trees, green meadows, who cannot love them? Doesn’t Kenneth Tynan like those? I imagine he does. I know Kenneth Tynan. I think he’s a very witty and sound critic himself.

• [Mike] Let me put it in this, Let me come to it this way, if I may, I said before that you have written tuneful, attractively. I believe that you feel that you have had something to say above and beyond the music and the glitter and the men and the costumes. In each of your musical plays, I wonder if I could ask you to capsulize in as few seconds as you can do it effectively what you were trying to say, for instance, in South Pacific.

• Mike, may I put a little preamble to this discussion? I’d like to say that I’ve never, nor has Richard Rogers, sat down and said, now what have we got to say in the next one, and picked a story. We’ve always chosen a story that we found attractive, and then we’ve gone ahead and written it. And I think when a writer writes anything about anything at all, he gives himself away. And what he has to say comes out incidental to his motive for writing an entertaining and arresting musical show.

• [Mike] I see, I see. Now then, the South Pacific. Well, South Pacific had two love stories in it. In fact, it has two life stories in it. And they both concerned, in a different way, race prejudice, an Nellie Forbush, the Navy nurse, is in love with the Frenchmen. And when she finds out that he was once married to a Polynesian woman who has two half Polynesian children, she runs away, she’s shocked by it. And she’s awakened later when she fears he is dead. And then suddenly she realises how unimportant was her prejudice, how important it was that she loved him, and how much she wants him back no matter what kind of children he had. And the other love story is about the young Marine who falls over the Tonkinese girl on the island. And after rejecting her as a wife, although he loves her, he then concludes after he has lost her, that if he comes out of the war alive, he will come back here and marry her. Well, what we were saying was just what Nellie says in one of her last scenes, all that was pitiful, all this prejudice that we have is something that fades away in the face of something that’s really important.

• [Mike] Does that express your view? As far as you are concerned, miscegenation in a marriage between races is perfectly sensible?

• Yes.

• [Mike] In the King and I.

Video ends.

• If we could hold it there, please, Hannah. Okay. So if we can just freeze it there. So I want to show this, because to me, it shows such a subtle, nuanced understanding of these words which are so easily banded around sentimentality or in contemporary terms, over highly romantic or naively romantic. And the word naive, I don’t think there’s anything a bit naive about what he’s saying and what he’s intellectually thought through. I think he’s understood it. It’s such a clear understanding of what South Pacific is about. And as he goes onto the King and I and about authority and power and so on. And he goes later to talk about in the interview, the difference between being simple and being sentimental. And the two are not necessarily linked. That to be simple, to know your theme. It may be prejudice, it may be kingly authority and power, whatever, and then the humanity inside that. I think there’s such a clarity, and I don’t want to sound over romantic about Hammerstein, but I think that this guy comes up from the school of tough knocks. And he understands. He knows what he’s on about, and he knows the predictable response.

This is sentimental, this is naive, this is over romantic, et cetera. And it’s easy to dismiss in that simplistic way. And that’s simplistic, not simple. Therefore, I think there’s something more inside it. We can just keep holding on on this image of Oscar. And there’s a reason why we love it. I think that, You know, I was watching an interview with Stephen Fry the other day, just reminded of a couple of the ancient Greek myths. And the ancient Greeks believe that a man’s reach should exceed his grasp. Or what is life for, what is his life for? And I think what these guys did, Hammerstein, Rogers, and others, they pushed the edge of the envelope in terms of musical theatre, in terms of ideas. We’ve got to remember Show Boats, and I’m going to show a clip with Paul Robeson singing, this is done in the very early days of the century. And Black and white and half Polynesian, half this, half that, nevermind what’s going on today around the world with different nationalities, religious groups, ethnic groups, but these guys were doing it way back then.

So why do we need it? Why do we need this kind of thing? Because there’s something deeper inside the piece. There’s something a little bit more profound than just a song and dance, happy girl, happy tune, a couple of good comic jokes and goodbye, let’s go home and have coffee. There’s something more that they’re aiming at. And as he says, birth of a child, the death of a loved one, et cetera. Of course, we are going to be what may be called sentimental, we may be what’s called naive, we may romanticise. But that is part of being human. Why do we need it? Hammerstein, from me, belongs with Irving Berlin and Richard Rogers. Obviously, I mean, he’s coming from immigrant stock, he’s coming from the Jewish world, partly, at least for Hammerstein. And so the endless debate between assimilation and need to belong, but ultimately remaining an outsider. And that is the key. All these guys are outsiders because they come from immigrant, and in his case, at least half Jewish and the others Jewish backgrounds. And I think that’s very, very important. And as Hannah Arendt said, whether they become parvenu or pariah, and she spoke about the Jewish person as the outsider, who then becomes parvenu, the upstart made good, or pariah, which is of course the pariah on the host culture, which we know only too well in terms of anti-Semitism.

But it’s also about the assimilation, because one can’t be in a culture and not try to assimilate. So there’s always that, if you like, tension between the two, that everyone knows only too well. And it goes between pariah and parvenu, I really believe it. And he is part of it. He’s belonging and part of it, but he is also outside of it because of who he is and his background. You know, these things are not just schmaltz and sugar sweet nonsense. They are that partly, yes, of course, but they’re something more. And that’s really what I want to suggest today. And in that ancient Greek idea of reaching out, pushing further. 'cause what’s fascinating when you look at ancient Greeks, there’s so many myths. And in our times, and these musicals deal with myths of hope, myths of dreams, myths of what a life could be, dream of a world that once was, maybe a dream of a world that could be in a free new country and the hope that goes with it. Not just under the cliche of the American dream, but the profound myth that, you know, I’m going somewhere different because I have hope, because I might be freer, because there might be more opportunity, whatever.

Is it just schmaltz? Is it just sugary sweet? Or is it a dream of a nostalgic past, almost childlike innocence and discovering that maybe it’s possible? Is it a dream that never was, but could be? What is it? And the real thing I think that Hammerstein does, and he talks about, And a lot of the songs later allude to the word dream. Without a dream, what is a person? Steve Jobs had to dream of that iPhone and other things. You know, things start first as a myth, the word dream, a fantasy, a hope. Why do we need them? We need them to be alive. We need them to motivate us. We need them to believe there might be something that we can do. Some people believe Noah and his ark, two by two, all the animals went in. Some people don’t believe it. It’s a nonsense myth. Some people might believe it, whichever, but there’s the desire for some kind of mythical dream of a world where things can be better or things can happen. So we have a need for myths, whether they in that cold sense of the word realistic or whether they are unrealistic, for ritual, for ceremony, we have a need for romanticism, for myths, and for what might be called sentimentality. And that’s profoundly human, I think. That in addition.

And so there’s a striving for it. And you get that when you watch the ancient Greek stuff and you read all about it. And I think cultures and individuals that stop dreaming are doomed. And I really believe in that. And there are many examples from history, I don’t want to go into it. And I’m not talking about the quality of the dream, may good or bad, but it’s there. So now what we’ve played gracefully with a couple of ideas, as Oscar Wildman said. If we can move on please to the next slide. Okay. This is Oscar reading from Allegro, which is the early work that Sondheim talks about in that interview with Sondheim. And he reads, and this is just a couple of lines, from the script of Allegro, the very early work that he wrote. And this is Hammerstein himself reading it. Can you play it please?

Video plays.

• [Stephen] What I imagine are your feelings about this modern world of ours. And I wonder if you would recite those lines for us.

• [Oscar] “Our world is for the forceful and not for sentimental folk, but brilliant and resourceful and paranoiac gentle folk. Not soft and sentimental folk. Allegro, a musician would so describe the speed of it, the clashed and competition of counterpoint. The need of it? We cannot prove the need of it. We know no other way of living out a day. Our music must be galloping and gay. We muffle all the undertones, minor blood-and-thunder tones, the overtones are all we care to play. Hysterically frantic, we are stubbornly romantic and doggedly determined to be gay. Brisk, lively, merry and bright. Allegro. Same tempo, morning and night. Allegro. Don’t stop whatever you do. Do something dizzy and new. Keep up the hullabaloo. Allegro, Allegro, Allegro.”

Video ends.

• You hold it there please, Hannah. Yeah, thank you. So keep on this image. So there’s Oscar. To me, those are not the words. And this is a very early piece that he wrote, Allegro. This is way before all his famous musicals. Not sentimentally, he says it. Right at the beginning, the character says it, but resourceful, and all the other things, yeah, he can be paranoid and this and that, all these other things. He’s aware completely of the accusations that are going to be easily thrown at him. But to be resourceful, to be tough, to be streetwise, to be aware, all these. And this is the character of Allegro. And Sondheim mostly refers back to the very early libretto that he wrote of Allegro. You know, this is what I think got, And Oscar, this is a half an hour interview, goes on, and he talks about how this was the closest to his own, if you like, autobiography, to his own feeling. I don’t want to go into the whole musical. So he’s completely aware of the word sentimental and the others. This is not a naive guy writing, I don’t think in the slightest. So he’s a librettist, he’s a theatrical producer. He worked for nearly 40 years. He won eight Tony Awards, two Academy Awards for the best song, and co-wrote 850 songs in his 65 years of life. We all know his collaborations. And I want to quote Sondheim. Sondheim called him an experimental playwright, and that he helped bring the American musical to maturity by making musicals that are focused on story and character and idea, not just light entertainment, comedy, and song.

Now it’s such a clear sense by Sondheim. And Sondheim went because he was friendly with a Hammerstein family. Sondheim also was in a way mentored or taught by Oscar, you know, the specifics of playwriting and libretto writing. And he completely relates, He honours Oscar as his real mentor who taught him so much about the art and craft of writing libretto and musical theatre. He tried to bring play. He saw him as a playwright and sometimes talks about it. And Hammerstein talks about being a playwright and trying to bring story, character, theme or idea, song and music, all as an integrated whole. And not just vaudevilles comedy song routines of the past. And that is what Sondheim says was the great innovation that he brought to the art and craft of musical theatre. And I think that’s so important and insightful because that’s innovative and how he tried to take it, that big step forward, and how serious he was about his work. In this interview he goes on and he talks about just having one line, which ended with the word talk, but how hard it is to sing a line, which ends with the word talk, which is a hard consonant, the K, you can’t sing it, but if you have a Oh, Oklahoma, or You’ll Never Walk Alone or The Sound of Music, you can, it’s not a hard consonant. So the singing voice can continue it.

And he talks about that one, not only the word talk, but the letter K. And it wouldn’t work with that letter at the end of the line. Got to rewrite it. So he is aware of it in that level of detail of what he’s trying to do. He’s aware of, As he speaks earlier, when Mike Wallace asked him about South Pacific, he immediately goes into a story about prejudice and two couples. He doesn’t say, well, we tried this song of that and that was more popular, then this one was less popular. And the music here, what I try, He just goes straight within two sentences into the idea of prejudice and what he was really trying to do. And every single musical, he speaks like that, in that interview and this. And that’s real intelligence and a real awareness that’s going on here. He’s born in New York, the son of the theatre manager, William Hammerstein. And most importantly, I think his grandfather was a great German theatre impresario, Oscar Hammerstein I. And that’s the Jewish lineage.

And his own father was opposed to him going into the arts, very opposed. Insisted he go and study law, so he went to, to Columbia, studied law, but he quit in 1914 after his father’s death to pursue his love of theatre. Worked as many composers as we know. Jerome Kern. Mainly the main ones I want to mention, Jerome Kern and obviously Rogers. And their first masterpiece with Kern was Show Boat. It was at the time, a competing new genre. As one scholar wrote, “The musical play is distinguished from musical comedy, and the play was the thing, and everything else was subservient to the play.” So the integration of song and humour, production, music, theme, idea, characters, all had to serve that single artistic entity. And I think this scholar captures it in one phrase. And that’s a huge advance, what he’s done and what he’s contributed to the development of American and world musical theatre. Obviously, then he goes on to work with Rogers, and there’s Oklahoma and there’s many others. It’s also how songs and dancers can develop the plot and develop the character. That’s what he also did. So when a character sings, they’re not only commenting on their action like an ancient Greek kore, but they are taking the story further.

There might be like a soliloquy in Shakespeare revealing their inner thoughts and feelings or what they say is thinking of ideas but take the story further in the song. Now that’s, For us today, it’s old hat, but these guys innovated it. These guys helped to really give birth to that way of thinking about character when character sings. So it’s not so easy to dismiss Allegro, The Sound of Music, and all the others. He adapted Bizet’s opera, Carmen, as we all know, with an all Black cast in 1943. 1943, an all Black cast? Not quite so easy to do. So I wouldn’t jump to dismiss it at all. Also, he was an advocate for writers’ rights in the theatre industry. And he was a member of Dramatist Guild. And in 1956, he was elected the president. He died of stomach cancer in 1960, nine months after the opening of Sound of Music. So he could only enjoy that for nine months. And nine months, more or less, after he wrote Edelweiss, which was the last song that he wrote because Rogers and others said, we need one more song, just get us, and he wrote. That was his last.

He was quite ill for quite a while before. After he died, the lights of Times Square were turned off for a minute and there were thousands of people apparently there, in five or six, seven blocks around Times Square just stopped. Similarly, in the West End in London, it was a similar sense of reverence and a simple gratitude of thanks to Oscar. And of course, we all know the movie, The Sound of Music, made into the movie in 1965. So he made the story, he made the art of playwriting at the core. Not just the stars, not just even the songs, but it had to feel like a play that you are watching, a play unfold in all these integrated ways that I mentioned. And that’s part of the aesthetics or the art and the craft of musical theatre. And that changes it forever. Now, it’s old hat, as I say, take for granted completely. But these guys, in sometimes word Sondheim’s word, innovated. And that’s the core of what they innovated. Sondheim again and I’m quoting, “What few people understand is that Oscar’s big contribution to the theatre was as a theoretician, as an innovator. People don’t understand how experimental Show Boat and Oklahoma felt at the time that they were done. Oscar is not about the lark that is learning to prey. That’s easy to make fun of.

He’s about Allegro. Listen to the words, look at the story, look at the characters that he’s creating,” and he goes on and on, Sondheim. So I agree with that, that this tough-minded and socially conscious and thoughtful and artistically innovative guy, what he’s really doing, it goes a hell of a lot further. And of course, we know, I mean, let’s look at some of the ways that these pieces have just gone way beyond musical theatre and Broadway itself. Oklahoma, it’s been the official state song of Oklahoma. The song, You’ll Never Walk Alone, I’m going to show it to them in a few minutes, from Carousel, was taken up by Gerry and the Pacemakers in Liverpool in the early 60s became the anthem of the Liverpool Football Club. And every weekend, you get 60, 70,000 Liverpudlian and others singing the song at the top of their voices lifts the roof. It’s the most globally well-known song of football for billions of people around the world, comes from Carousel written by Hammerstein. So these contributions would go way beyond the wildest dreams, I think, of Hammerstein or anybody. It become absolutely enormous. Sondheim was a friend of the family from childhood, and he absolutely attributed his success to what he was taught by Oscar. Okay, if we go on to the next slide please. Yeah, I wanted to show a little bit of Paul Robeson singing Old Man River.

Video plays.

♪ Old man called the Mississippi ♪ ♪ That’s the old man that I’d like to be ♪ ♪ What does he care if the world’s got troubles ♪ ♪ What does he care if the land ain’t free ♪ ♪ He must know something ♪ ♪ But don’t say nothing ♪ ♪ He just keeps rolling ♪ ♪ He keeps on rolling along ♪ If we could hold it there, please.

Video ends.

So Paul Robeson going way back. How does he get it? This is Oscar writing. It sounds like an African American old spiritual. He’s able to project himself into the mindset and create something. And I think it goes back to what I said at the beginning, the outsider who could understand other outsiders of his time in history and the culture in America, of course, of the time. And that Robeson can sing it and do it, but it sounds and it becomes this enormous iconic song. It’s written by the son of a Jewish guy from New York. And so many of the others wrote so many things. So again, I think that there’s a very clear sense of understanding where and how all this work, or a lot of it anyway came from. And that even today, it can sound like it. And so few people know. Those who don’t know, of course, the Show Boat, they don’t know that it came from Mr. Hammerstein. Okay, if we can go to the next line, please. Okay. And we can just hold it there for a second. Okay, this is Gerry and the Pacemakers in the early 60s singing that song I mentioned, You’ll Never Walk Alone from Carousel.

Video plays.

♪ When you walk through a storm ♪ ♪ Hold your head up high ♪ ♪ And don’t be afraid of the dark ♪ ♪ At the end of a storm ♪ ♪ There’s a golden sky ♪ ♪ And the sweet silver song ♪ ♪ Of a lark ♪ ♪ Walk on through the wind ♪ ♪ Walk on through the rain ♪ ♪ For your dreams be tossed ♪ ♪ And blown ♪ ♪ Walk on ♪ ♪ Walk on ♪ ♪ With hope in your heart ♪ ♪ And you’ll never walk ♪ ♪ Alone ♪

Video ends.

If we could hold it there please, Hannah. So how can a song like this written for Carousel make so many people in one city and then become global as an iconic song of football everywhere around the world? It’s virtually not a single person who doesn’t know this song. So that’s probably over 1 to 2 billion in the world, coming from Oscar. And it’s sentimental? Yes. It’s romantic? Yes. Is it naive? To me, no. It’s goes to the core of what he’s saying about make it simple. It’s about something deep, something profound in all humanity. When times are tough courage and adversity, what do you do? Do you give up and shrug or do you walk on? And then maybe you won’t walk alone, you walk with your hope. It’s so simple. But is it banal? Is it naive? Is it sentimental, sugary sweet nonsense. It’s a debate forever. Okay, if we can show the next slide please.

This is to give you just a taste for a few seconds, we can play it, of 70,000 Liverpudlian screaming that same song. I’m not showing it just because I come from Liverpool or because I live in it. So the extraordinary impact that Oscar Hammerstein can have. Thousands of people. It’s at least 60, 70,000, all singing the song. Okay, we could hold that please. And go to the next slide. Okay, we’re going to come onto the iconic. But just before, something about his Jewish connection. According to his grandson, Andy Hammerstein, his Jewish heritage certainly influenced Oscar’s work and the Tony Awards and the Academy, et cetera. But the trace, the link that his grandson makes is to the grandfather, the one who was the impresario in Germany. This is what Andy Hammerstein wrote. “German Jews, especially those who had the opportunity to assimilate in the 1860s and 70s, metamorphosed their Judaism to a love of musical theatre. It appealed to the heart. What is musical theatre but song and story? What is Judaism but rabbi and cantors, the desire for song and story.

Judaism appeals to singer and storyteller. Oscar carried out a very Jewish tradition of sung story.” Interesting connection that his own grandson makes. And we can debate this endlessly, whether it’s accurate or not, but I think it’s a fascinating thought. His grandson went on that the audiences were less engaged with an unlikely story than with its songs and comedy. So he wanted to interweave the elements with a story, and what I mentioned earlier, character, theme, idea, all of it. In 1949, Oscar got enormous amount of flack from the song, You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught in South Pacific. Obviously, it’s about how racism is taught or prejudice is taught. It’s not inborn. So You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught, the song we all know from South Pacific. Well, he is writing that in 1949, let’s remember, and saying it’s not inborn. Prejudice is taught, it’s a learned thing. 1927, Show Boat. It’s a tale on the life on the Mississippi River, obviously after the Civil War. Well, he’s putting black and white on stage in making Black and white share a musical and share the plot and the story. In 1927, he and Jerome Kern are doing it. And as his grandson, Andy says, and I’m quoting, this was strong stuff way back then, the show and its authors were banned from much of the South for years. After the Great Depression, Oscar then migrated to Hollywood for movie studios.

And there he founded the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League in 1936 to warn Americans. That’s another thing that he did in 1936. The other thing that his grandson alludes to is how Oscar tries to show, inverted commas, in ordinary Americans, lives of some ordinary folk in America, which is, I mean, for part of it anyway. And he goes on to say “It was not only music, lyrics, libretto story that were integrated in his adaptation of Show Boat, but Black and white were integrated. They were integral to every dimension of the show, which helped to transform American musical theatre.” In the early 1940s, I’m not quoting anymore. In the early 1940s, the FBI and Edgar J. Hoover had a file on Hammerstein for many, many years, and had a file on Hammerstein because of Show Boat. It was surveillance. There was tapping on his phone. They were opening his letters because of a musical that he wrote in the early 40s, it started.

So all of this is showing a broader context, for me, for his life in this way. In 1926, he went to two productions of a play of the Dybbuk, which we all know, and to see if it may be for musical adaptation. But then he wrote, and I’m quoting his grandson here, “He wrote to his uncle, and he said he would’ve had to have cast aside all other plays, all other work that they were working on and study Jewish tradition and saturate ourselves in it with the atmosphere to make it perfect.” And what interests me is that they had a lot of other work going, they’re thinking of doing the Dybbuk as a musical, but we have to make it perfect. It’s that thought, that artistic drive, that reaching, that stretching, push the genre, push, innovate, push it further, take it all the time one step further. It’s that restless drive, maybe ‘cause of his Jewishness, his outsiderness, maybe more effectively by his desire to take the genre further. In 1949, Rogers and Hammerstein took an option on Irving Elman’s play, Tevye’s Daughters.

We all know, based on the stories of Sholem Aleichem, They didn’t follow it up, but they took an option. 1949, they thought of turning Tevye into what obviously what we all know becomes Fiddler. 1931, Hammerstein proposed a radio programme to NBC as a musical dramatic comedy about residents in a Bronx apartment who would be a Jewish family living across opposite an Irish family and have a musical based on both, in a comedy and a musical. 1948, Harry Ruby, the songwriter, writes to Oscar, saying that he’s going to a Halloween costume party at Groucho Marx’s home. I’m going to look at the Marx Brothers next week. A Halloween costume party at Groucho’s home. And Harry Ruby writes to Oscar, “Well, I was going to go as a middle aged Jew, but none of the costume companies has that kind of setup.” So most of his friends were obviously Jewish and most of the connections, everything, what he worked on. So that’s the link I wanted to draw to the outsider quality and to a large part of what I think the pariah and the parvenu bring, and what he’s doing with musical theatre in America.

Christopher Plummer obviously played Baron von Trapp. And he said afterwards it was an awful, sentimental, gooey show. Well, Christopher Plummer’s entitled to his opinion like anyone else. And it’s a debate that still rages today. Is it sentimental, gooey, awful show as Christopher Plummer says? Maybe. Is it just an sentimental, naive piece of romance, or is it something else? Is it that, plus, which is what I’m really trying to suggest. So if we go onto the next slide please. Okay, if we can play a bit from the classics, The Sound of music.

Video plays.

• These walls were not built to shut out problems. You have to face them. You have to live the life you were born to live. ♪ Climb every mountain ♪ ♪ Search high and low ♪ ♪ Follow every byway ♪ ♪ Every path you know ♪ ♪ Climb every mountain ♪ ♪ Ford every stream ♪ ♪ Follow every rainbow ♪ ♪ 'Till you find your dream. ♪

Video ends.

• And if we could hold it there please. ♪ That will need ♪ Thanks. So climb every mountain, you have to find your dream and follow your dream. Yes, it’s banal. Yes, it’s a line that’s been used so many times over hundreds of years of literature and other things. But is it sentimental? Is it an advice a parent would give, a grandparent would give, a teacher, a university per, whoever in the world, a football coach, whatever, would give? Is it a line or isn’t it? If it is, then why do we use those so much? Why do we hum this song, Climb Every Mountain? It sticks just because it’s a catchy tune, just because it’s catchy words, or is it something more? And that’s the whole debate of popular work, whether it’s pop music, The Beatles or others, whether it’s popular musicals like this, why does it still hold? What myth of hope is it talking to give to a child or to give to a young woman, in this case the Julie Andrews character, of course. It’s sentimental, plus. Bring it on to the next clip, please. Okay, we can skip this one. We all know this. We can go to the next one. Okay. The Von Trapp Family. Okay, can you play this please.

Video plays.

♪ So long, farewell ♪ ♪ Auf Wiedersehen, good night ♪ ♪ I hate to go and leave this pretty sight ♪ ♪ So long, farewell ♪ ♪ Auf Wiedersehen, adieu ♪ ♪ Adieu, adieu, to yieu and yieu and yieu ♪ ♪ So long, farewell ♪ ♪ Au revoir, auf Wiedersehen ♪ ♪ I’d like to stay and taste my first champagne ♪

• Yes?

• No ♪ So long, farewell ♪ ♪ Auf Wiedersehen, goodbye ♪ ♪ I leave and heave a sigh and say goodbye ♪ ♪ Goodbye ♪

Video ends.

• Okay, if we can hold it there. And freeze it for a moment. Thank you. Again, this is something, and he’s writing it later on in his, this is the final one of his life. Obviously, the outsider, the immigrant, is it nostalgic about the German past and all of that from the family that he comes from and his parents, et cetera. What’s happening, obviously in Europe, has it been dealt with as a piece? Why does it remain? Why do people go again and again? Is it just a nostalgic loss of innocence, trying to remember the innocence of childhood? Is it goodbye to the fatherland or the place it once was, but I can’t belong there anymore, got to find somewhere else to belong. Go somewhere new, I’ll try to belong. I’ll maybe assimilate partly, but partly not. I’ll be seen as an upstart, I’ll be seen as a pariah, but I’ll try and assimilate. I’ll get some freedom, opportunity. All of these questions I think are thrown up, I’ll be saying goodbye. Yes, it’s lighthearted, cheery, and sugary and it’s sweet. Of course it is.

It’s sentimental, plus. Because we all know the sense of leaving somewhere and going somewhere else and there ain’t any going back. And we all know that. And he knows that. And he knows he’s leaving life because he’s very ill when Sound of Music is being written. The other thing about a musical is that it’s very easy to denigrate musicals. Why? Because it’s an artifice. It’s such an obvious artifice. 'cause suddenly, a character bursts into song and dance, which is ridiculous. It’s a ridiculous genre. Character suddenly sings and dances and then comes back to talking like believable characters. It’s ridiculous. So it’s easy to denigrate as well, I think. But it underestimates the power, and it goes way back to ancient storytellers in Africa, Asia, Europe, wherever, of the oral storyteller who would sing and dance or sing the song, sing the poem. Because of course, most people couldn’t read or write. So they would go and perform and sing and move and dance and sing their stories, sing the poem and tell it at the same time and act it out, and dance as well.

So ancient art of storytelling is something very deep, I think, in this whole genre as well. It’s ridiculous, but there’s a pleasure. And I think that’s where the pleasure lies in why we go and watch these things. Pauline Kael, the great film critic, I’m sure many people would know of her, the great American film critic. Well, she in the beginning dismissed it as just sugary, sweetened, and nonsense. But later, she wrote, who could it offend? We may feel manipulated, it may be aesthetic imbeciles and feeling sickly, goody-goody songs. And we may question why are we being emotional, imbeciles, to use her words? Because we’re being manipulated to feel good about something sugary sweet. But does it offend us? No. So even she, and she’s a brilliant scholar and critic, had to come round to another way of thinking about this. Okay, we can play the next clip please. Sorry. Edelweiss, the last one.

Video plays.

• [Narrator] Edelweiss. When we first meet Captain von Trapp, he is cold and treats his children with little love or affection. But a turning point takes place when he takes out his guitar and sings this song surrounded by them. ♪ Edelweiss ♪ ♪ Every morning you greet me ♪ Edelweiss is simple and beautiful. And in the original scene, Liesl joins in singing with her father. ♪ And white ♪ ♪ Clean and bright ♪ ♪ Clean and bright ♪ ♪ You look happy to meet me ♪ ♪ You look happy to meet me ♪

Video ends.

The song gets a memorable reprise later in the film when the captain sings it at the Salzburg Festival concert, and his family accompanies him when he gets choked up. The moment where the crowd joins in in defiance of the Nazis gives us goosebumps every time.

• And if we can go into the last slide please. So what is it in the end for me that Oscar really, really brings? He’s able to write Edelweiss, which is, It’s just a tender homage to a flower of Austria that sounds like an Austrian folk song in the end, becomes almost so iconic like that. It’s got a moment there of the Nazis. Of course, it’s not the reality of the Nazis and it’s not the reality of any of all that. It’s sentimental and all, et cetera, but it’s something else. In addition, it’s not just sugary sweet, it sticks in us. And the real question we need to ask is why does it stick in our mind? Why don’t we just forget it if it really was complete sentimental nonsense and sugary? Old Man River, why does that stick? How does it get to make it sound like an African American folk song, as a genuine spiritual song, African American tradition in ancient history? How does he even manage to do that, and how and why does it stick?

Something in the words, something in the music that goes deeper than sentimentality, that goes deeper than just a romantic myth and a naive myth. Oklahoma opens with one of the most familiar moments of all musicals. Cowboy comes out, comes singing out in the dawn, and he’s declaring a what a beautiful morning. It’s ridiculous. Of course, it’s not real. It’s an artifice. It’s musical. It’s got to be sung. And also it is sentimental, it is romantic, but it’s a little bit more in addition. So it’s in my little homage today to Mr. Oscar Hammerstein in his brief moment. I think that it’s easy to denigrate, it’s easy to undermine, but I don’t think he’s anything naive about this guy. I think he’s a tough cookie. And what he wrote and what these others worked on, Irving Berlin, Rogers, and all the others, contribute something quite serious and quite important because of the simple question, why do we go to watch them again and again and again in movies or on the stage, and what did he contribute and innovate? Okay, so I’m going to hold it there and we’ll go into questions.

Q&A and Comments:

Thanks. So Marian. “I enjoy Hammerstein. He’s a good entertainment, even escapism.” Okay, well, that’s what I’ve been talking on today. Yes, there is escapism and there’s sentimental, but there’s a plus after that.

Okay, Rita. “Nothing to do with age.” I agree completely, Rita.

Stan. “South Pacific have to be carefully taught. It’s a song that best describes prejudice.” Exactly, Stan. Yep. Spot on. And it is one of his great songs, of course, and there it is.

Paul. “As always Mike Wallace was trying to bait him.” Yep. “And Hammerstein did not fall for it.” Exactly. By the way, they’re smoking all the time. Do you remember those times?

Okay, Margaret, “Interestingly, Kenneth Tynan didn’t see through the sentimentality to what the message was.” Yeah, exactly.

Exactly, Margaret. “Intelligent but dry.”

Yeah. Francine. “We need a dream. I think that’s why we love his work.” Yeah, I really believe it. And that goes into the song, You’ll Never Walk Alone, all these songs that I’ve shown today. It’s the word dream. And he talks about it in those interviews with Wallace and the other one. The human nature need for a dream. From being young to being older, middle aged, whatever, without that dream, what are we? Again, Steve Jobs had a dream or a hope that he could make something called an iPhone in the end. And so many others.

Okay. Francine. “Christopher Plummer was wrong. Sound of Music dealt with Nazism.” Yeah. He’s trying to deal with it in a whole different way. Exactly. Yeah.

Barry. “Allegro was not an early work. That’s his third show with Rogers between Carousel and South Pacific. Sondheim was the assistant stage manager on it.” Barry, I stand corrected and thank you. Okay.

And Ron. “And Oklahoma, 1943.” Yep. I hope you’re well, Ron.

Layla. “Hammerstein was,” God this keeps jumping in. “Hammerstein was, Okay, "Not an early work.” You’re right. Absolutely. Layla, yeah. “Hammerstein was Sondheim’s loco parentis.” Ah, okay, great. Thanks, Layla.

“The presentation were interesting with different slides.” Yep, we can. We had a big problem earlier over the technical, so I’ve just been jumping a bit quickly.

“Just an idea, any fascinating show pics?” Yeah, there are. There’s so many for all of these guys. There are so many one has to choose in the end for the time limit of a presentation. Rita. Thanks.

Monty. “Ken Tynan was famous.” Yeah, he wrote a little bit of Oh! Calcutta! Yep. “It’s great.” Thanks, Monty.

And Herbert. “Recently, I watched Carmen Jones.” Yep. Which is of course what Oscar wrote as well. The lyrics that he put to his adaptation of Bizet’s Carmen. Yep. “Not realising that Oscar had done it. Stand up and fight till you hear the bell.” Exactly. Okay.

Ron. “What do you think about the portrayal of Asians in-” Oh gosh, that’s another whole thing with, If there was time, I would get onto it, but thanks.

Judith. “Would you say Hammerstein were influenced by” Not sure there.

Sandra. “Apparently, Carousel was Hammerstein’s favourite.” I didn’t know that. I didn’t know which was his favourite. I try to find out before the lecture, but yeah. But that’s great if it was,

Sandra. “He certainly talks about You’ll Never Walk.” It’s the one song that he picks up on a few times in a couple of that interview and a few others that I showed. Margaret.

“Prefer the original to the hiccup version by Gerry and the Pacemaker.” Yeah, great. That’s in early 60s. That’s influenced by the Everly Brothers and others as a way of making the music of the very early 60s, late 50s. Okay. Now, sound again.

Roberto. “When Rene Fleming sang at recent Broadway of Carousel, it was breathtaking.” Great. Thank you for that.

Margaret. “The Sound” Again, The Sound. From the stadium. Ron. “I think of Old Man River’s greatness is due at least as much to Jerome Kerns powerful music.” Yeah.

“Show Boat was derived from the novel.” Yeah, exactly. “Written by a Jewish woman.” Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I would think, Ron, it’s the music and the lyrics, the vision. It’s the vision of the Mississippi and linking it to post-Civil War. And early, early civil rights, I guess. Okay. As a lyricist.

“Simple but exact words with long vowels.” Yes. 'cause then the singers can breathe and say, Exactly. And you got to watch out for the consonants in the words. Oh, What a Beautiful Morning, You’ll Never Walk Alone. And where you put the hard consonants in the words. Exactly.

Thelma, thank you. Very kind.

Michael. No, as far as I know you didn’t.

Rita. Oh, thank you. And to you as well. Hope everybody as well over this period. Okay. And the music and the vowels.

Judith. “Carmen” Okay.

Ron, “Christopher Plummer said to call the film,” Okay. Yeah. “The whole, I much prefer Rogers’ song with lyrics.” Okay. Well, that’s interesting.

Okay, Andy? Oh, thanks very much. Yeah, it’s the outsider. I agree. In the end, Andy, it’s about the outsider, and as Jewish and as who we are. I think it’s profoundly about the outsider and how the outsider goes from culture to culture and deals with different cultures. Obviously, the Jewish outsider, which I know, you know so well. And I think that’s the core of all of these guys that we look at. There’s no question.

I think, Monty, it’s not only contempt for an establishment, I think it’s to resolve the eternal tension between assimilate and try to belong, but not able to because of who one is born as, and then trying but not. It’s caught in that forever tension of assimilation. That’s the outsider.

Thanks, Hannah, and wishing you all the best. Paula. “Easy to denigrate.” Yeah. I think it’s easy to denigrate opera as well, except opera, because it has such an older tradition, and it comes originally in a way from the elite of Europe, the aristocracy, because it was co-opted as the high point of culture, opera has a different, if you like, response. Musical theatre had the response of, this is for the popular masses. Opera for the elite. And they’re terrible dichotomy, which I don’t like. And I’ve written librettos for operas and I don’t like that it’s so simplistic that dichotomy, I think, between the popular and the elite. I think it’s an old, ancient, boring debate, to be frank. But the idea of opera, I think because it has a different perception because of how it started with aristocracy and the elite.

Jeff, no sound again.

Hazel. “Having seen the concert of Drury Lane.” Yeah.

“Missing Roger and Hammerstein.” Thank you. Josie.

“As a Holocaust education.” Yes. Exactly. “It’s not being effective.” I think use of stories, et cetera. Yeah. I mean, when asked to think carefully how generation after generation do you tell the stories? Whether it’s the story of Moses, the story of the Noah’s Ark, or the story of the worst evil crime in human history, the story of the Holocaust, how does one tell these and pass it on for generation to generation, and how do you educate? How do you use it for education? And one has to adapt. As generations change, values change, technology changes, everything. One has to constantly keep up, I think. And you can’t rely just on old forms.

Paula. You think that’s why these songs stick. As what does with good literature, you remember what you love. That’s great.

“Oscar came to conclusions of The Sound of Music when he got older.” True. “He said he made it.” Yeah. Had a lot of money and fame from it.

Barbara. “My father was from Germany. He loved Edelweiss and told us how they were so beautiful and found in the mountains.” Yeah, that’s great. It’s a stunning song . If you listen to it carefully time after time. It’s a stunning, extraordinary piece of creativity. And look how long, 70 years ago? 60, 70 years ago, he wrote it. Susan, thank you.

Ron. “The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye. My name is less, place, rhymes.” Yeah, and he is a wordsmith. He’s a great wordsmith as well.

Jack. “Did Emerson both like the words and the music?” I’m not sure.

Rita, thank you. And to you as well. Okay. Thank you.

And to Wendy. Exactly. Thank you.

Elliot and Lynn. “Who’s a woman?” I don’t know. All I know is that obviously the picture of who these guys are.

Jill. “As a child is often buoyed up by the song with the happy tune.” Yep. Yeah, we all face adversity in life. So whatever songs or lines we do, when adversity strikes it, even if it’s just a self pep talk. You know, we climb this mountain or try this, or Paul McCartney or John Lennon, whatever, anything. Dylan.

“Genius.” You may have to clarify it. “Did one do lyrics and one do Yeah. Rogers did the music and Hammerstein did the lyrics. And they worked together very, very, He talks about the collaboration in a lovely way in the interview. It’s not just having similar ideas, it’s a similar vision of life. It’s a similar way of what are the values of life and the vision that they have that they were able to collaborate so closely. And of course, they’re both Jewish.

"I know the great Christopher Plummer really hates when he was typecast and people had forgotten all the other stuff.” Yeah, maybe. Well, thanks, Barbara. That’s great. Interesting.

Nina. “He’s a huge influence on Sondheim.” Yes. Bernard, which he spoke about. Okay. Yep. All good music.

Anne. “Can you explain Oscar’s relationship with Agnes de Mille? It was rather troubled.” Yeah. Oh, I dunno if we have time for that now, so hold on that. But thanks, Anne.

Judith. “Oscar is not influenced by the Ivor Novello.” I’ll have to check up on that, the detail.

Greta. “The song Tomorrow Belongs to Me.” Well, that’s absolutely brilliant because of where it’s sung and how it’s sung and how it’s filmed. And that’s what makes that such a remarkable piece of film brilliance.

Sandra. “He never mentioned The King and I.” I know. I mean, he talks about an interview as well. It’s just so much in one hour’s talk. We have to be selective.

Paula. “That was Edna Ferber.” Great. Thank you.

Rita. Yeah, but that’s what we love about it, Rita. I mean, we all, I’m an armchair critic. We all are.

Pamela, thanks. Soliloquy from Carousel. Yeah. Okay.

And Jack, thank you.

Barbara. When Show Boat be back a few years ago, many rehearsal turns to staged a protest when Show Boat was revived.“ Okay. I didn’t know about this protest. I’d have to find out a bit more about it. I’m not sure. But thanks for that. That’s very interesting, Barbara. Thanks. Barbara. And thank you. And wishing you as well, Barbara.

Jack. "Did he write the words?” No, he wrote the words and the story, and Rogers would write the music.

Barry. “The Elder Brother, Oklahoma, or Bar Mitzvah movie.” Great.

Myrna. “Opera is a vehicle for a particular voice, not any more or less.” It’s also a very good point, Myrna. “It’s a certain voice and the stories are generally silly.” Yes. It’s a certain way of singing in a voice, certain way of presentational singing, that represent what we call presentational. It’s presentational in theatre language.

Rita. Okay. We all do.

“He has sad eyes.” Yes, I agree, Susan. He’s seen, he understands life. So it’s so clear.

So may I say thank you to Hannah and thank you everybody. Sorry about the bit of sound problems that we had there in the middle. And just to say thank you so much and hope everybody in these terrible and dark times can have a bit of a restful time now. And next week, I’m going to do the Marx Brothers. And take care and look after yourselves. Thanks again, Hannah and everybody. Cheers.