Download or read book Lorenz Hart written by Frederick Nolan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1995-11-02 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lorenz Hart singlehandedly changed the craft of lyric writing. When Larry Hart first met Dick Rodgers in 1919, the commercial song lyric consisted of tired cliches and cloying Victorian sentimentality. Hart changed all that, always avoiding the obvious, aiming for the unexpected phrase that would twang the nerve or touch the heart. Endowed with both a buoyant wit and a tender, almost raw sincerity, Hart brought a poetic complexity to his art, capturing the everyday way people talk and weaving it into his lyrics. Songs had never been written like that before, and afterwards it seemed impossible that songs would ever be written any other way. Lorenz Hart: A Poet on Broadway presents the public triumphs of a true genius of the American musical theatre, and the personal tragedies of a man his friend the singer Mabel Mercer described as "the saddest man I ever knew." Author Frederick Nolan began researching this definitive biography in 1968, tracking down and interviewing Hart's friends and collaborators one by one, including a remarkable conversation with Richard Rodgers himself. A veritable who's who of Broadway's golden age, including Joshua Logan, Gene Kelly, George Abbott and many more, recall their uncensored and often hilarious, sometimes poignant memories of the cigar-chomping wordsmith who composed some of the best lyrics ever concocted for the Broadway stage, but who remained forever lost and lonely in the crowds of hangers-on he attracted. A portrait of Hart emerges as a Renaissance and endearing bon vivant conflicted by his homosexuality and ultimately torn apart by alcoholism. Nolan skillfully pulls together the chaotic details of Hart's remarkable life, beginning with his bohemian upbringing in turn of the century Harlem. Here are his first ventures into show business, and the 24-year-old Hart's first meeting with the 16-year-old Richard Rodgers. "Neither of us mentioned it," Rodgers later recalled, "but we evidently knew we would work together, and I left Hart's house having acquired in one afternoon a career, a best friend, and a source of permanent irritation." Nolan captures it all: the team's early setbacks, the spectacular hour long standing ovation for their hit song, "Manhattan," the Hollywood years (which inspired Hart to utter the undying line, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean the bastards aren't out to get you"), and the unforgettable string of hit shows that included "On Your Toes," "The Boys from Syracuse," and their masterpiece, "Pal Joey." But while success made Rodgers more confident, more musically daring, and more disciplined, for Hart the rounds of parties, wisecracks, and most of all drinking began to take more and more of a toll on his work. When Hart's unreliability forced Rodgers to reluctantly seek out another lyricist, Oscar Hammerstein II, and their collaboration resulted in the unprecedented artistic and commercial success of "Oklahoma," Hart never truly recovered. Meticulously researched and rich with anecdotes that capture the excitement, the hilarity, the dizzying heights, and the crushing lows of a life on Broadway, Lorenz Hart is the story of an American original.
Download or read book A Ship Without A Sail written by Gary Marmorstein and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-07-16 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lorenz Hart, together with Richard Rodgers, created some of the most beautiful and witty songs ever written. Here is the story of the strikingly unromantic life of this songwriting genius. His lyrics spin with brilliance and sophistication, yet at their core is an unmistakable wistfulness. Rodgers and Hart, who wrote approximately thirty Broadway musicals and dozens of songs for Hollywood films, were an odd couple. Rodgers was precise, punctual, heterosexual, handsome, and eager to be accepted by society. Hart was barely five feet tall, alcoholic, homosexual, and more comfortable in a bar or restaurant than anywhere else. His lyrics are all the more remarkable considering that he never sustained a romantic relationship, living his entire life with his mother, who died only months before his own death at 48. Biographer Marmorstein superbly portrays the life of this exuberant yet troubled artist.--From publisher description.
Download or read book Thou Swell Thou Witty written by Dorothy Hart and published by Hamish Hamilton. This book was released on 1978 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book We ll Have Manhattan written by Dominic Symonds and published by Broadway Legacies. This book was released on 2015 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart are one of the defining duos of musical theater, contributing dozens of classic songs to the Great American Songbook and working together on over 40 shows before Hart's death. With hit after hit on both Broadway and the West End, they produced many of the celebrated songs of the '20s and '30s--such as Manhattan, The Lady is a Tramp, and Bewitched--that remain popular favorites with great cultural resonance today. Yet the early years of these iconic collaborators have remained largely unexamined. We'll Have Manhattan: The Early Work of Rodgers & Hart provides unprecedented insight into the first, formative period of Rodgers and Hart's collaboration. Author Dominic Symonds examines the pair and their work from their first meeting in 1919 to their brief flirtation with Hollywood in the early 1930s as they left the theater to explore sound film. During this time, their output was prodigious, progressive, and experimental. They developed their characteristic style and a new approach to musical theater writing that provided the groundwork for the development of the Broadway musical. Symonds also analyzes the theme of identity that runs throughout Rodgers and Hart's work, how the business side of the theater affected their artistic output, and their continued experimentation with a song's dramatic role within a narrative. We'll Have Manhattan goes beyond a biographical or historical look at Rodgers and Hart's early years--it's also an accessible but authoritative study of their material. Symonds documents their early shows and provides deft critical and analytical commentary on their evolving practice and its influence on the subsequent development of the American musical. Fans of musical theater and devotees of Rodgers and Hart will find this definitive exploration of their early works to be an essential addition to their Broadway library.
Download or read book I d Rather Be Right written by George S. Kaufman and published by . This book was released on 2013-10 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a new release of the original 1937 edition.
Download or read book Musical Stages written by Richard Rodgers and published by New York : Random House. This book was released on 1975 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Astaires written by Kathleen Riley and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-01 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book about the theatre career of Fred and Adele Astaire, detailing their years in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in London, their impact culturally, and the essence of their partnership on and off the stage.
Download or read book Steel Pier written by John Kander and published by Samuel French, Inc.. This book was released on 1998 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Genre: Musical Characters: 7 males, 8 females, and chorus of 8 males and 5 females In the honky tonk world of marathon dancing in Atlantic City in 1933, a captivating assortment of depression era souls eager to dance their way into fame and prizes gather on the Steel Pier. The spectacle is presided over by an oily tongued emcee who is secretly married to Rita Racine, the champion dancer. Her usual partner doesn't show up, so she is paired with a handsome pilot on leave. As the hours o
Download or read book Pal Joey written by John O'Hara and published by . This book was released on 1945 with total page 95 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book This Man Music written by Anthony Burgess and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2001 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Applause Books). Anthony Burgess was the author of over 50 books, including his best known novel, "A Clockwork Orange." But Burgess always emphasized music as the ruling passion in his creative life. Largely self-taught in music, Burgess composed his first symphony before he was twenty, many years before his first novel, and he was the composer of over 65 musical works. In these deeply insightful meditations, the renowned writer explores the meaning of music, the intention of the composer and the process of composition, and the seemingly elusive relationships between literature and music. Burgess shows how "the process of literary composition are revealed by the writers themselves" and then gathers evidence to understand the "inexplicable magic" of the details of the operation of music what is music's "intelligibility"? From Shakespeare to the lyric verse of Gerard Manley Hopkins, from the modernists T.S. Eliot and James Joyce to the modern lyricists Lorenz Hart and Stephen Sondheim, Burgess reveals how prose writers have struggled to tap the inherent musicality of their material. This treasured classic, at last back in print, provides a fascinating perspective on the mutually enriching relationship of these two creative arts by a man who mastered them both.
Download or read book Act One written by Moss Hart and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Act One is the autobiography of Moss Hart, an American playwright and theatre director. Born into impoverished circumstances—his father was often unemployed—Hart left school at age twelve for a series of odd jobs that included being an entertainment director at a Catskills summer resort. Hart’s big break came in 1930 with the Broadway hit Once in a Lifetime, written with George Kaufman. The two would collaborate again on You Can’t Take It With You (1936) and The Man Who Came To Dinner (1939). You Can’t Take It With You won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1937, and the 1938 film version, directed by Frank Capra, won Oscars for both Best Picture and Best Director. Act One was adapted for a 1963 film starring George Hamilton, and for a 2014 stage production starring Tony Shalhoub and Andrea Martin. HarperTorch brings great works of non-fiction and the dramatic arts to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperTorch collection to build your digital library.
Download or read book A Fine Romance written by David Lehman and published by Schocken. This book was released on 2009-10-06 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In A Fine Romance, David Lehman looks at the formation of the American songbook—the timeless numbers that became jazz standards, iconic love songs, and sound tracks to famous movies—and explores the extraordinary fact that this songbook was written almost exclusively by Jews. An acclaimed poet, editor, and cultural critic, David Lehman hears America singing—with a Yiddish accent. He guides us through America in the golden age of song, when “Embraceable You,” “White Christmas,” “Easter Parade,” “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man,” “My Romance,” “Cheek to Cheek,” “Stormy Weather,” and countless others became nothing less than the American sound track. The stories behind these songs, the shows from which many of them came, and the shows from which many of them came, and the composers and lyricists who wrote them give voice to a specifically American saga of love, longing, assimilation, and transformation. Lehman’s analytical skills, wit, and exuberance infuse this book with an energy and a tone like no other: at once sharply observant, personally searching, and attuned to the songs that all of us love. He helps us understand how natural it should be that Wizard of Oz composer Harold Arlen was the son of a cantor who incorporated “Over the Rainbow” into his Sabbath liturgy, and why Cole Porter—the rare non-Jew in this pantheon of musicians who wrote these classic songs shaped America even as America was shaping them. (Part of the Jewish Encounter series)
Download or read book Babes in Arms written by Richard Rodgers and published by . This book was released on 1960 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Rodgers and Hart written by and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 19 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Somewhere for Me written by Meryle Secrest and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2001 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Secrest, biographer of Frank Lloyd Wright, Stephen Sondheim, and Leonard Bernstein, brings her extraordinary skills to this full-scale life of composer Rodgers. She shows for the first time the complexities of his nature, his emotional fault lines, and, most important, the wellsprings of his art.
Download or read book Something Wonderful written by Todd S. Purdum and published by Henry Holt. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Even before they joined forces, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II had written dozens of Broadway shows, but together they pioneered a new art form: the serious musical play. Their songs and dance numbers served to advance the drama and reveal character, a sharp break from the past and the template on which all future musicals would be built. [This is a portrait of that creative partnership]"--Amazon.com
Download or read book Simply Rodgers and Hart written by Richard Rodgers and published by Alfred Music. This book was released on 2008-10-08 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Simply Rodgers and Hart is a collection of the most famous songs by Richard Rodgers (1902--1979) and Lorenz Hart (1895--1943). These have been carefully selected and arranged by Matt Hyzer for Easy Piano, making many of Rodgers and Hart’s most enduring melodies accessible to pianists of all ages. Phrase markings, articulations, fingering, pedaling and dynamics have been included to aid with interpretation, and a large print size makes the notation easy to read. Titles: * Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered * Blue Moon * The Blue Room * Dancing on the Ceiling * Falling in Love with Love * Have You Met Miss Jones? * He Was Too Good to Me * I Could Write a Book * I Didn’t Know What Time It Was * I Wish I Were in Love Again * It Never Entered My Mind * Johnny One Note * The Lady Is a Tramp * Mountain Greenery * My Funny Valentine * My Heart Stood Still * There’s a Small Hotel * Where or When * With a Song in My Heart * You Are Too Beautiful * You Took Advantage of Me. 80 pages.
