Richard Rodgers
Will be published approx. on 29. May 2015
Book
Paperback/Softback
336 pages
978-0-300-21760-5 (ISBN)
Description
A lively book that examines-for the first time-the full range of music by one of America's most celebrated composers
Richard Rodgers was an icon of the musical theater, a prolific composer whose career spanned six decades and who wrote more than a thousand songs and forty shows for the American stage. In this absorbing book, Geoffrey Block examines Rodgers's entire career, providing rich details about the creation, staging, and critical reception of some of his most popular musicals. Block traces Rodgers's musical education, early work, and the development of his musical and dramatic language. He focuses on two shows by Rodgers and Hart (A Connecticut Yankee and The Boys from Syracuse) and two by Rodgers and Hammerstein (South Pacific and Cinderella), offering new insights into each one. He concludes with the first serious look at the five neglected and often maligned musicals that Rodgers composed in the 1960s and 1970s, after the death of Hammerstein.
Richard Rodgers was an icon of the musical theater, a prolific composer whose career spanned six decades and who wrote more than a thousand songs and forty shows for the American stage. In this absorbing book, Geoffrey Block examines Rodgers's entire career, providing rich details about the creation, staging, and critical reception of some of his most popular musicals. Block traces Rodgers's musical education, early work, and the development of his musical and dramatic language. He focuses on two shows by Rodgers and Hart (A Connecticut Yankee and The Boys from Syracuse) and two by Rodgers and Hammerstein (South Pacific and Cinderella), offering new insights into each one. He concludes with the first serious look at the five neglected and often maligned musicals that Rodgers composed in the 1960s and 1970s, after the death of Hammerstein.
Reviews / Votes
"Geoffrey Block's book is perceptive, stimulating, sometimes provocative, and always interesting. By setting out to examine Rodgers's work rather than his somewhat dismal life, the author not only concentrates upon what is important about Rodgers but offers example after example of the composer's methods, enabling even the most musically unsophisticated reader to appreciate the subtleties of his work."-Frederick Nolan, author of Lorenz Hart: A Poet on BroadwayMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
30 b-w + 18 color illus. + 24 musical examples
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
513 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-300-21760-5 (9780300217605)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Geoffrey Block is editor of the Richard Rodgers Reader and author of Enchanted Evenings: The Broadway Musical from "Show Boat" to Sondheim. Professor of music at the University of Puget Sound, he is also coeditor of Charles Ives and the Classical Tradition, published by Yale University Press.