Moschler, David - Compositional Style and Process in Rodgers & Hammerstein's Carousel

Compositional Style and Process in Rodgers and Hammersteins Carousel
By
David Crews Mschler
B.Mus. and B.A. (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) 2005
THESIS
Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
in
MUSIC
in the
OFFICE OF GRADUATE STUDIES
of the
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
DAVIS
Approved:
_____________________________________
D. Kern Holoman, chair
_____________________________________
Beth Levy
_____________________________________
Jon Rossini
Committee in Charge
2010
i
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This thesis was possible only with the generosity, advice, and assistance of many
people I now need to thank both collectively and individually. My thanks go, first of all,
to Beth Levy, whose never-ending patience with my writing, intelligent revisions and
editing, and shared enthusiasm for American musical theater was indispensable. To the
faculty and staff of the UC Davis Department of Music for their support during my time
here. To Jon Rossini for his comments and insight into the field of performance studies.
To Mark Eden Horowitz and the staff of the Music Division at the Library of Congress
for locating and processing many of the materials from their collections. To Bruce
Pomahac and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization for their generosity and
encouragement. Bruce Pomahac never hesitated to respond to the most minute and
mundane queries with a string of historical anecdotes that not only made the research
possible, but always exhilarating. To Tim Carter for his thoughtful suggestions on
pursuing a thesis on Rodgers and Hammerstein and Kim Kowalke for his thoughtprovoking conversations. To Kara Gardner and Peter Purin for sharing their writing and
research on Trude Rittman and Don Walker, respectively. To Ben Krauss for his
friendship and many late-night discussions over the years, when many of these ideas first
took form. To director Tony Howarth for his passion, vision, and insight into our
production of Carousel (College Light Opera Company, 2007), and to Robert and Ursula
Haslun for scheduling our production conveniently during the summer of my visit to
Library of Congress. Thanks of course to the cast, orchestra, and designers for my first
ii
production of Carousel, who helped bring this show to life and provided much
inspiration. To David Weiller, with whom I worked as assistant conductor and played
banjo for my first Rodgers and Hammerstein production, who instilled a deep-seated
passion and respect for their work. To director and choreographer Mindy Cooper, for her
insight into our production of Oklahoma! at the University of California, Davis, which
served as the performance portion of my MA degree and revealed to me the timeless
power of Rodgers and Hammerstein. To Brian McCune for his unwavering friendship and
assistance in preparing the musical examples. To Emma Goldin, who provided inspiration
and encouragement when it seemed like I could never get started. To my parents and
siblings, who have always supported my pursuit of music. Most especially I would like to
thank D. Kern Holoman, for his advising in all things musical and otherwise. This
document is dedicated to him.
Music and lyrics reprinted by arrangement with The Rodgers and Hammerstein
Organization.
2010 by Imagem, C.V.

Material contained herein, in a different form
1945 by Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein II, renewed.
International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved.
iii
CONTENTS
II
III
Acknowledgments
ii
Table of Contents
iv
Abstract
Songwriting in Carousel
1.1 The Engine of Broadway
1.2 The Sound World of Carousel
Early Drafts of Carousel
11
2.1 Prologue (The Carousel Waltz)
12
2.2 Julie and Carrie Sequence: Mister Snow
19
2.3 Scene Billy and Julie: If I Loved You
23
2.4 Soliloquy
31
The Legacy of Carousel
38
3.1 Carousels Afterlife
38
3.2 Operetta or Broadway Musical
41
Appendix: An Interview with Bruce Pomahac
45
Bibliography
90
iv
ABSTRACT
This thesis examines the score of Rodgers and Hammersteins 1945 musical,
Carousel. Following on the heels of the authors first collaboration, Oklahoma!, Carousel
continued the Hammerstein model of the serious musical play, while Rodgers greatly
expanded the music to more operatic dimensions. Demanding vocal writing, extended
musical sequences, and symphonic orchestration all contribute to its unique aesthetic. A
comparison between Rodgerss early drafts and the published versions illustrates the
evolution of four musical numbers: The Carousel Waltz, Mister Snow, If I Loved
You, and Soliloquy. Harmonic and structural analysis of the score proves that it is
more than just a collection of songs that advance the plot forward. Carousel's music
stands out from other Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, leaving an enduring legacy
and transcending the conventions of genre.
1
I
SONGWRITING IN CAROUSEL
On 19 April 1945 the musical Carousel opened on Broadway, and Richard Rodgers
and Oscar Hammerstein II found critical and commercial success in their second musical
collaboration. Written on the heels of their first show, the groundbreaking Oklahoma!,
Carousel served for a decade or more as the model Broadway musical: an integrated
storyline with musical numbers, an extended and psychologically probing ballet by
Agnes de Mille, and a gorgeous score that yielded several standards over the years. It was
both traditional and innovative at the same time.
A closer look at the compositional structure in the musical numbers of Carousel
reveals many departures from the conventional 1940s musical. Not only was Carousels
score musically distinct from the works of their own contemporaries, it also remains
markedly different from their own shows.
By 1937 composer George Gershwin had died unexpectedly from a brain tumor, and
in 1942 lyricist Lorenz Hart succumbed to his alcoholism, abruptly ending two of
Broadways most formidable songwriting teams, George and Ira Gershwin and Rodgers
and Hart. But by the end of the 1940s several important voices burst forth on the scene.
Table 1 is a brief survey of several Broadway musicals (and a few operas running in
Broadway theaters) from the 1940s.
2
Table 1. A Selective List of Broadway Shows, 1940491
Year
Show
1940 Higher and Higher

Louisiana Purchase
Hold on to Your Hats
Cabin in the Sky
Panama Hattie
Pal Joey
1941 Lady in the Dark
Best Foot Forward
Lets Face It
1942 Porgy and Bess (revival)
By Jupiter
This Is the Army
1943 Something for the Boys
Oklahoma!
One Touch of Venus
A Connecticut Yankee (rev.)
Carmen Jones
1944 Mexican Hayride
Follow the Girls
Song of Norway
Bloomer Girl
The Seven Lively Arts
On the Town
1945 Up in Central Park
Carousel
The Red Mill (revival)
The Day Before Spring
Billion Dollar Baby
1946 Show Boat (revival)
St. Louis Woman
Call Me Mister
Annie Get Your Gun
Around the World
Beggars Holiday
1947 Street Scene
Finians Rainbow
Brigadoon
The Telephone
The Medium
Composer / Lyricist
Richards Rodgers / Lorenz Hart
Irving Berlin
Burton Lane / E.Y. Harburg
Vernon Duke / John LaTouche
Cole Porter
Richard Rodgers / Lorenz Hart
Kurt Weill / Ira Gershwin
Hugh Martin / Ralph Blane
Cole Porter
George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin
Irving Berlin
Cole Porter
Richard Rodgers / Oscar Hammerstein II
Kurt Weill / Ogden Nash
Georges Bizet / Oscar Hammerstein II
Cole Porter
Phil Charig / Dan Shapiro & Milton Pascal
Edvard Grieg / Robert Wright & George Forrest
Harold Arlen / E.Y. Harburg
Porter (incl. Stravinskys Scnes de Ballet)
Bernstein / Betty Comden & Adolph Green
Sigmund Romberg / Herbert & Dorothy Fields
Victor Herbert / Henry Blossom
Frederick Loewe / Alan Jay Lerner
Morton Gould / Betty Comden & Adolph Green
Jerome Kern / Oscar Hammerstein II
Harold Arlen / Johnny Mercer
Harold Rome
Irving Berlin
Cole Porter
Duke Ellington / John LaTouche
Kurt Weill / Langston Hughes
Burton Lane / E.Y. Harburg & Fred Saidy
Frederick Loewe / Alan Jay Lerner
Gian Carlo Menotti
Gian Carlo Menotti
1. Adapted from Steve Swayne, How Sondheim Found His Sound (Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Press, 2005), 4950.
3
High Button Shoes
Allegro
1948 Look, Ma, Im Dancin
Magdalena
Love Life
Wheres Charley?
The Rape of Lucretia
Kiss Me, Kate
1949 South Pacific
Miss Liberty
Lost in the Stars
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Jule Styne / Sammy Cahn

Hugh Martin
H. Villa-Lobos / Robert Wright & George Forrest
Kurt Weill / Alan Jay Lerner
Frank Loesser
Benjamin Britten / Ronald Duncan
Cole Porter
Irving Berlin
Kurt Weill / Maxwell Anderson
Jule Styne / Leo Robin
Table 1 shows how innovating the 1940s were for Broadway. By the end of the
decade Kurt Weill had firmly established himself as a new and exciting composer in
America, collaborating with several influential playwrights, authors, lyricists, and poets.
The great Irving Berlin and Cole Porter, both thought to be past their hey-days, went on
to compose their most enduring scores, Annie Get Your Gun and Kiss Me, Kate,
respectively. The most successful songwriting team, however, was Rodgers and
Hammerstein. Indisputably
1.1 Songwriters and the Engine of Broadway

The important difference between musical comedy and the musical play is that, in
the former, characters arent really singing. The musical itself is singing. In the
musical play, the characters are singing. They have toor the audience wont know
how they feel.
McMillin, The Musical as Drama
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II both were seasoned professionals in their
own rights and had achieved multiple successes collaborating with other lyricists and
composers. When they teamed up for Oklahoma! they pooled their creative talents and
4
their business sense. In an interview with the author, Bruce Pomahacthe Director of
Music for the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organizationdescribes their partnership:
What their contemporaries always said about them is that they went into a room, they
made whatever decisions they had to make, and they came out perfectly unified. And
this bond gave them great strength. No one ever saw these men disagree. They must
have had things to disagree about. As collaborators they must have taken opposite
sides over songs and scenes and the things that you need to get into, to take apart and
put back together in order to write a musical, but no one ever witnessed them as
anything but totally in sync with each other. Their decision from the get-go was to
enter into a 50/50 partnership, one in which they would split the publishing, the
billing, the royalties, everything, right down the middle. Then they created their own
publishing company, Williamson (both of their fathers were named William), and
from the beginning they were business equals.2
With Oklahoma! Rodgers and Hammerstein had created a show that many heralded
(and even more emulated) as the standard for a new kind of Broadway musical: a show in
which the songs were integrated with the scenes. The songs were knit tightly into the plot
(for the most part) and developed out of characters need to express themselves. People
referred to this as a book musical or musical play (Hammerstein preferred the latter
term), rather than a musical comedy.
But Rodgers and Hammerstein werent the only writers who wanted to fuse the story
and the songs into a single element.3 What made Oklahoma! and its authors special was
that it achieved such record-breaking success. With an unprecedented Broadway run of
2,212 consecutive performances over five years, it established a record for longevity not
surpassed until Lerner and Loewes My Fair Lady in 1956. Oklahoma!s success made it
impossible for others to ignore its innovation, and suddenly everyoneeven Irving
Berlinwas moving in the direction of the book musical.
2. Bruce Pomahac, interview with the author, 26 July 2009, 51.

3. Show Boat and Music in the Air had already had achieved this prior to Oklahoma!
(Pomahac, interview, 46).
5
Hammersteins pivotal role in the development and success of the musical play was no
accident. His early work on Show Boat and Very Warm for May displays a long-term
determination to engineer musicals that were real stories, with songs driving the plot
forward. Although Hammersteins vision for a new musical theater is clear, it is
important to note that he and Rodgers still considered themselves songwriters at heart.
Even though the musical had a new trajectory after Oklahoma!, songwriters were still the
engine behindBroadway. Oklahoma!s score was certainly integrated with the action,
but it was still primarly a collection of songs. In this way the compositional aspect of
Oklahoma! was not that different from lightheartedness of musical comedy songwriting
of the previous three decades. For Carousel Rodgers and Hammerstein used the basic
model of the musical play, but greatly expanded the score and its relationship with the
libretto, reaching an unprecedented level of expression for a Broadway musical.
1.2
The Sound World of Carousel
The serious tone that is special to the music of Carousel, then, dominates the
musical-dramatic techniques of melodrama and quasi-recitative, and pervades the
comic subplot characters and the chorus.
Swain, The Broadway Musical
That Oklahoma!s success cast a large shadow over Carousel is certain. But in fact the
two shows have much in common. They shared, for one thing, the production team of
director Rouben Mamoulian, choreographer Agnes de Mille, and producers Lawrence
Langner and Theresa Helburn of The Theatre Guild. Liliom, the source-play for
Carousel, also has several similarities with Green Grow the Lilacs, the source material
for Oklahoma!. Both plays revolve around a love story in rural communities at the turn of
6
the nineteenth century.
What makes Carousel so different is the musical score and the way it interacts with
the libretto. The best way to describe Carousels score is as collection of musical scenes.
At the heart of each scene is a conventional songharmonically tonal with a simple form
and phrasing. Yet the musical material that leads in and out of the songs creates a richly
detailed and complex number, blending into the surrounding scenes. Using melodrama,
underscoring, and dramatically evocative orchestration, the composer and his
collaborators created a unique sound world for Carousela world in which much of the
action and characterization is revealed and advanced during the music.
What fueled and inspired this new type of songwriting? The subject matter was a far
cry from the feel-good tales most Americans preferred. Adapted from the play Liliom,
written by Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnr in 1921, the story revolves around a
misfit carousel barker (Billy Bigelow in Hammersteins adaptation) and his ill-fated love
affair with Julie Jordan. Julie is unable to escape the abusive relationship until halfway
through the second act, when the protagonist escapes a failed burglary by killing himself,
leaving his wife alone to raise their unborn child.
While the tragic content of Liliom is not especially new to the world of opera, it was
considerably daring for a Broadway musical in 1945. Several other composers
including Giacomo Puccini and Kurt Weillhad requested the rights to musicalize
Molnrs masterpiece, and all were turned down. It wasnt until Molnr saw a production
of Oklahoma! (presumably in October 1943) that he had a change of heart and acquiesced
to a request from The Theatre Guild to let Rodgers and Hammerstein adapt his work.4
4. Tim Carter, Oklahoma! (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 7.
7
The tragic dimension of Liliom demanded a score that would stand apart from most
Broadway musicals.
Joseph Swain posits that this tragic story required an equivalent complexity of
musical expression, and Rodgers and Hammerstein respond to that demand with a
number of musical resources. There is much more use of melodrama [and] a large
amount of sung music which has the freedom of organization, the absence of repetition,
and the melodic and rhythmic flexibility of recitative, although the sense of meter never
quite disappears. These techniques make transitions from spoken dialogue to song much
more gradual and smooth. The musical play therefore seems more serious because one is
much less aware of the seams of operatic convention.5
While Oklahoma! has its share of dark moments, the score functions in an entirely
different manner than Carousels. In Oklahoma!, dramatic action takes place between
characters, and in Carousel the musical numbers illuminate the action taking place within
them, the inner conflict being the all-important distinction. This kind of drama allowed
for a new and more sophisticated type of musical setting than in Oklahoma! (the notable
exception to this point being Laureys progressive Dream Ballet).6 Carousel capitalizes
on this kind of inner turmoil in nearly every scene, particularly with the protagonists Julie
and Billy.
Musical theater has always been a collaborative art, and many gifted collaborators
worked alongside Rodgers and Hammerstein to help create this unique musical style of
Carousel. After the success of Oklahoma!, Rodgers and Hammerstein thought it would
be wise to use many of the same production team members for their next project. Director
5. Joseph Swain, The Broadway Musical (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2002), 115.
6. Ibid.
8
Rouben Mamoulian and choreographer Agnes de Mille were both hired again. Robert
Russell Bennett was originally asked to do the orchestrations, but was busy with several
other projects and had to back out after working on only the first two numbers, so Don
Walker stepped in as principal orchestrator. Steven Suskins compendium on Broadway
orchestrators and their craft lists at least three separate orchestrators who worked under
Don Walker on Carousel: Stephen Jones, Joe Glover, and Hans Spialek, in addition to
Robert Russell Bennett.7
Trude Rittman was hired for dance arrangements, having worked closely as de Milles
assistant the past two years on One Touch Of Venus and Bloomer Girl.8 Musical director
Joseph Littau was the only major member of the team who had not collaborated on a
previous Rodgers and Hammerstein production, although he had been musical director
for Carmen Jones, Hammersteins English-language adaptation of Bizets opera. Most of
this teams contributions to Carousel went uncredited for decades. In May 2000 the
Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization completed a restoration of Carousel, faithfully
reproducing a libretto, score, and orchestral parts that reflect the show as it was on
opening night in 1945 and bringing to light the individual contributions of the creative
team.9
Some members of the music staff contributed their work after the show had already
opened. Albert Sirmay, an editor at Chapell, helped create the piano-vocal scores for
7. Steven Suskin, The Sound of Broadway Music (New York: Oxford University Press,
2009) 35859. For a detailed outline of how each of them contributed to the creative
process, see also Bruce Pomahac, Restoration Notes in Carousel full score (New York:
Williamson Music, Inc., 2008).
8. On Trude Rittman and Agnes de Milles contributions to Carousel, see Kara Gardners
forthcoming book currently titled Agnes de Mille on Broadway.
9. The appendix of the resultant Carousel orchestral score provides a detailed overview
of many other source materials, including several versions of the orchestra pit parts.
9
every Rodgers and Hammerstein show (and many others of the 1940s and 1950s).
Sirmays published piano-vocal scores were arguably as critical as the cast album
recordings in preserving the legacy of Carousel.10
Without a doubt, the entire staff contributed ideas all along the way, but the
orchestration of Carousel plays a central role in establishing the aural spectrum of the
world in which these characters lived. Rodgers, weary of the sound emerging from
orchestra pits in the early 1940s, was interested in the issue of scoring early on,
particularly with the overture. Rather than use a medley of tunes from the show, he
decided to skip the overture and make the audience pay attention by opening with a
pantomime scene accompanied by a stand-alone instrumental piece, The Carousel
Waltz. This helped to establish the mood and sound he wanted.11
Rodgers was careful to insist on proper balance between sections of the orchestra. He
got what he wanted, and the Carousel orchestra had an original string count of five stands
of first violins, two stands of seconds violins, two stands of violas, two stands of cellos,
and two double basses.12 While this was an unusually large string section for a Broadway
theater, they were balanced out by proportionally large wind and brass sections. Scoring
for saxophones in the 1940s was becoming more common in Broadway pit orchestras,
and was a very quick way for the audience to know if it was listening to a musical
comedy. Carousel did not use saxophones, employing instead a woodwind section of two
flutes (doubling piccolo), oboe (doubling English horn), two clarinets, bass clarinet, and
10. For a detailed explanation of Sirmays role in the editing of Rodgers and
Hammerstein piano-vocal scores, see Pomahac, interview, 68.
11. Richard Rodgers, Musical Stages (New York: Random House, 1975), 239.
12. Jon Conrad, Correspondence with Ted Chapin (New York: Williamson Music, Inc.,
2008), 622.
10
bassoona common setup for operetta and book musicals in the 1940s. The group was
rounded out by percussion (one player), harp, and a compliment of nine brass players
three horns, two trumpets, three trombones, and tuba.13 With a total of forty players, the
Carousel orchestra came close to the timbrel capabilities of a symphony orchestra. The
first few rows of seats of the St. James Theatre had to be removed in order to
accommodate them. This many musicians in a Broadway show is almost unheard of
today, yet Rodgerss success gave him the clout to give the audiences the aural
experience he wanted them to have, because in those days the composer was king.14
Don Walker, who until that point was known mostly as a jazz arranger, might have
seemed a strange fit for so serious a musical play. But Walker was inspired by the story
and by Rodgerss score, and thought it should have its own operatic character and
sound.15 Robert Russell Bennett also praised Walkers work on Carousel in his own
memoir (p. 196), and Walker himself thought of it as the pinnacle of his long career as a
Broadway orchestrator, and said as much in a 1955 letter to Rodgers.16 Yet as Walker
says, his symphonic orchestration was inspired by Rodgerss music, and he was simply
highlighting a rich score that already stood apart from other musicals of its time.
13. Every Rodgers and Hammerstein stage musical after Carousel employs at least eight
brass players, which is considerably larger than most brass sections of pit orchestras
today.
14. Pomahac, interview, 48.
15. Conrad, Correspondence with Ted Chapin, 62829.
16. Suskin, The Sound of Broadway Music, 360.
11
II
EARLY DRAFTS OF CAROUSEL
Given the economic pressures and deadlines of pre-Broadway tryouts, it would be
easy to assume that many of the musical numbers in Carousel were the result of hasty
decisions made on the fly during a turbulent rehearsal period. Yet a close examination of
Rodgerss manuscripts reveals a finely honed musical structure from the earliest known
drafts, well before rehearsals started.
The Richard Rodgers Collection, housed at the Library of Congress, contains
holograph sketches, manuscripts, and rehearsal copies of each number. Full conductor
scores were also available from the individual collections of Don Walker and Robert
Russell Bennett. While many of Rodgerss earliest drafts and sketches had no date, the
piano-vocal rehearsal copies (fashioned by anonymous employees) were dated with
stamps around March and April 1945. Rodgerss autobiography confirms that most of the
early drafts of numbers were composed between November 1944 and February 1945.17
These next four sections examine the evolution of Carousels musical numbers at
various stages of completion. A comparison of Rodgerss sketches, piano-vocal rehearsal
copies, orchestral scores, Sirmays published piano-vocal score, the newly restored score,
and several recordings reveals several interesting details that document the compositional
process. This section compares Rodgerss early drafts with the published versions of four
numbers: The Carousel Waltz, Julie and Carries opening duet Mister Snow, Billy
and Julies duet If I Loved You, and Billys Soliloquy. These four numbers portray
17. Rodgers, Musical Stages, 238.
12
Carousel at its most sophisticated, highlighting Rodgerss aesthetic approach and
illuminating what made Carousel unique.
2.1. Prologue (The Carousel Waltz)

One of Carousels major numbersthe most major in terms of how much plot it
coversisnt sung at all.
Swain, The Broadway Musical
In 1944 Paul Whiteman convinced administrators of the NBC Symphony Orchestra to

commission instrumental works from various composers in America. A concert was to be
produced in Central Park that spring; composers would receive an advance on their
commissions in exchange for performance rights by the NBC Symphony Orchestra for
one year. Along with such notable composers as Paul Hindemith, Igor Stravinsky, and
Bla Bartk, Richard Rodgers was commissioned to write an instrumental piece. It seems
that he accepted the commission but soon realized that the music was better suited for
Carousel so he declined the Whiteman project, since the performance rights would have
to be given up during any Broadway run.18
Although there are no drafts of the Whiteman commission, the composer left behind
an early sketch, a draft, and an early piano-vocal copy of The Carousel Waltz. Don
Walkers full orchestral score still exists, but the only evidence of Robert Russell
Bennetts original arrangement survives on the original cast recording, which cut twothirds of the original piece so that it could fit on two sides of a 78-rpm record.
18. Some themes from The Carousel Waltz show up as early as 1934 in Rodgerss film
musicals. It was not uncommon for Rodgers to recycle his own material, especially from
film to stage. See Pomahac, Restoration Notes, 592.
13
Rodgers proved that the overture can be a number unto itself rather than a collection
of the later tunes.19 The first fifty measures can be thought of as a prelude, until the
libretto instructs the on-stage pantomime to begin at mm. 51, when the main theme is
played by the orchestra. The waltz accompanies the entire community bustling around on
stage (which the libretto clearly distinguishes as pantomime and not choreography) as
they enjoy the carnival atmosphere: jugglers, bear trainers, and a carnival barker.20
Eventually the pantomime shifts focus to Billy and Julies brief interaction.
Table 2 shows the complete structure of The Carousel Waltz.
Table 2. Form and Harmonic Structure in The Carousel Waltz21
Measure
Section / Theme
Key
INTRODUCTION
m. 1
m. 27
intro (slower version of main theme)

transition to main theme (same as m.83)
D (major)
G (over dominant pedal)
EXPOSITION (pantomime begins on stage)

m. 51
m. 67
m. 83
m. 99
m. 113
main theme A
main theme B
main theme C
main theme A
transition to second theme
D major
F major
G (over dominant pedal)
D major
D major
SECOND THEME
m. 121
m. 137
m. 153
second theme A (with spirit)

second theme B
second theme A
G major
G minor / major
G major
19. Scott McMillin, The Musical As Drama (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2006), 128.
20. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Carousel libretto, (New York:
Williamson Music, Inc., 1975), 5.
21. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Carousel piano-conductor score, ed.
Richard E. Haggerty (New York: Williamson Music, Inc., 1978), 518.
14
m. 171
transition to variation 2
G minor
DEVELOPMENT
m. 179
m. 195
m. 211
m. 227
variation 1 A (Broadly)
variation 1 B
variation 1 A
transition to variation 2
F major
B-flat minor
F major
F major
m. 235
m. 251
m. 271
m. 291
m. 323
variation 2 A (leggiero)
variation 2 (extended version)
variation 2 B
variation 2 A
deceptive coda - transition to main theme
G major
G major
B minor
G major
A over D pedal
RECAPITULATION
m. 353
m. 361
m. 377
m. 393
m. 409
main theme A
main theme B
second theme A (with ritard)
second theme B
second theme A (transition to Coda)
D major
F major
D over dominant pedal A
G minor
D major
CODA
m. 423
m. 447
true coda with variation 3 as fanfare

stretto ending
D (lydian)
D (lydian)
Although the listener might first think of theme-and-variations form, Table 2 makes
the case for a traditional sonata-form structure, which is not used often in Rodgerss
music. Rodgers gives it a Broadway flavor by having all of the melodic themes built on
clear sixteen- and thirty-two-bar phrases. The juxtaposition and harmonic vocabulary
give the piece a style that is entirely unique to Rodgers and certainly sets the mood for
the rest of the show, which sounds a lot like Budapest or Vienna and a little like a
hurdy-gurdy at the same time.22
Yet a comparison of Rodgerss early sketch, full draft, and the final published scores
22. McMillin, The Musical As Drama, 129.
15
reveals no changes in harmonic structure or form. It is not surprising that no transposition
was needed, since it is purely instrumental music, whereas almost every vocal number in
the show went through several iterations of different keys depending on singers. What is
notable is that the musical form and phrasing did not mutate over time. Most instrumental
music (underscoring, scene-change music, dance music, and even overtures) suffers cuts
and alterationssome major, some insignificant. It would be highly unusual for a sevenminute piece set to stage-pantomime not to have one measure cut from early drafts all the
way through to the Broadway closing. The fact that Rodgers penciled in Intro Liliom
above his first sketch (indicating a date before the title Carousel was chosen) confirms
that the waltz came very early in the creative process, making it plausible that the
majority of it had indeed been intended for the Whiteman commission, and that he
refused to have any of it end up cut or altered.
One of the most interesting inconsistencies lies in the opening eighteen measures. All
of Rodgerss early manuscripts have a single melodic line harmonized by tonic and
dominant chords alternating every two measures underneath. Yet in Sirmays published
piano-vocal score the opening melody is coupled with the same melodic figure
transposed a minor sixth below. This coupling is then coupled again eight measures later
when the phrase repeats, this time transposed down a major thirteenth. For 1945 this was
a bold stroke indeed. The first coupling is played by the flute in D major and piccolo in
F-sharp major. Together they use a set of five pitches at a timeD, E, F-sharp, G-sharp,
and A-sharp in mm. 310. The bassoons and horn join in mm. 1117, using the same set
of pitches. This pitch-class set represents a whole-tone scalecreating augmented
harmonies, which is a very distinct and eerie sound after two D major chords. This eerie
harmony instantly evokes tension and drama, setting the stage for the opening pantomime
16
scene and for the show in general. The audience knows right away that this will not be
the traditional lighthearted musical comedy. The original melody is beautiful in its
simplicity, yet the augmented harmonies provide a lack of resolution, perfectly
foreshadowing Billy and Julies own tragic narrative.
Example 1. Rodgers, Carousel Waltz, from Carousel piano-conductor score,

mm. 118.23
This not-insignificant addition made it into the original cast album and the 1945
published piano-vocal score, which we can assume to have been closely supervised and
approved by the composer. But when did the change take place, and who suggested it?
23. 2010 by Imagem, C.V. Material contained herein, in a different form. 1945 by
Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein II, renewed. International Copyright Secured. All
Rights Reserved.
17
The history is complicated further by the fact that Littaus conductor score had the
original melody printed with the couplings penciled in, but a perfect fifth above the
original melody!24 This implies two possible scenarios for how the augmented
harmonization arose. It could have simply been suggested in rehearsal by a member of
the music staff. But given the detail of Rodgerss early sketches, as we see from the
musical examples below, it seems uncharacteristic for so significant a change to have
been added so late in rehearsals.
The more likely scenario is that the couplings were consciously added late in
rehearsals to mimic the sound of an out-of-tune merry-go-around. The markings in
Littaus conductor score confirm that they had experimented with different
harmonization, and although the augmented couplings can be heard in Bennett's
orchestration on the original cast recording, we dont know how or when they made into
Sirmays piano-vocal score or the pit parts. Pomahac makes the important point that
original pit [orchestra] parts actually reflect the closing night of the show, and not the
opening night.25 While the current documents make it impossible to pinpoint the
moment of genesis of the melodic couplings, it seems certain that Rodgers himself
regarded them as a signature discovery.
Rodgerss earliest sketches also reveal two different versions of the main theme. The
first variation of the main theme occurs at mm. 6782, when the tonal center briefly shifts
to F major. In Rodgerss first complete draft there are clear dotted-eighth-and-sixteenths
at the beginning of mm. 69, 71, and 72. When this figure is recapitulated in mm. 363,
365, and 366, the music is identical to the first iteration, yet the early draft uses two
24. Pomahac. Restoration Notes, 592.

18
eighth notes instead of a dotted-eighth-andsixteenth. Was this deliberate on Rodgerss
part, or a hasty oversight then replicated by copyists and arrangers?
Example 2. Rodgers, The Carousel Waltz of Carousel, mm. 6781, melody.26
a. Early draft, mm. 6781.
b. Published version, mm. 6781.
In the earliest sketch, Rodgers uses the rhythmic figure in ex. 3b in mm. 6781, but
does not write out the recapitulation, leaving in its place instructions for repeating the
same material from m. 51. Then in his first complete draft, he writes out the
recapitulation completely, where the rhythms in the recapitulation are clearly different
from the first iteration. The inconsistency is further complicated in a rehearsal copy that
has the rhythms as two eighth notes played in the exposition and recapitulation, which
Rights Reserved.
19
ultimately ended up in Walkers full score and Sirmays published piano-vocal score. But
a close examination of the rehearsal copy will reveal a faint dot on the eighth notes in
mm. 6972, with what appears to be an even fainter second beam on the following eighth
note, making it the dotted-eighth-and-sixteenth rhythm from the first complete draft.
There is no such dot or beam in the recapitulation of this figure, leading us to believe that
Sirmay and Walker got it wrong, and Rodgers intended the different rhythms.
But the question of motivation remains. Was he being deliberate? One possible
solution is to assume that Rodgers wanted the tempo faster for the recapitulation. An
increase in tempo would make the dotted-eighth-and-sixteenth rhythm barely
distinguishable from two eighth notes, and therefore unnecessary.27 This would certainly
be appropriate from a musical perspective, and fitting for the dramatic action onstage,
which at that point is reaching a climax with Billy and Julies first encounter. Even if
Rodgers does not indicate this tempo change explicitly in the score, it would imply that
his discrepancy in rhythm is not so much an error as it is a clue to the overall arc of the
piece.
2.2. Julie and Carrie Sequence: Mister Snow
One might expect, for so operatic an opening as the fantastic music with pantomime,
that a true song would follow in short order. Yet what follows is a lengthy and nonmusical dialogue that re-introduces Julie, Carrie, and Billy, as well as Mrs. Mullin, Mr.
Bascombe, and two policemen. Once the male characters have left, Carrie poses a series
20
of questions to Julie that flows right into song. At first their dialogue is spoken in rhythm
over orchestral accompaniment, but when Julie declines to answer any specifics, Carrie
starts singing with a verse of Youre A Queer One, Julie Jordan. After more
underscored dialogue, we hear Carrie sing about her own relationship in His Name Is
Mister Snow. Yet this is merely an introduction to another song,When I Marry Mister
Snow. Table 3 clarifies this structure.
Table 3. Form and Harmonic Structure in Julie and Carrie Sequence28
Measure
Section / Theme
Key:
Draft
Pub. scores
Part 1: Youre A Queer One, Julie Jordan

m. 1
intro (Carrie speaking with music)
m. 11
Youre A Queer One 1st verse
m. 26
weaving theme
m. 50
Youre A Queer One 2nd verse
m. 58
underscoring (Youre a Queer One)
(did not exist yet)
Part 2: His Name Is Mister Snow

m. 66
His name is Mister Snow (1st verse)
m. 75
An almost perfect beau
m. 88
The fust time he kissed me (bridge)
m. 93
Last night he spoke quite low
m. 105
Next moment we were promised!
m. 113
When I Marry Mister Snow (refrain)
m. 125
Then its off work to well go 2nd verse
28. Rodgers and Hammerstein, Carousel piano-conductor score, 2132.
21
m. 137
Hell carry me cross the threshold
m. 145
Then Ill kiss him so hell know
Here two main songs are woven into one large musical sequence. By the end of the
number the audience does not feel that its been sitting through two songs, each with
multiple verses, refrains, and bridges: the effect is one of effortlessness. One of the
reasons the three sections of the song flow together so smoothly is the ease with which
Rodgers navigates us in harmony and rhythm. The entire sequence does not stray far
from its tonal center, and there is virtually no change in tempo or metrical modulation
(except for the mill weaving section in m. 26). This lack of metric or harmonic
variation, while pleasing to some, serves to establish a lack of dramatic tension with the
character of Carrie and the fianc she is dreamily describing. According to McMillin,
singing forty-some measures about His name is Mr. Snow has been the verse to a
chorus that this loquacious Carrie has been leading up to, Carrie and the orchestra. When
it finally arrives, the Mr. Snow song has great piquancy. The way is prepared for
something solemn and grand, which is how Carrie thinks her marriage will be, and yet
the tune itself is slightly beautiful and utterly conventionalwhat the marriage will
actually be, at best. Finally she has the AABA structure under control. The drama is
about finding that structure as much as it is about these young people falling in love.29
Besides the rehearsal-copy versions, Rodgers left behind one early draft that was
sketched out in the key of D major, a perfect fourth lower than the key of G major, which
was eventually decided on for the final published vocal score. For vocalists, this is a
29. McMillin, The Musical as Drama, 137.
22
significant change in key. This most likely was changed once the role of Carrie had been
casta common practice in musical theater. Carrie had originally been envisioned as a
mezzo-soprano, as was the custom for most comic side roles in musicals. Although
Carrie and Enoch Snow provide the bulk of comic relief in Carousel, their relationship
functions primarily as a contrast to Billy and Julies relationship, rather than just
lighthearted comic relief. Jean Darlingthe original Carriewas more a soprano than a
mezzo soprano, and one possibility is that the authors wanted this contrast between Julie
and Carrie to be more subtle, and by casting them with a similar vocal type, the
difference is more subtextual. Although seemingly genuine in spirit, Carries music does
not carry the jolt that Juliesand Billys does. Their numbers are much more
sophisticated, matching the complexity of their own inner turmoil and train of thought.
Aside from the original key signature, the early draft is virtually identical to the
published vocal score, with two minors exceptions. The first difference is that he did not
include the underscoring in mm. 5865, but left specific instructions for dialogue to be
inserted. The other difference is that the final verse of Carries When I Marry Mister
Snow contains a first and second ending in Rodgerss early draft. Although this implies
a second verse for Carrie, there were no additional lyrics written underneath the
accompaniment to the first time through. Early drafts of Hammersteins libretto also
lacked a second verse, so one possibility is that the authors felt the number was long
enough already (even with conservative tempos, the number clocks in at almost six
minutes). While this is relatively long for an opening musical number, its barely half as
long as the next scene.
23
2.3 Scene Billy and Julie: If I Loved You
Probably the singular most important moment in the revolution of contemporary
musicals.
Stephen Sondheim30
Referred to by many as simply the Bench Scene, Rodgerss earliest known draft of
this is simply named SCENE: BILLY AND JULIE IF I LOVED YOU, which lets us
know that he was thinking of these as musical scenes early on. Yet within each section
the lyrical verses and phrases are structured so neatly that we cant help but feel were
listening to an old-fashioned, traditional thirty-two-bar Broadway song. Here is a chart of
the overall structure of the scene.
Table 4. Form and Harmonic Structure in Bench Scene from Carousel31

Measure
Section / Theme
Key:
draft
pub. scores
Part 1: Youre A Queer One, Julie Jordan (reprise)

m. 1
orchestral intro (Youre a queer one)
F-sharp
m. 9
Billys 1st verse (Youre a queer one)
A-flat
m. 16 Julies 1st verse (You couldnt take)
A-flat
m. 26 Billys 2nd verse (Youre a queer one)
E-flat
Billys 3rd verse (Do you love me?)
(cut)
m. 45 Julies 2nd verse (Im never gonna marry)
A-flat
(did not exist yet)
D-flat
N/A
m. 53 underscoring (Youre a queer one)
30. Meryle Secrest, Stephen Sondheim (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), 255.
31 . Rodgers and Hammerstein, Carousel piano-conductor score, 3351.
24
m. 61 Julies 3rd Verse (When I worked in the)
Julies Verse (If I Loved You)
D-flat
m. 37 underscoring (If I Loved You)
D-flat
m. 49 Billys 1st verse (You cant hear a sound)
m. 81 Billys 2nd verse (Theres a hell of a lot)
m. 105 Julies interlude (Theres a feathery cloud)
C (w/ lyrics) C (underscore)
m. 118 Billys 3rd verse (Kinda scrawny and pale)
E-flat
m. 146 Billys verse (If I Loved You)
D-flat
(did not exist yet)
D-flat
Part 2: If I Loved You

m. 1
m. 182 orchestral coda (If I Loved You)
The scene has two large-scale divisions: the first half being a reprise (with variations)
of Youre A Queer One, Julie Jordan (this time sung by Billy instead of Carrie) which
ultimately leads into If I Loved You. Rodgers even designates in his early draft when
we have reached the song proper, and his designation is faithfully copied into the
published scores.
Underneath this large two-part structure lie many different verses and smaller
divisions, each of which is perfectly constructed and balanced in its own right. The first
half of the song functions much like Youre A Queer One, Julie Jordan earlier in the
act. Instead of launching into his own monologue, Billy keeps cajoling Julie with the
same tune for more information about her romantic history. Once she perplexes him
enough with her quixotic views on life, she finally sings her conditional love-song If I
Loved You (strikingly similar in poetic conceit to People Will Say Were In Love
from Oklahoma!). In the same way that Youre A Queer One, Julie Jordan served as a
25
prelude for His Name Is Mister Snow, here it serves as a preamble to If I Loved You,
the centerpiece of the Bench Scene.
After Julie has bared her soul with If Loved If You, Billy finally opens up with his
own innermost thoughts at m. 49, reflecting on nature and mans insignificant role in the
universe. The paean he sings here is the first insight into the complexity of Billys
character and the course that this relationship will take.32 This section eventually and
inevitably develops into his own verse of If I Loved You. When Billy finishes singing,
the orchestra continues underscoring the remainder of the scene, until he and Julie kiss.
The final few moments are not what one expects: instead of a reprise of the tune with the
two singers in climactic vocal harmony ending on a dominant-to-tonic chord progression,
Rodgers finishes with an orchestral climax on an exciting Neapolitan cadencea fitting
finale to an epic scene that lets the audience know the fate of these two lovers is now
sealed.
One way Rodgers deftly takes us through this long musical sequence is with
modulation. Each time he changes keys, he grabs the audiences attention, suggesting a
shift in content, narrative voice, or mood. Rodgers deals with this so elegantly that we
realize only in retrospect that a new song is underway. Joseph Swain points out that the
harmonization of this song is not the only agent of its expression and that the subtlety
of melodic phrasing shows yet another advance from Oklahoma!, whose tunes are
built on clear four-bar phrases through and through.33
There is no major difference in overall harmonic and formal structure between
Rodgerss undated early draft and the final published scores, but a number of changes
32. Swain, The Broadway Musical, 130.

33. Ibid., 123.
26
took place before opening night. When the copyist created piano-vocal scores of this
number for the rehearsal pianist, most of the sections were eventually transposed up a
half step. The strings begin in the key of G instead of F-sharp, and from there on maintain
a similar key outline for most of the scene, save for a few interesting exceptions. At mm.
26, Billys second verse was transposed up a tritone from E-flat to A. This creates a
modulation from Julies verse, now in A-flat, to A for Billys verse, which gives a playful
and jeering quality between the two characters, and has a feeling that the stakes are being
raised throughout the scene.
Several sections of music and lyrics were cut and replaced. One of the differences
between the draft and published score is that Billy originally had a third verse of Youre
A Queer One, Julie Jordan. The lyrics were originally as follows:
BILLY: (singing)
JULIE: (spoken)
BILLY: (sings)
JULIE: (sings)
Do you love me? Julie Jordan.

No.
Then explain just what youre doin here with me.
Whyd you stay here in the first place?
I like to watch [fermata] the moon upon [fermata] the sea.34
These lyrics and accompaniment were cut entirely before the Broadway opening, and
the scene went straight into Julies third verse Im never gonna marry. However, after
Julies verse, a short stretch of spoken dialogue was inserted with another eight bars of
Youre A Queer One for underscoring. Without Billys third verse, we transition right
into Julies third verse at m. 61. Table 4 shows that this section was originally in the key
of D major, and transposed up a perfect fourth to the key of G major. The equivalent
34 . 2010 by Imagem, C.V. Material contained herein, in a different form. 1945 by

Rights Reserved.
27
section in Youre A Queer One, Julie Jordan employed an identical transposition. This
is not surprising, as the higher key is more naturally suited for the ingenue role of Julie.
Both verses of If I Loved You were transposed up a half-step from C to D-flat, yet
Billys other verses at mm. 49 and 81 were kept in C. Although the key was not changed,
when Billy sings On a night like this I start to wonder / what life is all about in m. 71
the vocal melody was altered and the accompaniment stayed the samea rare occurrence
for Rodgers. The original melody rather plaintively stays in his lower register, ending on
a B below the treble clef. The melody in the final version dramatically leaps up a minorseventh interval, and ends on a B in the treble clef. This final version certainly has a more
dramatic arc, which seems to fit the epic nature of Billys reflections.
Perhaps the most interesting alterations occur in m. 105, right after Billys ode to
nature. Julie answers his second verse with a verse of her own, closely mimicking Billys
melody.
28
Example 4. Rodgers, If I Loved You, draft, 1112, Richard Rodgers Collection.35
Rights Reserved.
29
The original section exists in Walkers full score, but presumably never made it to the
New York opening. Rodgers also left behind a very rough sketch that was included with
the early draft of the number. Written on a separate manuscript paper he maps out
twenty-seven measures of a melody with Roman numerals for chord progression beneath,
titled 2 Little People. Above the melodic sketch are six measures of what appears to be
an even earlier version of Billys verse at m. 49, but with a different accompaniment.
Example 5. Rodgers, Two Little People, sketch included with If I Loved You,
Richard Rodgers Collection.36
None of Hammersteins records allude to any lyrics titled Two Little People, so it is
difficult to ascertain whether Rodgers was intending to set the pre-existing lyrics to this
new melody, or to expand the music to this scene even further.
One final difference between Rodgerss draft and the published scores is a variation
36. Rodgers was often inconsistent in sketches with his designation of upper- and lowercase Roman numerals. 2010 by Imagem, C.V. Material contained herein, in a different
form. 1945 by Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein II, renewed. International
Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved.
30
on the lyrics that Billy sings as a lead-in to his verse of If I Loved You. Originally he
sang But I knew I would be / like you said youd be with me, later changed to Yet
somehow I can see / just exactly how Id be. This is a subtle yet important change. The
original lyric has Billy directly referencing how his conditional state of love would be
exactly the same as Julies. The final lyric simply repeats exactly what Julie sings before
her own verse of If I Loved You. The difference is minuscule, yet the effect is
noticeable. Not only is Billy about to sing the same love song back to Julie, but the new
lyric makes it ambiguous as to whether he is consciously deciding to repeat Julies own
song back to her, or if this song was just an expression of his views on love in general.
This ambiguity lend a charming innocence to Billys character, as well as to his song, and
it ends up transforming the tentative beginnings into a full, unconditional love scenea
perfect example of Hammersteins lyrical and dramatic brilliance at work.
After this moment, Rodgers draft simply instructs the copyist to take the refrain from
If I Loved You. The orchestral underscoring and climax that concluded the scene must
have been added in rehearsals.
Perhaps the most surprising aspect is this most famous of duets never has even a
moment of vocal harmony. (In fact, theres almost no duet harmonizing anywhere in the
show.) For a musical with such operatic ambitions it is intriguing that Rodgers and
Hammerstein seemed so disinterested in small-ensemble work. Being able to have two or
more characters express thoughts at the same time is something unique to music.
Carousels principal characters never express their thoughts at the same timethey only
alternate. Only the chorus is given the opportunity to sing together (and almost always in
unison). This aspect seems fitting for these people, who live a simple lifestyle in a small
New England coastal town.
31
2.4
Soliloquy
This musical scene has long been renowned for its elaborate form, changing
textures, and its ability to reflect a number of emotional changes. While this is
true of any of the extended scenes in Carousel, Soliloquy is exceptional only in
that it is for a single character.
Joseph Swain, The Broadway Musical
One of the functions of the Bench Scene is to build the action and music up to Billys
grand Soliloquy. This number is a prime example of the way Carousels score so
eloquently interjects itself into the action. In the Rodgerss and Hammerstein tradition,
a character had an emotion and sang about it although the Soliloquy in Carousel is
a study in ambivalence. It allows for dramatic contrast.37
Rodgerss first known draft of this number is titled Soliloquy and consists of mostly
melodic sketches, with occasional harmonies written in. He also left a more complete
draft with lyrics and accompaniment fully realized. Table 5 chronicles the evolution of
the various drafts of Soliloquy.
Table 5. Form and Harmonic Structure in Soliloquy38

Measure
Section / Theme
Key:
Sketch
2nd Draft
N/A
N/A
Pub. Scores
Part 1: My Boy Bill

(insert)
orchestral intro39
F-sharp
37. Secrest, Sondheim, 256.

38. Rodgers and Hammerstein, Carousel piano-conductor score, 10418.
39. This introduction (which was lost at some point) is the first five measures of Youre
A Queer One, Julie Jordan, arranged for string quartet. See Pomahac, Restoration
Notes, 599.
32
m. 1
I wonder what hell think A minor
A minor
B minor
m. 21
allegretto Ill teach him
A minor
A minor
B minor
m. 37
My Boy Bill 1st verse
G major
G major
G major
m. 73
con moto (6/8)
G major
G major
G major
m. 109
My Boy Bill 2nd verse
G major
G major
G major
m. 147
Piu mosso Ill be damned A minor
A minor
A minor
m. 162
I can see him when hes 17F (mixolydian)F (mix.)
F (mix.)
Part 2: My Little Girl

m. 185
reprise of 1st verse (dialogue) A minor
A minor
B minor
(insert)
When I have a daughter
N/A
F major
F major
m. 205
My Little Girl
F major
F major
F-major
m. 228
Coda I gotta get ready
C major
C major
B-flat major
Like the Bench Scene and Julie and Carries Sequence, Soliloquy is constructed on
two passages that could be detached as separate songs. One is about the possibility of his
boy Bill and the other about his little girl.40 We have seen now this two-part structure
in more than half the musical numbers in Carousel. It is present in Julie and Carries
Sequence, the Bench Scene, June Is Bustin Out All Over, When The Children Are
Asleep, This Was A Real Nice Clambake, and the sequence leading up to Whats
The Use Of Wondrin. The exceptions are Jiggers ode to the sailors life, Blow High,
Blow Low, Billys solo in the afterlife, Highest Judge Of All, and Nettie Fowlers
anthem, Youll Never Walk Alone, which all fit snugly within the traditional thirtytwo-bar structure.
40. Swain, The Broadway Musical, 131.
33
One of the main differences between the early and later versions of the number is a
short verse between mm. 204 and 205 that was inserted and then removed from
Rodgerss second draft.41 After Billy comes to the realization that his chances of having a
daughter are equally probable, he sees himself as boasting about his girl to his drinking
buddies. Only twelve measures long, this insert serves as connective tissue between the
two main sections of Part 2: the reprise of first verse and My Little Girl proper.
Although the vocal line does not have the same melodic lilt as the rest of the number and
the accompaniment is harmonically and rhythmically static, on a larger scale it adds more
weight to the second half of the number, creating a better of balance.
41. The section, sung by John Raitt in the original Broadway production, is included as
optional in the restored version of the show.
34
Example 6. Rodgers, excerpt from Soliloquy, insert included with sketch,
Richard Rodgers Collection.42
This material is completely absent from the sketch, the second draft, and the pianovocal rehearsal score. Rodgers included a separate insert into the second draft with
42. It is unknown when the harmony on the fourth beat of m. 3 was changed from Aminor to a G-minor. 2010 by Imagem, C.V. Material contained herein, in a different
form. 1945 by Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein II, renewed. International
Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved.
35
instructions to the arranger and copyist to leave space for 24 new bars. Walker does not
recall ever seeing the middle section of the Soliloquy, and it is not clear exactly when it
was added or removed in the pre-Broadway try-out period.43 However, it was included in
the original cast recording, and consistently used by John Raitt (who created the role of
Billy Bigelow) in later productions. Raitt recalls that neither Rodgers nor Hammerstein
gave him a reason for inserting or removing it.44
Soliloquy is the only vocal number in Carousel to make frequent use of minor
modes.45 Rodgers originally wrote the introduction in A minor and had it transposed up a
whole step to B minor for Raitt. This transposition resulted in an interesting harmonic
relationship, because the end of the first two verses now arrives at a D-major cadence at
mm. 35, which acts as a dominant to the upcoming verse of My Boy Bill in G major.
This would not have happened had the introduction remained in A minor. This was surely
intentional on the composers part. Rodgers possessed an uncanny ability to change keys
deftly in the middle of a number and not have it feel forced.
For the remainder of the number, the three versions of Soliloquy do not differ in key
structure until the coda, which was lowered from C major to B-flat major for tryouts. The
driving bass line and unusual harmonic progression starting in mm. 228 of the coda bears
a marked resemblance to the end of Jud Frys song Lonely Room from Oklahoma!.
The similarities are not just musical: both characters sing a determined and hair-raising
coda after soliloquizing about their dreams and desires. Although Jud Fry is a
misanthropic villain and Billy Bigelow an anti-hero, the manner in which Rodgers sets
43. Conrad, Correspondence with Ted Chapin, 629.

44. Pomahac, Restoration Notes from Carousel full score, 599.
45. The purely instrumental Carousel Waltz has many themes that frequently modulate
in and out of minor modes. See pp. 1314 for more detail.
36
their problems to music is similar. As Jud becomes even more determined to win
Laureys hand, the music climaxes to a B-minor chord with a C-sharp suspension
(realized with chilling orchestration by Bennett). Billy has a more heroic, yet desperate,
resolution to provide for his unborn child, and his song ends with a brass fanfare in B-flat
major. Both characters meet their fate by self-inflicted knife woundsJud accidentally
and Billy intentionally.
Example 7. A comparison between endings of Soliloquy and Lonely Room.46

a. Rodgers, Soliloquy from Carousel, mm. 22830.
b. Rodgers, Lonely Room from Oklahoma!, mm. 4447.
Rights Reserved.
37
"Lonely Room" is the only number in Oklahoma! to begin in a minor key; likewise,
Soliloquy is the only one in Carousel to begin in minor. Both of these numbers
immediately distinguish themselves from other songs by using a clashing minor-second
interval in the opening vamp. This lack of harmonic stability lends uncertainty as to
where each song might venture, and the many different scenarios Billy psychologically
projects have an equivalent musical landscape, wandering through many different keys,
meters, and styles. Ultimately, though, Hammerstein deserves equal credit for the
dramatic scenario he provided for Billy, which Rodgerss music perfectly reflects. By the
end of the song he is not an inherently different person than when he started, but the
journey he takes in just 253 measures is electrifying.
38
III
THE LEGACY OF CAROUSEL
While the evolution of Rodgerss score is interesting from a compositional

perspective, it also highlights the problems of preservation and authorial intent. There is
no exact moment when the details of Carousel were set in stone, and like most
Broadway musicals, many elements changed not just before opening night, but also
during the run of 890 performances. Well after the closing of the first Broadway
production, the show remains in a fluid state of change, and performers and audiences are
as important as the original authors in the process of preserving Carousels history .
3.1 Carousels Afterlife
Writer and director Jonathan Miller describes a phase for a work of art once it has
outlived [its] original creation and performance.47 He calls this the afterlife. In his
book Subsequent Performances he applies this concept mostly to playsparticularly
Shakespearebut also suggests that it applies to any art. Once the people who saw an
original performance have passed awayauthors, performers, audiencesthe work
enters its afterlife. No living witnesses can describe the context in which the piece was
47. Jonathan Miller, Subsequent Performances. (New York: Elisabeth Sifton Books /
Viking, 1986), 23.
39
created and existed. Written notation cannot preserve the precise contextual meaning and
intention behind certain aspects of a piece.
Miller focuses on plays because they traditionally rely on texts not always intended for
publication or later performance. Broadway musicals are particularly interesting
examples of this concept because they include multiple notations: music, dialogue, dance.
This results in a collection of artifacts that rarely agree, and yet are the sources future
generations must contend with. Regardless of their inconsistencies these texts and their
living counterparts help us understand the context of a piece and the setting within which
it was created and performed. The concept is particularly appropriate for Carousel, just
now beginning to enter its afterlife.
But a Broadway show leaves the all-important original cast recording. Here story,
characters, and ambiance can all be preserved in a single entity, and the recording gives
the listener a rare glimpse into something that is not easily notated on page: style. In
many ways a recording is all thats left of a show after it closes. The unparalleled success
of Oklahoma!s original cast recording brought Rodgers and Hammersteins songs into
the living rooms of millions of Americans, setting a precedent for many other musicals.
Rodgers and Hammerstein continued this trend with Carousel. The recording (although
subject to cuts) did much to capture the most unique moments of Carousels score. Table
6 lists the numbers included on the original record.
40
Table 6: Musical Numbers included on Carousel: Original Broadway Cast recording48
No.
Title
Length
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Waltz Suite: Carousel

Youre A Queer One, Julie Jordan / Mister Snow
If I Loved You
June Is Bustin Out All Over
When The Children Are Asleep
Blow High, Blow Low
Soliloquy
A Real Nice Clambake
Theres Nothin So Bad For A Woman / Whats Use Of Wondrin
Highest Judge of All / Youll Never Walk Alone
4:25
4:27
4:23
3:50
4:16
1:28
7:30
2:27
4:24
4:32
In 1945 the original cast album was first preserved on 78-rpm records, limiting the
amount of music to 7:30 per disc (3:45 per side), thereby necessitating several cuts of
entire numbers and significant cuts within numbers. The dance music was omitted. The
first half of the Bench Scene (everything before If I Loved You) was cut. Geraniums
In The Winder was cut as an introduction to the stone cutter sequence.49 The Carousel
Waltz had significant cuts as well, and almost every number recorded employed small
cuts here and there.
The notable exception is Billys Soliloquy, which is recorded without any cuts,
clocking in at 7:30, exactly enough for two sides of a 78-record. It even reinstated the
When I have a daughter verse that was ultimately cut from the production. This
decision allowed the recording to feature Raitt as Billy Bigeloweasily the strongest
voice of the castwhile simultaneously highlighting the number that sums up Carousel.
Despite using cuts in many other numbers, the album featured a large portion of the
48 . Carousel Featuring Members of the Original Cast (John Raitt / Jan Clayton / Joseph
Littau), MCA CD reissue MCAD-10799 (1945).
49. This sequence is titled Theres Nothin So Bad For A Woman on the record.
41
score. Although it was not as lucrative as Oklahoma!s cast album, Carousel set the high
standard for Broadway recordings to come.
Published scripts and scores present us with the authors basic instructions. But cast
recordings provide a very different experience: interpretation. This adds a layer of nuance
to a shows afterlife, and has the capacity to create expectations with an audience or
performer. Audiences familiar with a cast album come into a live performance expecting
the show to sound a certain way. This is certainly true of Carousel, which has generated
over twenty cast recordings in the past six decades (including a film). The cast recording
can provide a window on the original performers interpretations of Carousel, but it
cannot provide us with the motivations behind those interpretations.
3.2. Operetta or Broadway musical

Carousel is a Big Sing, the piece that truly tells us what a Rodgers and Hammerstein
show was: operetta by other means, those gala voices put to serious use.
Ethan Mordden, Beautiful Mornin
The beauty and craft of Carousel are apparent. But does the show transcend the
conventions of the genre? Although genre might seem irrelevant, it can signify many
thingsit tells us who performs the piece, who listens to the piece, and what values those
people are assigning to a piece.
Carousels original Broadway run ended 24 May 1947, and it wasnt long until opera
and light opera companies began producing the work. Since the 1950s there have
multiple stage productions by major opera companies in the United States, including New
42
York City Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Chicago Lyric, Houston Grand Opera, and many
others. It is also notable that Carousel was the first musical to the get the crossover
treatment in a recording by opera singers (on Victor in 1955).50 Yet there have also been
over a dozen revival productions on Broadway and Londons West End.
Was Carousel another Porgy and Bess? Though lacking a completely through-sung
score, the similarity is strikinga team of experienced Broadway songwriters tackling
serious operatic drama but with eight shows a week in a Broadway theater. Certainly
some numbers, such as Billys Soliloquy, have the sheer length and vocal demand [to]
put them in the ranks of opera arias.51 Another traditional distinction between opera and
Broadway musical is the use of music to accompany the bows, and it is interesting to note
that Carousel is the only Rodgers and Hammerstein
stage musical that does not have specific bow music.52
Yet writer Scott McMillin argues against the idea of Carousels operatic ambitions:
When song emerges from these lyrical introductions, one gains the impression
that the action could be conducted entirely in music. Yet no one supposes that the
musical is striving to become an opera in these long stretches. The segments of
the lyrical introductions are cut from the pop song lengths and remain tied to the
strophic arrangement of the numbers that they do not quite attain.53
Perhaps operetta is a better term to describe Carousel. Hammerstein had certainly
found his stride as a writer with operetta, most famously with Show Boat in 1929. The
original cast of Carousel was made up mostly of operetta and opera stars, and Rodgers
50. Ethan Mordden. Beautiful Mornin (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 85.
52. Carouselnor any other Rodgers and Hammerstein musical (except Flower Drum
Song)does not include any number labeled as curtain call or bow music, only exit
musican orchestral arrangement of the main verse from If I Loved You.
43
employs much wider vocal ranges in all of the principal roles54.
Yet while Carousel displays many similarities to operetta, Hammerstein was
specifically not writing operettas at this point in his career. In fact, the majority of
audiences in the 1940s hadnt seen an operetta since the 1920s. Rodgers and
Hammerstein billed their works as musical plays: something using operettas musical
intensity and musical comedys vitality, yet avoiding operettas starchy grandeur and
musical comedys lack of consistency and rationality.55
Although Show Boat is commonly distinguished as the first serious book musical of
the twentieth century, the show is closer to an operetta and employed many elements of
spectacle and vaudeville common to its genre.56 Hammerstein would have to wait another
fourteen years before he could continue fulfilling his grand vision of the American
musical theater.
Genre aside, within the context of Rodgers and Hammersteins other musicals,
Carousel stands out. Their other showsfrom Oklahoma! to The Sound of Musicall
follow the Hammerstein model of the musical play, yet did not call for or use the same
level of musicalization as Carousel. While Oklahoma! created a shift in the way
audiences thought of musical theater, it was Carousel that really began to push the
musical boundaries of how a score could be put to use in a Broadway musical and still
achieving long-lasting success. Carousel took the Hammerstein model for the musical
play even further, and Rodgers met his partners dramatic innovation with an equally
54. Carter, Oklahoma!, 112.

55. Mordden, Beautiful Mornin, 83.
56. It is argued that many of the elements of spectacle in Show Boat are attributed to its
producer, Florenz Ziegfield, Jr. See Stephen Banfield, Jerome Kern (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2006).
44
brilliant score.
In retrospect Rodgers and Hammerstein were forging a new a new type of show for
Broadway audiences, drawing on many different genres and styles. Authors are not
always conscious of the norms they are breaking, and certainly Carousel pushed the
musical envelope more than their other shows. Some of Carousels numbers sound like
arias and some like musical comedy numbers, with moments of vaudeville and many
other variations in between. McMillin reminds us that the musical in 1940s was an
eclectic form, with revue and vaudeville hints still circulating in the most solidly book
shows, and there is no reason not to make a slot for Wagner here and there.57 Despite the
stylistic variety of the score, Rodgers maintains a consistent musical framework and
structure within which Hammersteins lyrics operate. Its genius lies in the way that
Rodgers never loses touch with the American vernacular yet, which was real
innovation.58
In the end, Carousel remains a lasting and influential work of music-theater. Its score
is flexibly constructed such that it can considered an opera when performed by an opera
house, and a Broadway musical when playing at a Broadway theater. It both embraces
and defies the usual labels of other shows from the 1940s, and is a perfect example of the
way Rodgers and Hammerstein fused music and words together in a manner both
traditional and innovative.

58. Ibid.
45
APPENDIX
An Interview with
Bruce Pomahac
Director of Music, The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization
28 July 2009, Empire Hotel, New York City, New York.
Interview conducted and transcribed by David Mschler.
PART ONE
(forty minutes)
DM:
My thesis is mainly concerned with published texts and also primarily cast
recordings, and so I thought Oklahoma! was a great case study for that, because,
well theres this myth that its the first cast recording, but Ive read some material
that says there were previous examples. Rather it was the most successful one that
was recorded.
BP:
There were a few earlier recordings. Porgy and Bess was recorded. In England
Flora Dora recorded at the turn of the century. But Oklahoma! was the first cast
album that made a difference, that the public noticed, because Oklahoma! itself
was such a phenomenal success. Also, when Oklahoma! opened, and instantly
became the success that it was, and got the great reviews that it did, and everyone
was singing the music (and in those days the big singers would be under contract
to the record companies) if a song came out the record company might assign to
several different people it had under contract. Tommy Dorseys band might record
it, and Bing Crosby might record the same song; and thats been going on in the
recording industry for years. It doesnt really happen that much anymore because
there arent as many singers under record contracts.
In the days when the engine of Broadway was the composer, the composers
46
wrote scores that people wanted to hear. People wanted to buy the sheet music,
buy the recordings. And the Broadway writers came (most of them, anyway) came
to the theatre as songwriters, not as dramatists. Even though we think of
American in Paris and Rhapsody in Blue and Porgy and Bess when we think of
Gershwin, he was first (and arguably, foremost) a songwriter, a tune smith, a TinPan-Alley guy. Rodgers and Hammerstein changed the theater because what they
wrote was so successful you couldnt ignore what they were doing. They werent
the only writers who wanted to fuse the story and the songs into a single element.
(Show Boat and Music in the Air already done a pretty good job of that.) But
Oklahoma! integrated its elements so well and was such a phenomenal hit that
suddenly the book musical was the direction in which everyone wanted to move.
Well, they may not have wanted to, but they did. Even Irving Berlin.
Now what happened is that in 1942 there was a musicians strike in the
recording industry. Local 802 (the New York Musicians Union) president, James
Petrillo, wasnt allowing any recordings to be released when Oklahoma! opened.
So Oklahoma! went into the studio to be recorded, but the recording couldnt be
released. There actually records released during that period with vocal backups
instead of instrumental backups. Union musicians couldnt play on recordings
while the strike lasted. So when Oklahoma! did hit the record stores, everybody in
the country (and eventually, the world) was waiting for this record. So thats the
impact that the recording of Oklahoma!
DM:
That contributed to its success?
BP:
Well it already was a huge success and the recording made it an even bigger one.
Imagine a show in which youre in love with the songs, but you cant buy a
47
recording. You wait for months and months, and in the meantime you hear the
music being played on the radio, in band and orchestra concerts, in dance halls
everywhere you go. But you cant buy a recording of it. Finally, the recording is
released. When that happened to the recording of Oklahoma! it was like a gold
rush. Everybody bought that record album. And when I say everybody I dont
mean just the the Broadway afficionados. I mean people all over the countryour
parents, our grandparents. Thats when the Broadway show kind of became a part
of the mainstream American culture, because the album of Oklahoma! allowed
everyone to experience what, until that time, only the people who could get to
New York could experience.
The original Broadway cast recording is not my particular favorite recording of
Oklahoma!. Its historical, but its truncated. They actually recorded the cast
album, and then, a few months later, recorded some additional songs that had not
been included in the first recording session. (I believe that now, when you buy the
CD of the original Broadway cast of Oklahoma! of the originally recorded and
additionally recorded tracks are included.) Because, in those days, every track had
to fit on the side of a 78, no track could be longer than three minutes. Today we
may think of musicals as dramas operas. More and more we are getting recordings
of shows from beginning to end. In the 1940s however, the days of 78s, there
was no thought of recording a whole show. It was the songs that mattered.
Especially the hit songs. It took a lot of clout to get Decca (the recording
company) to record a song like Pore Jud is Daid, but Oklahoma!s success gave
it that clout. Tommy Dorsey wasnt going to play that song, and no one was going
to dance to it or sing it. But Oklahoma! was such a phenomenon they got to record
48
the character numbers, most unusual in an era when most musicals were driven by
their hit tunes. When Anything Goes was recorded, back in 1930, they recorded
only the big hit songs (Anything Goes, I Get a Kick out of You, and Blow,
Gabriel, Blow.) They didnt think about recording the character numbers or the
comedy numbers. Oklahoma! changed that. And then, it changed the theater.
Because up until that point, people knew only the hits they heard on the radio. In
those days, thats how you heard musicyou listened to the radio. And there
were dance bands everywhere. Every hotel and even many restaurants had live
orchestras, and dancing was big, and there were dance arrangements of all of
these hit songs. And thats really what plugged music all over, especially show
music. And the people who wrote the shows wanted those song hits, even Rodgers
and Hammerstein. Although Hammerstein was determined from the get-go (I
mean hes the guy who wrote Show Boat) to engineer musicals that were not just
collections of songs, but were real stories, and the songs drove the story forward.
Even though Rodgers and Hammerstein accomplished this, you have to keep in
mind that they were still, at heart, songwriters.
Today, I dont know which, if any, of the new writers have taken the place of
the writers in the Rodgers & Hammerstein era. Theyre all wonderful composers
and lyricists Michael John LaChiusa, Jason Robert Brown, Adam Guettel,
Ricky Ian Gordon. Maybe in their hearts they would love to have a hit songs, but
they are not sitting down to write a score for the sake of producing a batch of hit
tunes. Even when Rodgers and Hammerstein were writing their most serious
shows, they came from a songwriting world, and they lived in a publishing world.
In other words, music drove the shows. Thats why in those days, the composer
49
was king. And there were big orchestras in the theatre orchestra pits, what the
composer wanted, he got. The composer and his batch of hit tunes were the reason
everybody was tuned into Broadway. Each new show was expected (yes,
expected!) to deliver hit songs, and when it did everybody involved shared in the
success and the financial rewards of that show. Today, theatrical composers dont
really rule the roost that way. Maybe Andrew Lloyd Weber does, but he has
earned his success.
DM:
And I think hes had success with writing hit tunes.
BP:
Yes, Andrew Lloyd Webber has had wonderful success writing hit tunes. And this
success puts him in a position of power. Last spring the entire sound system for
Phantom of the Opera (at the Majestic Theater) was removed and replaced by a
new one. Because Webber felt the old one was no longer loud enough (if its
possible to believe the sound system for Phantom of The Opera wasnt loud
enough!). He understood that the audience wanted to have a rock concert
experience in the theater, and he wanted to give it to them. Thats what the
clout of success can do. As a producer, Andrew Lloyd Webber, like Rodgers and
Hammerstein, could give the audience the theater experience he wanted them to
have. Its why the original production of Carousel had a forty-piece orchestra and
Phantom now has a new sound system.
DM:
This is great, thank you. Do you mind if I start back at the beginning?
BP:
No. Go back to your questions! Keep pulling me back on track.
DM:
First of all, could you tell me a little bit about your work with Rodgers and
Hammerstein, both the men and the organization.
BP:
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein began working together in 1943 on
50
Oklahoma!. Up to that point both of them had had very successful careers with
other collaboratorsHammerstein with operetta writers, like Sigmund Romberg,
who wrote The New Moon and Jerome Kern, who not only wrote operettas, but
was really kind of the father of modern musical theater. Certainly the person
Richard Rodgers was listening to when he was young was Jerome Kern. With
Show Boat, Kern really blossomed into American writers of something that
was no longer operetta, it was a new totally American kind of musical theater.
In 1943, Rodgers had been working with Lorenz Hart for his entire career.
Hart, a wonderful lyric writer, had his demons. He was an alcoholic, he was a
homosexual, he was five feet tall. He was an unhappy man. Its too bad, because
everyone loved him. When you go back and talk (well its harder and harder to do
this) to the people who knew him, they will tell you how much they loved him.
He was always said to have been an adorable man. Its too bad, because this
adorable man destroyed himself, and Rodgers got to the point where he couldnt
work with him anymore. When it got to the point that Rodgers couldnt talk Hart
into writing Oklahoma! Rodgers knew he was in serious trouble. Theatre Guild
had offered him Green Grow the Lilacs, and he wanted to turn it into a musical.
But Lorenz Hart was adamant. He told Rodgers he didnt want to do it. So
Rodgers went to Oscar Hammerstein, and Hammerstein (after expressing his
concern about not wanting to take Harts place unless it became absolutely
necessary) agreed to write the show with him. Hammerstein had had great success
in the 1920s, but the 1930s were a bit of a dry spell for him. He wrote several
lovely shows that, for one reason or another, didnt take off. Some of them were
wonderful: for example, Music in the Air and Very Warm for May. Music in the
51
Air was a success with a couple of hit songs (The Song is You and Ive Told
Every Little Star). Very Warm for May was a flop that had one absolutely great
song, All the Things You Are, one of the finest of both Kerns and
Hammersteins careers. But by 1943 Hammerstein wasnt really at the top of his
game, still highly respected, but no longer enjoying the success in which Rodgers
was basking. Still, Hammerstein was a towering figure. Whatever he had not
published in the previous fifteen years, he had Show Boat. And its hard not that
suspect that Show Boat, or something akin to its Americanism and its emotional
power was what Rodgers wanted, where he wanted to go. So Rodgers and
Hammerstein agreed to go to work together.
Normally, the job of writing a musical is a collaboration of three people: the
composer, the lyricist, and the book writer (the librettist). However, for
Oklahoma! R & H agreed that Hammerstein (as he had done for Show Boat)
would write the lyrics and the librettolibrettist and the lyricist. That
collaboration might have made for a two thirds / one third split for the new team,
but for whatever reason, and its hard to know because we dont how R & H made
the decision, they opted for a fifty/fifty split. What their contemporaries always
said about them is that they went into a room, they made whatever decisions they
had to make, they came out perfectly unified. And this bond gave them great
strength. No one ever saw these men disagree. They must have had things to
disagree about. As collaborators they must have taken opposite sides over songs
and scenes and the things that you need to get into, to take a part and put back
together in order to write a musical, but no one ever witnessed them as anything
but totally in synch with each other. Their decision from the get-go was to enter
52
into a fifty/fifty partnership, one in which they would split the publishing, their
billing, their royalties, everything, right down the middle. Then they created their
own publishing company, Williamson (both of their fathers were named William),
and from the beginning they were business equals. Even though Hammerstein was
doing double duty as lyricist and librettist. And it is my personal belief that
Hammerstein entered into this agreement without too many qualms.
In every musical theater collaboration I can think of has usually been one alpha
partner, or at least one alpha personality. To work together successfully the other
partner/personality has to acknowledge this and learn to deal with it. In Lerner and
Loewes case, it was Lerner who sat at the steering wheel, even though both he
and Loewe were controlling the vehicle. With E. Y. Harburg, it didnt matter who
he worked with. Harburg was always the alpha guy. So was Richard Rodgers.
This is why I feel Harburg and Rodgers never could have worked together and
why, even though they tried, Rodgers and Alan Jay Lerner had to walk away
from each other. As Josh Logan once said to me, There is always only one
presidential suite in any hotel. Rodgers always got it. Dorothy (Hammersteins
wife) may not have liked it, but Hammerstein kept quiet. He knew what he had
with Rodgers, and he wasnt about to rock the boat.
The Theatre Guild produced the first three shows Rodgers & Hammerstein
wrote: Oklahoma!, Carousel, and Allegro. Oklahoma! was giant and Carousel
majestic. Allegro came up short. However, the Theatre Guild was counting on it
to be the same kind of financial success as Oklahoma! and Carousel had been.
They needed it to be. Oklahoma! and Carousel become cash cows The Theatre
Guild. These two hits paid for many of the Theatre Guild productions that lost
53
money. According to Dania Krupska, who was Agnes de Milles assistant on
Allegro, when they got to the Boston tryout and everybody realized the show was
in trouble, Hammerstein believed he had finally figured out how to fix it. De
Mille had come to him, she was both the director and choreographer of Allegro,
and asked Whats the play about? Hammerstein explained what he thought the
play was about, and de Mille responded, Well you havent written that. What you
just said to me, thats not what I see here. Hammerstein thought it over, figured
out what he had to do, and asked Lawrence Langer, who ran the Theatre Guild,
for another week in Boston to make the necessary changes. Langer agreed to the
extra week and Hammerstein and Rodgers went in front of the company in Boston
and said Mr. Langer and the Theatre Guild have been good enough to give us
more time here and were going to fix this play. We know what we have to do.
Now whatever happened, two days later, Langer reneged and the Allegro
company was told youre going to New York Sunday night. He just couldnt
hold off the New York opening any longer. The Theatre Guild in the 1920s and
30s and 40s produced Shakespeare all over the country, things like that. It cost
them a fortune. They hardly ever made money, they were always poor. But with
Oklahoma! and Carousel they had all this money coming in, and they were
looking at Allegro to be the third cash cow. Langer just chickened out. According
to Dania, he realized I cannot delay this play opening in New York. Ive got all
my big shot friends and clients waiting to go to opening night next week. We
gotta come in. Langer and the Theatre Guild forced the issue, and Rodgers and
Hammerstein were furious. There was nothing they could do. The show opened in
New York on schedule, and was not a success. Allegro was the last time anybody
54
else ever produced anything that Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote.
Josh Logan, who directed and co-wrote South Pacific (the next show R&H
wrote after Allegro), said he knew when he went into South Pacific it was going to
be a hit, because Rodgers & Hammerstein were so angry about Allegro. He said I
knew theyd do whatever they had to do to make South Pacific the biggest hit they
had ever had. And up to that time it was. Although, Oklahoma!s run would turn
out to be 313 performances longer than South Pacifics.
So anyway, here they are, Rodgers and Hammerstein, at the top of their game
a 50/50 partnership with no other producers involved to get in their way. There
would eventually be other billed producers on R & H showsJoseph Fields on
Flower Drum Song and Leland Hayward and Richard Halliday on The Sound of
Musicbut Rodgers & Hammerstein were in complete control. They called the
shots. And they owned everything, lock stock and barrel. They wouldnt even
make a deal with Logan as you probably know that story.
In the early nineteen fifties, their lawyer, Howard Reinheimer, who had been
Hammersteins lawyer all the way back to his Show Boat days, said to them,
Youve got to buy back Oklahoma!, Carousel, and Allegro from the Theatre
Guild. (As producers of these three shows the Theater Guild still owned a
percentage of them. Reinheimer was encouraging R & H to buy the Theatre
Guilds share and become the complete owners of these three shows. At first R &
H didnt understand why. In those days the value of a show was in its Broadway
run, its national tour, and its sale to the movies. Once you got that money, that
was it. Basically the money faucet turned off. Stock and amateur revenue wasnt
like it is today. And there werent any video sales back then, or ring tones or the
55
kinds of synch rights that rule the music publishing world today. Once the
Broadway run was over, the national tour and the movie were history there was no
longer much perceived income for a musical. Still, R & H paid over $800,000 in
early 1950s to buy back Oklahoma!, Carousel, and Allegro from the Theatre
Guild! And from that point on, they owned everything they wrote. This is not as
usual as it might sound. In those days most songwriters on Broadway had deals
with publishers, had deals with producers, had deals with movie companies in
which they only shared a portion of what was to be realized. This sometimes still
true today. Rodgers & Hammerstein owned their own publishing company, they
owned all the auxiliary rights to their shows. Yes, they had some underlying rights
that were shared with others. There were deals with Margaret Langdon, who
wrote the book for The King and I and with John Steinbeck who wrote, Sweet
Thursday, the novel on which Pipe Dream was based. Otherwise, they were the
sole owners. hey even owned the negatives of some of the movies which were
made of their shows. This is incredible! I mean, nobody, even Irving Berlin, who
had great power in Hollywood, owned the negatives of the films of the shows they
wrote. And the only way R& H could do this is because they had these juggernaut
hits. And also, because when they got together on Oklahoma! there werent just
newcomers starting out in the business. They were experienced in the businesses
of Broadway and music publishing. So they began their collaboration with a clout
that most new collaborations cant even dream of having.
DM:
They werent green.
BP:
They were established, but not as a team. Then the first thing they wrote was a
mega-hit. Then the second thing they wrote was another huge artistic and
56
commercial success. Not as big as the first, put powerful enough to continue the
juggernaut. Allegro didnt matter. After all, how much of a failure did it turn out
to be? Even Stephen Sondheim credits it as a seminal influence. Then came South
Pacific (wow!) The King and I (again, wow!) total R & H had five of these
landmark successes. When someone asks Whats the big deal with Rodgers and
Hammerstein? five is the magic number. Lerner and Loewe wrote five shows
together, but the two youve seen are Brigadoon and My Fair Lady. Camelot has a
gorgeous score, but it is not often performed. Paint your Wagon disappeared.
Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote five of the greatest musicals ever produced, and
the big deal is that three generations of Americans have seen . They know the
songs. They recognize the characters. In addition to these shows they wrote the
script (but not the screenplay) and lyrics and music for State Fair, which was a
great success in its era. The 1960 remake wasnt so hot. But even the remake
continued to generate box office because, by that time Rodgers & Hammerstein
were American icons. This is due not only to their success, but because they made
a point of using PR to brand their work. Rodgers and Hammerstein present was
as important as the title.
Because of this the organization, their company, after they were gone, was able
to continue. The executor for Hammerstein was Dorothy Hammerstein, his wife,
and the executor for Rodgers was Dorothy Rodgers, Rodgerss wife. These
women didnt change the business their husbands had created. They didnt have
to. The success of the shows and the songs, the iconic names above the title and
the company kept growing. There was a joke that went around the R & H office in
those days. People would ask, How do you make money here? and the answer
57
would be, We open our mail. It was light humor and it was the truth. Because
the 1960s continued the era in which everybody in the country (and more and
more, the world) was attending performances of big five shows, on stage and in
the movie theaters. And not only the big five, but also Cinderella, which was a
huge hit on television. To this day, I dont think there is a show, maybe the
academy awards, maybe the Super Bowl or the Olympics, that had as many
people watching it as the original March 31, 1957, broadcast of Rodgers &
Hammersteins Cinderella. Over one hundred million people tuned into CBS that
night to watch the new Rodgers & Hammerstein musical on TV. To get a hundred
million people to watch a TV show today, well, that just doesnt happen anymore.
In those days I Love Lucy would get ratings in the forties Today Two and a Half
Men pull in ratings around five, and thats considered huge. So what Rodgers &
Hammerstein had was an audience. And they had them everywhere. They had
them in the theaters, they had them in the movies, and they had them on
television.
After Cinderella came Flower Drum Song. That was in 1958. It isnt well
remembered today, but it was a huge hit in its time. When I was a kid, Flower
Drum Song was the big, hot, happening Rodgers & Hammerstein show. And it
was a modern show. It wasnt bucolic; it didnt take place on a farm in turn of
the century Indian Territory. It didnt take place in Siam, a hundred years ago. It
took place in San Francisco, today. The score was jazzy. Rodgers usually called
on Trude Rittman for dance, choral and incidental music arrangements. Whether
he acknowledged it or not, Rittmann had been important to Rodgers from
Carousel on. But for Flower Drum Song he engaged Luther Henderson, who was
58
a young, black arranger, helped influence many of the jazzier segments of the
Flower Drum Song score, and even arranged the ballet (Tas Dream) that opens
the second act. Robert Russell Bennett still orchestrated, but Grant Avenue
went through four different orchestral versions (two by Henderson) until Rodgers
approved the version that remains in the show.
After Flower Drum Song came The Sound of Music and then, in 1960, the
death of Hammerstein. Rodgers continued writing, but he had already achieved
his greatest successes with Hammerstein. The R & H Organization was able to
keep going because it was fueled by the R & H hits. All the rights to these shows
were in one place, and to this day, Rodgers & Hammerstein remains a one-stop
shopping location. The rights to the Lerner & Loewe shows, for example, are
spread all over. Lerner was married several times and with each divorce went a
piece of his royalties. Then he had tax problems. To try to track down specific
rights for a Lerner show can be difficult, because the stage rights are one place,
the movie rights are another, and the publishing rights still another. Its
complicated. I know this because I am a great fan and admirer of Lerner and his
collaborator, Frederick Loewe. In fact they are the only collaboration I can think
of that could be invoked as an equal of R & H. A lot of authors are in the same
situation where the rights to their shows are concerned. But Rodgers &
Hammerstein owned all their rights and kept their rights. Their huge hits, one
after the other, allowed them to do that. Its why there is a Rodgers &
Hammerstein Organization today. The publishing, the theatrical rights, the movie
rights, the TV rights, the synch rightstheyre all under one roof. Im the
organizations Director of Music, and that includes a multitude of duties. We
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supervise the new productions. Were involved in an ongoing process of restoring
the original music and script materials for theater and concert licensing. Every day
there are details that require our attention.
DM:
You were involved with the recording of Allegro very closely.
BP:
Ted Chapin, who is the President of Rodgers & Hammerstein always felt that
Allegro wasnt getting its due because of the cast album. The original cast
recording was not only overly truncated, it wasnt particularly listener friendly.
People were always fascinated with Allegro. I dont know if you know it or not.
Its a show that didnt work. But its such an interesting idea and everyone in
musical theater at some point becomes fascinated with How can I fix Allegro?
Even Hammerstein tried to fix it.
DM:
He was working on a TV version?
BP:
Yes. You know, Ted found that TV version several years ago, legal yellow pad
pages of Hammersteins notes. Its hard to assess because one of the things
Hammerstein wanted to do was fix the split that occurs between the leading
character and his not-so-devoted wife. But, if you take that away, it would seem to
diminish the end of the play.
DM:
Thats such a core part of the story.
BP:
Thats the problem! He wanted to figure out a way to get them back together.
Now he said this, but in his notes he never got far enough to see how he was
going to do it. So its hard to know how he might have fixed the show. In the final
analysis, he never did. Cameron Macintosh is quoted as having said, I wish I
could figure out the second half of Allegro.
DM:
I wanted to hear about when and how you got involved with the Rodgers and
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Hammerstein Organization.
BP:
Ted Chapin and I have been good friends for years. We met through Jerry Isaacs,
a mutual friend who Ted spent a couple of college semesters with in Appleton,
Wisconsin. I suspect the three of us might have been among the first Stephen
Sondheim fans in our generation. (At least, it seemed that way then.) And Teds
parents, Schuyler and Betty Chapin, were friends of Sondheims. It was an
exciting time to be focused on the musical theater, and Sondheim was our
catalyst. Because nobody by the end of the 1960s knew where musical theater was
headed. Gershwin was dead, Hammerstein was dead, Kern was dead. Lerner &
Loewe had split. Berlin wasnt writing anymore, and Rodgers was already in his
decline. Only Stephen Sondheim seemed to be pointing in the direction of
promise.
After Rodgers died, in 1979, the R & H families were looking for someone to
run the R & H Organization. And they found Ted. And Ted said to me Id like
you to come on board to run the music department. In the 1980s I was involved
in all kinds of other work. I was arranging, I was conducting, I was traveling
around the country, and I was concerned that, if I took a full time job, Id never
get called again to do other work, that people would think, Hes with Rodgers &
Hammerstein. Hes not available anymore. Its the kind of thing you worry about
in this industry. By the end of the 1980s I had just conducted the Broadway
production of Meet Me in St. Louis and had become a bit uneasy about what the
job of a musical director in NY was going to have in store for me. I wanted to
keep my options open, but I didnt know how exactly to do that and to focus on
what looked like it was going to be the rest of my career. I had a great friend in
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California, Danny Jacobson, and at that point I was trying to figure out what I was
going to do with my life, he called and asked Why dont you come out to L.A.
and score a TV series for me? He was producing and writing Roseanne at that
point. He was getting ready to do a new sitcom for Shelley Long (who had just
come off Cheers) and offered me the job of writing the score for the series. It was
an offer that was too good to turn down. I had never lived in California, and it was
the middle winter in New York, and the thought of sunshine and swimming pools
in January was irresistible. I moved to Los Angeles and loved everything about it.
Except the actual work I was doing. I found out that music for an entire season of
a sitcom can be written and recorded in a week or two. So I would complete the
work, and the checks would come, but for the next three months I would have
nothing to do. I really wasnt pursuing a career out there. I was having trouble
trying
DM:
To establish a career?
BP:
To establish a career. Also, it was hard on my ego, because, as I said, in the

theater, when youre in the music department, youre in the room, youre with
the guys at the table making the decisions. In Hollywood, at least in my
experience in television, they buy music like wallpaper. We want three seconds
of this, and five seconds of this, and 26 seconds of this. There are composers
who, given that challenge, respond beautifully. I didnt.
Ted called one day from New York and said, Were creating a new stage
production of State Fair. People had tried to put this movie on stage as early as
the 1960s and it hadnt worked. Rodgers himself was never sure it should be a
stage show because he didnt feel the stakes of the story were high enough to
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make it a Broadway show. But in the early 1990s the decision was made to create
another stage version of State Fair. Tom Briggs and Louis Mattiolli had written a
good book. Producers stepped up to the plate. They were ready to go. Ted
continued, I need somebody to help with the musical arrangements and the
orchestrations. They already had a great musical director and vocal arranger on
board, John McDaniel. I jumped. I mean I think I was back in New York the next
day. I must have really wanted to be working on a Broadway show again.
After I completed the orchestrations for State Fair I returned to L.A. for a
while, but every so often Ted would call and say, You know we dont have a
music department here. We really need somebody to head the music department.
I waffled until the day Ted called to say, Ive got to get somebody in here to run
our music department. If its not you, the family is going to ask me to find
somebody else. That went on until the day I realized that I didnt want to remain
in L.A. and that there was nothing I wanted more than to go to work for Ted and
R & H. But now things had gotten complicated. I took the job feeling I needed R
& H a lot more than they needed me. I wanted to reverse that, but I still couldnt
see how I could make this job a career for myself. So I came on board as a parttime employee, thinking that within six months Id be finished with everything
Ted needed me to do, and Id once again be looking for a job. Well, the joke was
on me. Im still here, and there is no end in sight to the projects awaiting us. Back
in 1989 the first thing I went to work on was the restoration of The Sound of
Music, which, as a stock and amateur property had already overtaken Oklahoma!
as R & Hs most popular title. Oklahoma! had been in the number one spot for
years, but once the movie of The Sound of Music came out, that show went global.
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It became and it remains their biggest hit. After The Sound of Music one project
led to another. Its funny, because when I began at R & H I thought that in my
lifetime at R&H I would eventually to every Rodgers score. I expected to all of
the Rodgers and Hammerstein titles and then all of the Rodgers and Hart titles.
But it turns out that each one of these restorations can take years of work. Today I
realize Ill be lucky if I get through restoring just the major Rodgers and
Hammerstein titles with the time I have left. Ted was right, and I was wrong.
Theres a tremendous amount of work to be done here. And Im having a great
time doing it.
So many people come to us and want to do Oklahoma! and want to do The
King and I, and want to do South Pacific, but, unfortunately, they want to do their
own versions of these show. The big problem is, the best directors and the best
designers working in the theater today dont have the opportunity to work on great
new musicals. There just arent as many being written or certainly as many being
produced. So these directors and designers end up wanting to flex their creative
muscles on the old shows. And thats all right. You cant really say no to
genuinely creative artists. You dont want Rodgers & Hammerstein turning into
Gilbert and Sullivan, where the productions become so sacrosanct, that the entire
canon loses its appeal to a newer generation. On the other hand youve got to
make sure the baby doesnt get thrown out with the bath water. Those of us who
work here (alongside Mary Rodgers, who has the keenest ear I know, and Alice
Hammerstein, who can spot an incorrectly typed lyric a mile away) have a long
history with these shows. Weve seen countless productions of them. And what
we try to do is to caution todays creative artists not to throw something away
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without at least trying to understand why Rodgers and Hammerstein did it the way
they did it in the first place. Because Rodgers & Hammerstein and their
collaborators took the time to develop their ideas. They planned for years, they
rehearsed for months and they went out of town for weeks of previews. And it
goes without saying that they were all savvy ladies and gentlemen of their
individual and combined crafts. So our job here at the office is not so much to
hold the line and tell someone they cant change anything as it is to have a
dialogue with the artists who are producing these shows and explore their ideas.
Its difficult because sometimes these artists are indeed heavyweights. When
Trevor Nunn shows up and says he wants to do Oklahoma! and eliminate all the
original dance music and do new dances, thats a big gulp for us. But if the artist
inspires you, you take the leap. And sometimes it works. Nunns Oklahoma! was
a wonderful production. I mean with Hugh Jackman the audience was on board
from the first moment of the show. Sometimes a reworking of a show doesnt
work as well. Flower Drum Song, the revival, was a noble experiment. Did you
see it when it played in LA?
DM:
I didnt see it. That was before I had moved out to California. I have heard about
it and read reviews and everything.
BP:
So anyway, we do that kind of supervision work. We believe education is among

the most important things we have to offer. In the music department we also keep
up the music for all of the shows and scores. We have a brilliant fellow named
Wayne Blood who heads our Music Prep department. We have people all over the
country who do computer inputting for us, but Wayne has the final pass. I
wouldnt want to edit a single measure without him at my side. Wayne and I do
65
every restoration project together. Music in the Air, Face the Music, Oklahoma!,
Too Many Girls, Once Upon A Mattress, Allegro, etc., etc. Its the part of my job I
like the best because restoration is like solving a mystery. Its sleuthing.
Before I get to restoration, I want to make sure we finished up this question about
the R & H Organization.
DM:
Yes. It wasnt so much a question as wanting to see how you started out there, and
fit in there with their goals and everything. I also wanted to
BP:
Can I give you one example, just for you, to clarify the kind of we deal with at the
R & H Org? The Sound of Music is a particular problem as far as not wanting
people to throw the baby out with the bath water. The problem is that the film was
not only hugely successful, it was very good, and in some ways may have solved
some of the problems that the show had on the stage. But it is not a stage
production. It is a film production. In 1959 Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse,
the original librettists of The Sound of Music, beautifully crafted their script for
the stage. Later, in 1965, Ernest Lehmann, who wrote the screenplay for The
Sound of Music, solved the story for the screen. Because the movie was such a hit,
because it made such an indelible impression on everyone who saw it and because
it came after Broadway show, many directors who do The Sound of Music want to
recreate the the movie version on stage. Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote the
songs. They did not write the script. Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse, the
team who wrote some of the greatest American plays of the twentieth century
(they were as big as Rodgers and Hammerstein) wrote the script. They were
included in the film as far as the profits went, but they took a back seat as authors
because Ernie Lehman wrote a new screenplay and got all the glory. So Lindsay
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and Crouse were never really happy about having The Sound of Music taken away
from them and felt there were certain things in the movie did that could not work
on a stage. Putting the children in the bed to sing My Favorite Things is a great
joy as it is presented in the film. But it is not a good idea for the stage. The bed
always has to be upstage. It crams the Trapp children together. You cant really
enjoy them as individuals. Putting the children in bed on stage is just not the same
wonderful moment it is when they do it on the screen. So we discourage this. But
people know it as an iconic moment the film and come to the theater expecting it.
Its a real conundrum. And the Lindsay and Crouse estates object to its inclusion.
They have the right and the reason to do this. However, were able to allow the
interpolation of both I Have Confidence and Something Good, two songs
Rodgers wrote for the film (Hammerstein was already dead), because these
interpolations dont affect Lindsay & Crouses stage version of the show. You can
insert I Have Confidence the end of the second scene where, in the original
Broadway script, there had been a reprise of My Favorite Things, you can insert
Something Good the end of the first scene of the second act (where An
Ordinary Couple would come) without changing any dialogue. So we can allow
those interpolations to be made. But we dont allow any other changes, to the
score or to the script.
The conundrum is that you can understand why the audiences who know
The Sound of Music as a movie could be (and are) disappointed by the stage
version of the show, even with the new movie songs in place. They love the
movie to the point that they have memorized much of it. Then they come and see
it on stage, and all of a sudden there are songs in different scenes and other songs
67
they have never heard and songs being sung by different characters in different
locations. We get letters from people saying I went to see The Sound of Music on
stage last night, and they put in songs that werent by Rodgers and Hammerstein.
You eventually find out theyre talking about No Way to Stop It and How Can
Love Survive, which were always in the stage version.
The problem similar to going to see the movie The Wizard of Oz and finding
out they cut Over the Rainbow all of a sudden, something you have been
looking forward to, is not there. And for the rest of the movie youre sitting there
thinking What happened? You would be bothered by it. People who go to see
The Sound of Music on stage who dont see what they remember from the movie
are often bothered by it. So what do you do?
DM: Well that actually ties into what Im interested in about cast recordings, and how
sometimes they match up with published and rental texts that are available, and
how sometimes they dont. So Im wondering in your work as a music director
and orchestrator and record producerthis is kind of a general question right now
what role do you think recordings of Broadway musicals play in the context of
the show, meaning historical preservation versus marketing the show to a wider
audience?
BP:
I think in so many cases the recording is the historical preservation of the show. I
mean how many of us only know shows from the experience of sitting in our
room and listening to the cast album? There are many shows that I love (and Ive
been around for a long time) that I dont know anything about except for the cast
album. And it is tough when we finally see the show and realize it is different
from the recording, because we are so used to the cast album. This happens
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because often songs are rearranged or juxtapositions specifically for the recording.
Perhaps this is no longer as much of a problem as it was. Todays musical
recordings are treated almost like opera. The recording industry and the artists to
record the shows exactly as completely as they are performed on stage.
PART TWO
(thirty minutes)
BP:
We try to eliminate every mistake. But we make them and we miss finding them.
In our restoration of the vocal score of Carousel there are both musical mistakes
and lyric mistakes. We try to correct these with each new printing.
DM:
I had one question about: A lot of the old piano-conductor scores from the nonrestored shows are edited by Richard A. Haggerty.
BP:
Well those are the two-piano parts. You must have been playing the two-piano
versions.
DM:
Well actually this is what was sent, when we did, it was sent with the rest of the
materials. We had the published scores, but there are also the rental versions of
these scores.
BP:
The published vocal scores were edited by Dr. Albert Sirmay. He was a
Viennese composer who came to America and went to work for Chappell as an
editor. He created the published piano-vocal scores for all of the Rodgers shows
until sometime in the 40s and 50s. He did them for Lerner & Loewe, too. In
fact he did them for just about everyone in that era. The problem was that in those
days, his primary job was to create playable piano parts. So often the piano
69
accompaniments had little to do with what the orchestra was actually playing.
DM:
It was made to sound good on piano. piano parts
BP:
At the same time, a fellow named Richard A. Haggerty was hired to create twopiano versions of all the Rodgers and Hammerstein scores. The problem with
these two piano versions is that he created them using an un-cued piano-vocal
score as his guide, so he didnt have any of the orchestration available for
incorporation into his two piano version.
DM:
Really? Because the versions that I have of Carousel Oklahoma!there is the

published version and then Ive got piano-conductor score
BP:
Into which the orchestra cues have been placed.
DM:
Yes. Its a piano-conductor score.
BP:
For Oklahoma!, yes.
DM:
And also for Carousel.
BP:
You must have the old (the cream-colored cover) version of the piano-conductor
score. It has been replace by the new (dark blue-colored cover) version, which has
the orchestra cues set in type.
DM:
They didnt, but I had found an old friend who had a copy.
BP:
Besides making the two-piano arrangements Haggerty was hired to take the
piano-vocal score and cue in orchestration.
DM:
Coming from an orchestral conducting standpoint, I always prefer the partitur for
orchestral rehearsals. But in the end, depending on how quickly youve had to do
the show, sometimes its easier to use the piano-conductor score.
BP:
Oh absolutely. The new published piano-vocal score for Carousel is not as easy or
as much fun to play as the earlier version, and perhaps it isnt as pianistic as is
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Dr. Sirmays piano reduction. But it mirrors exactly whats going on in the
orchestral accompaniment. Its easy to conduct from, because what is in the piano
part perfectly reflects the orchestration. In Dr. Sirmays piano vocal scores he
would always put the melody in the right hand, if the cellos were the only
instruments playing it. He would sometimes change the voicings of the chords
(but not the harmonies). Many pianists prefer playing Sirmays scores because
they are so satisfying from a pianistic standpoint. For our restorations, however,
Wayne Blood, the guy who creates the piano reductions for our restorations,
insisted from the beginning that the piano-vocal scores (and piano conductor
scores) reflect the actual orchestration and not just provide pretty piano
accompaniments. I have to say I agree with him. Still, I hope the old versions of
the piano-vocal scores continue to circulate. So far the old version of Carousel is
the only one we have taken out of print. And I think we may have been a little
premature about doing that. The originally published (cream-colored cover) vocal
score of Carousel doesnt have much to do with what is actually going on in the
orchestration, but its fun to play.
DM:
Right.
BP:
When you create a restoration of a musical you want to go back and, as much as
possible, restore the score to what it was on its opening night. But there are pieces
of information that will always elude you. The orchestrators manuscript full
scores will tell you what was played at the first orchestra reading of the score, but
usually not what happened after that first rehearsal. Changes are made almost
immediately. To know what they ended up with by opening night you need the
original pit parts. These parts, when they are available, provide a missing link.
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Trouble is, they dont always exist. In fact, most of the time they are missing. And
you have to take into account that the original pit parts will actually be reflecting
the closing night of the show, and not the opening night.
Its very interesting that for South Pacific, we had the Broadway pit parts,
which were conducted by Salvatore DellIsola (an Italian conductor), as well as
the touring parts, conducted by Franz Allers (a German conductor). Both sets of
parts reflect the same interpretations of the same score. But Salvatore (from the
Italian School) and Allers (from the German School), while working toward the
same effect, got there with different dynamics, different articulations, different
bowings, etc. They each had their own way of getting the same result. When Ted
Sperling (conductor of the 2008 Lincoln Center revival of South Pacific) got our
restoration, which was our best take on how the score was originally played, he
also asked for the original pit parts. In Teds early orchestra rehearsals, the
concertmistress (Belinda Whitney) had the newly restored violin part on her
music stand and the original violin part (which had been marked by Robert
Stanley, the original Broadway concertmaster) on the floor between her feet. She
used both versions to help her get the string section to the particular place Ted
Sperling needed them to be in order to create his own interpretation of the original
playing of the score. Ted is a marvelous musical director. And we appropriated
some of his nuances into the final playing version of the show, the one which we
now license. Ted was able to look back sixty years and then bring his
interpretation of what the original artists were doing forward to today. The big
problem with determining what actually happened in an orchestra pit forty or fifty
or sixty years ago is that there may be layers of different articulations, dynamics
72
and bowings that were made and changed as the show ran.
DM:
Well for instance Ive found bowings in a number of older printed parts, and
theyre printed and copied in.
BP:
And its hard to authenticate what the final result was. While working on our
restoration of The King and I we realized the bowings for the string parts from the
Overture of the original production were both sensible and consistent. We
included these bowings in order to give the strings and the conductor a precise
idea of how the string parts were played in the Overture of the original
production. But we decided not to include the bowings for the rest of the score,
because after the Overture the bowings became very inconsistent.
This brings up a good point. I learned from Kevin Farrell, a terrific Rodgers
conductor, when he was conducting The King And I at the St. Louis MUNY
several years ago, that if you take your time with the orchestra on the Overture
they will maneuver much more nimbly through the rest of the score because you
have laid the groundwork for them. Kevin once spent the first two hours carefully
going over the Overture of The King And I with the orchestra and then played
through the entire rest of the score in the two hours of rehearsal he had left. It was
amazing! Once the orchestra was clear about how he was going to interpret the
Overture they had no trouble bring this information forward into the rest of the
score.
One point I want to make about our restorations is that from the get-go Ted
Chapin, President and CEO of the R & H Organization, wanted us to document
any changes we were making. So at the back of the Carousel score you will find
many notes about the conundrums we encountered and how we solved them. For
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example, in the orchestral introduction to Mr. Snow there is an E in the second
violin part in measure six that all of our information tells us should be a D.
(Everywhere else in Don Walkers orchestration of this theme has the note as a D
and not an E.) We made the decision to correct the note. I believe Walker simply
made a mistake. But in our notes we spell this out and we give anyone who is
interested in changing the D we corrected back into an E the opportunity to do so.
We state that we made a decision based on the information available to us but that
you may interpret that information differently and may make a different decision.
DM:
If an E makes sense to you.
BP:
Its very hard, when working on a restoration to keep yourself out of it. You dont
want to speak for the composer or the orchestrator or any of the other artists
involved because you are not those people. And you dont want to make decisions
based on your own personal preferences, to decide in your own mind that you
know better than the original composer or orchestrator or arranger or player. You
just want to communicate their intentions to the best of your ability. Sometimes
those intentions are hard to decipher, and you have to make your own call. But
this is when you need to come clean and to point out that you have indeed made
call, and it might not be, given the same information, the call someone else might
make. You want to be constantly reiterating the point that, We made this call
because of this information. Go back and examine the information, and see if you
agree. Because maybe you wont agree. Our index of the Carousel is full of
these points for future musicians to ponder.
One of the interesting conundrums regarding The Carousel Waltz the rhythm
in measures 69, 71, 72, 77, 79 and 80 and later in measures 363, 365, 366, 371,
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373 and 374. In Rodgers original pencil manuscript he uses dotted eighth note
followed by a sixteenth note on the first beat of measures 69, 71, 72, 77, 79 and
80 but he uses straight eighth notes for the same figure in measures 363, 365, 366,
371, 373 and 374. Walker simply copied what Rodgers wrote. Should both of
these sections of the music be the same rhythmically? Did Rodgers intend this
variation or did he simply forget how head had written it the first time?
DM:
How can we ever know, unless there is some documentation?
BP:
My first thought was that Rodgers had made a mistake. So the restoration shows
both sections with the dotted eighth note to sixteenth note rhythm. But later on I
began to wonder if the tempo was intended to be faster the second time around, be
the reason for straightening out the rhythm in the second section. Anyway, I
hadnt thought of that when I wrote the restoration.
DM: Thats similar to a story of my own. One of my advisers at UC Davis is a Berlioz

expert, D. Kern Holoman, and he cataloged the works of Berlioz. We were doing
Symphonie Fantastique, and in the March to the Scaffold [hums a few bars of
melody], and whenever we got there to that section he always sped it up a whole
lot, and I always said Its not in the score. It doesnt do that. And he told me
that Berlioz, who went around conducting this everywhere, wrote down in his
manuscript the exact time it takes for each movement. And he never includes that
in his scores. If you time it out with half-note equals 72, it doesnt add up with
what he wrote, so we think he sped up here. Because thats just something you
would have done. Its one of those things that, even if you could write that down,
you still cant get it across in every format. Its going to somehow get lost.
BP: If you do it by the numbers, its going to feel awkward anyways. Somehow
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everyones got to feel it.
DM:
And thats part of the job of the music director.
BP:
Whos directing Carousel for you?
DM:
Hes a playwright / director named Tony Howarth.
BP:
And whos choreographing?
DM:
A younger girl, Heidi Kloes.
BP:
Even if she doesnt use the original choreography, make sure that she sees the
DVD (or video cassette) of The Dances of Carousel that we license. It shows
Agnes de Mille going through all of her original choreography for Carousel. And
you should watch it, too. Everyone who is interested in Carousel should see it. It
helps you understand what all that music is there. And de Mille is not telling you
that you must use her steps. In fact she says that the choreography isnt about the
steps. The dances and the choreography are about the emotion. Agnes de Mille
was very specific about the June Dance. Everyone likes to do the June Dance
it is choreographed in the movie of Carousel, with the men and the women
dancing together. But de Mille wanted to introduce the feminine point of view.
She explains in the video why she wanted the women to be dancing. She had done
the same thing in Oklahoma! with Many A New Day.
DM:
Just the girls, to contrast Blow High, Blow Low, where its just the men.
BP:
Exactly. And then the men and the women dance with each other, later on. But its
really helpful to see that video. And if you can, watch it with your choreographer.
DM:
Id love that.
BP:
Yes.
DM:
I learned that in the Library of Congress, for a week to look at the Rouben
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Mamoulian Papers for Oklahoma! look at the different drafts. You know Tim
Carter? Hes a musicologist and just wrote a book on Oklahoma!.
BP:
Yes.
DM:
I studied with him when I was an undergraduate at UNC Chapel Hill, and I went
back and I said Were doing Oklahoma! and Im writing about it in my thesis.
There are a lot of things I could talk about, but what should I focus on? He talked
about his book where he has all of the drafts of the show, but I didnt have time to
get one particular draft, which is considered a missing-link between early versions
and the final published version. Which I think is between what he calls draft 2
and what ended up getting published. He said Mamoulian wasnt a pushover.
There were a lot of things that he wanted to change, and who knows who is
credited for those things.
BP:
Luckily, for our restoration of Oklahoma! Gemze de Lappe is helping us put back
some of the original Mamoulian staging which has gone missing over the years.
Gemze says that what Mamoulian was brilliant at was the ensembles. Until
Mamoulian the chorus basically just stood there and sang. Maybe theyd raise
their arms or all go down on one knee together on a given beat, but what they
were doing was choreography and not character. Gemze said Mamoulian made
everyone on stage a character, even if they were just standing in the background.
The comic bits especially are going to be more carefully laid out in the restored
script. This is all thanks to Gemze and her memory and understanding of
Mamoulians original work.
We restored the score of Carousel, but there are still a couple of lyric
inconsistencies. I know there are two in When I Marry Mister Snow. There are
77
a couple of wrong notes in Youll Never Walk Alone as well.
DM:
Well you know in the script they leave out the opening section of When The
Children Are Asleep (I own a little boat, etc.) thats not the restored script. Im
thinking of an older one which the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization sent
to us when we got our show materials. The script left out the opening section of I
own a little boat.
BP:
Yes.
DM:
When Carrie sings that verse its left out in the script, but this is the older version.
BP:
Its possible. You mean in the verse in which she sings When children are
awake, a romping through the rooms, and plodding down the stairs?
DM:
Also, in the Highest Judge of All Billy sings Reckon my sins are good big
sins in the old published piano-vocal he just repeats well, I dont remember
exactly the words he repeats, but he doesnt sing Reckon my sins are good big
sins, which to me is the heart of the song.
BP:
This lyric (good big sins) might have been incorrect in the original vocal score.
But good big sins is the lyric Hammerstein intended. It is published in the
Random House version of the libretto. And I believe we have corrected this
mistake in our new edition of Carousel. However, there are mistakesboth
printed mistakes and recording mistakeson cast albums that we learn to live
with. In the movie of The Sound of Music there is a lyric mistake in the song The
Sound of Music. [He sings:] To laugh like a brook when it trips and falls over
stones on its way. The correct lyric is stones in its way. This mistake can be
traced all the way back to the original rehearsal material for the Broadway
production. It was caught and corrected there. Mary Martin sings in its way.
78
But it wasnt corrected in the published sheet music and vocal score. So when
they made the film they repeated the mistake.
DM:
I remember on its way.
BP:
Everybody does. Its wrong. It was an early copying error. It stands corrected
today, but for years we all heard and read on its way and we got used to it.
DM:
Now thats how everyone knows it.
BP:
We uncovered this error while talking to Peter Howard, a Broadway conductor

who died a couple of years ago. He was the rehearsal pianist for the original
Broadway production of The Sound of Music. He recalled, I remember this.
Hammerstein walked over to the piano and crossed out on on the score from
which we were rehearsing and wrote in in its place. Later we looked in our
files, and there it wasPeters rehearsal score was marked just that way. When
you think about it on its way doesnt make sense, unless youre saying
something like over stones, on its way to the sea. But thats not what
Hammerstein wrote.
The other lyric mistake that is regularly made happens in Hello Young
Lovers (from The King and I) lyric I know how it feels to have wings on your
heels and to fly down . . . Now, is it a street or the street? If you guessed a
street you are correct. But on the movie soundtrack recording, Debbie Kerr (or
Marni Nixon) sings THE street. Its wrong. It could have been a copying error.
Who knows? These things happen. Recordings are permanent records of mistakes
that no one caught at the time.
DM:
And these mistakes accumulate over time.
BP:
And sometimes you dont know the answer to the question, Which version is
79
correct? you have to sleuth for it. Most of these errors are small points. But
sometimes they are a little bit bigger. I dont know how involved youre going to
be in the staging of your upcoming production of Carousel, but theres something
they did in the original production that was very effective. Im not even sure if
this got into the original script. Its a bit of staging that comes at the end of the
play. Everybody is seated on stage is seated for the graduation ceremony, except
for Billy, the Doctor, and the Heavenly Friend. When the Ensemble begins to sing
When you walk through a storm the girls in Louises graduation class stand up,
all except for
DM:
Louise.
BP:
Yes, Louise remains sitting on her bench. And on the other bench the adults have
also stood upall except for Julie. So everyone on stage is standing except for
Louise and Julie. Then, when Billy says to Louise, Believe him, darling!
Believe. Louise stands up. Now Julie is the only person on stage who is still
sitting. When Billy says to her know that I loved you Julie stands. Its a terrific
musical theater moment. Not only do we see that Billy is able to do something
good for his wife and daughter, and thereby get himself out of purgatory, we see
both of these women join the community. They are now a part of something Billy
himself was never able to be a part of. He has given these two women the courage
to belong.
DM: That issue of community is something that a lot of other authors have written
about recently, in terms of the conflict in a lot of musicals. All the way back
through, well a lot of dramas in general, but especially starting with Rodgers and
Hammerstein, this issue of the outsider versus the community. Its been written a
80
lot about Oklahoma! with Jud, and how theres this primal sort of conflict in like
95% of most musicals where you have somebody that is an outsider, and they
either get assimilated or they leave or die. Jud is an example of that, Carousel
happens with that, somebody like Billy, and eventually Julie and Louise, and
South Pacific. Its so much about community which I think is such a powerful
universal concept, and everyone can relate to it.
BP:
Yes. And it was important to Hammerstein. He believed that the best way to live
is as a part of a community. Even when you have to stand against your
community, youre still in it. The people we share the planet with are our
neighbors. We need to learn to love them, or at least, how to live with them.
Getting To Know You may be the most political song Oscar Hammerstein ever
wrote. But his cure for what ails us as neighbors is so simple we tend to overlook
it.
DM: I remember reading the liner notes in the new Allegro recording, and I think it was
Ted Chapin was writing about his take on Hammersteins thoughts about Allegro,
and the concept of how people are used in communities, and how sometimes they
end up having to go back to it.
BP: Allegro is the only one of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals that makes me
cry at the end, and all of them have powerful, emotional endings which are
beautifully written and staged. The King and I is another R & H show that at its
conclusion makes a grand statement. But it is easy to miss. The last shot of the
movie of The King and I of the stars: Deborah Kerr takes Yule Brynners hand
and the camera closes in on this. But it tends to focus the audience on the tragic
ending love story, and thats not really whats going on. What is happening is that,
81
with the death of the King, the world is changing. The prince (Chulalongkorn),
when asked by his dying father what he will do when he is King, first answers that
he will have boat races, because he likes races. Its a silly little joke of a line, but
it tells us that the boy is grasping the power he will have to make his world what
he wants it to be. And then he makes a profound decision. He doesnt want the
men to bow to him like toads. He wants them only to bow from the waist up, and
he shows them how to do it (just as he has been taught to bow (in Getting To
Know You by Mrs. Anna). Chulalongkorn then says that the ladies will curtsey.
But he doesnt know how to do this, and he calls for help from his mother (Lady
Thiang). And Lady Thiang comes forward, toward her husband, the dead King,
and the audience thinks she is going to bow to him. But at the last moment she
turns and curtseys to her son, the new King. The entire court of women now
curtsey, as Hammerstein says, a gesture of obedience to the old King, a gesture
of allegiance to the new one. It is a stunning moment. Chulalongkorn is able to
take the step his father was not able to take. And in asking for his mothers help
(in front of the entire court) the new King has given women a new place in their
world. The King has publicly asked a woman for help. What inexpressible pride
Thiang must feel as she steps forward in that last moment of the play. And what
satisfaction for the audience to see Anna and the King both get what they were
working for. Yes, the King dies, but his dream lives in his children.
Now, back to the Allegro: Joe Taylor, Jr. (the leading character in the story) is
given a second chance. He gets his life back. Up to the end of the story he has
fallen off track, but hearing one simple wordornamentsomehow opens a door
for him, and he sees his way back to the life he was meant to live. The problem
82
with Allegro is people think its about going home, and I think its only
metaphorically about going home. Its really about going back to what makes you
you. It doesnt have to be going back to the Midwest or getting out of the city.
Its getting back to what you were born to be, what you know youre about, which
is a powerful thingpowerful enough to choke me up every time I read or hear or
see it.
DM:
I agree.
BP:
When are you doing Carousel?
DM:
I start rehearsals in a week. We rehearse for a week, and we put it on for a week,
and then its over.
BP:
Youre not here tomorrow, are you?
DM:
No.
BP:
Youve got to make sure you email me tomorrow and give me an address, cause
Ill overnight the score to you so you have it,
DM:
That would be fantastic. I did Brigadoon earlier in the season, a few weeks ago,
and Tams-Witmark actually had a full score to itit was really good manuscript.
BP:
Dale Kugel created that full score for Brigadoon many years ago. It was one of
the first available for a Broadway musical.
DM:
It was neatit had all of the script, and it had stuff that was not in the script. Talk
about a complete document! It didnt have all the dialog, but it solved the
inconsistencies. Have you heard about Steve Suskins new book (The Sound of
Broadway Music)?
BP:
Oh yes.
DM:
Thats just a dream come true for me.
83
BP:
Have you read it?
DM:
I just got a copy and Im making my way through it.
BP:
Well its a wonderful book, although Ive been made aware of a few mistakes in
it. Steve Suskin is a terrific writer, but it bothers me when I am misquoted. In this
book Steve makes the statement that no Broadway composer ever wrote his own
overtures. And the truth is that Frederick Loewe did write the Overture to My
Fair Lady. Theres a manuscript in his handthe whole introduction all the way
to On The Street Where You Live. Loewe instructs, One chorus of Street
Where You Live in C. Then Loewe writes the transition to I Could Have
Danced All Night and instructs, One chorus of I Could Have Danced All
Night in E-flat. He laid out the complete My Fair Lady Overture, and he did this
for Camelot, as well. Well, he forgot about it. And now its in print that Broadway
composers did not write their own overtures. Frederick Loewe did. But Im not
coming down on Steve Suskin. Im grateful for every book hes written. And hes
saved me from more than one of my own mistakes. The point Im making here is
how careful you have to be when youre documenting anything. And in The
Sound of Broadway Music documents the orchestration of Broadway shows
brilliantly.
DM:
Its nice because its written in a very accessible way to people that are interested.
It explains concepts like ghosting, something that I wasnt very keen on. Being
someone whos been in academia for a while, Ive been doing semi-professional
productions out in California, I rely so much on documents that are published.
Theres a foreword introduction to the script of A Little Night Music, where
Jonathan Tunick writes, and he talks about his involvement with the show, and
84
how songs came about, and different keys, and clarinet books. There are so few
things about that on orchestration, which is why I was so excited to get a chance
to talk with you about not just orchestration, but the whole process.
BP:
When you come through New York again, you must come to our office, because
there are so many things there I know youd have a great time perusing.
DM:
Id love to. Im sorry I was so restricted to this one day, because really I have to
go down to the Library of Congress right away.
BP:
Who do you talk to down there? Mark Horowitz?
DM:
Mark Eden Horowitz.
BP:
Hes a wonderful and a knowledgeable guy. Do you know his book about
Sondheim?
DM:
Yes. And Ive read his stuff. Everybodys been really helpful. That being said, I
really appreciate your time, and I think I need to go now.
BP:
Only if youre finished.
DM:
I might have a few follow-up questions, too, if its okay.
BP:
Yes, just let me know. By the way, how did you find me?
DM:
Through my friend, Tim Matson. He and I did Hair together, and I was his music
director. He was a performance guy, and then he moved to New York and got a
job with R & H. Now I think hes doing music direction elsewhere.
BP:
He was a bright fellow. I suspected we might not have him for long. We will miss
him.
DM:
He said You need to talk to Bruce. So Im glad he put me in touch with you.
BP:
So what do you do now? Go back to California?
DM:
I go and do Carousel. Auditions, then a week of rehearsals. Im sorry I just had
85
auditions. A week of rehearsals and a week of performance. So I just cast it, then
Im down to D.C. When I get back to California, Im finishing up writing my
thesis. Im done with classes and everything to get my masters. Im working on a
production of The Threepenny Opera, and its nice because one of our
conductors
BP:
Which version are you doing? The one we license or another version?
DM:
Were doing the other one with the Jeremy Sams translation, because my director
really likes it. You guys have the Blitzstein translation?
BP:
Yes.
DM:
So Im doing that and its nice because one of the other conductors up at the
summer stock company is Kim Kowalke of the Kurt Weill Foundation. Hes
doing Titanic this week, right now. So I said let me pick your brain about Kurt
Weill and Brecht. So Im going back to do The Threepenny Opera. Then Im
going to do a production of Trial by Jury.
BP:
Oh good. So you do Gilbert & Sullivan, too?
DM:
Yes, and I got started with that up in the summer stock company. I actually just
got into Rodgers and Hammerstein. I had been a huge Sondheim fan, and I spent
my whole time doing rock musicals and Sondheim, and some older Andrew Lloyd
Weber stuff, Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar. At UC Davis they said Its the
100th anniversary of the school and we want to do a big show that everyone
knows. We want to do one thats about our agricultural schools background. So
lets do Oklahoma!. And I said Okay, Oklahoma!s great and I had done it
before. Then I got into it, and now I get to do Carousel, and I really want to do
Allegro next. I just want to go through all of them because theyre so
86
important. I think people in my generation think its hard to get excited by
Rodgers and Hammerstein. In a way its kind of like Mozart symphonies. Sure
Brahms and Beethoven have all this great stuff, but youve got stuff that was
really, really good right before then, that they
BP:
They built on it.
DM:
They built on it! Thats what they had to go off.
BP:
It turned them on and got them excited.
DM:
And so many people in my generation, like this theater company, its all young
people, and maybe three of them have done Oklahoma! or Carousel. I told them
Youve got to do this first. Youve got to understand where the art form is
today, where it came from.
BP:
I suspect that today, R & H is harder to get into, especially if youre coming to it
via the movies. Except for The Sound of Music and The King and I its hard to get
a full grasp of what these shows accomplished and still accomplish on stage.
DM:
The staging and orchestrations and everything.
BP:
Im just running through Carousel right now in my mind, number by number, and
I dont think theres anything I havent told you. Regarding Soliloquy, youll
see that new middle section and decide whether you want to do it or not. Although
the challenge of producing Carousel is not so much what you may want to add as
to what you may have to cut.
DM:
Yeah, especially in a summer stock company. If I had a couple of months to

rehearse it like I do back west.
BP:
Do you have many dancers?
DM:
No. It was really tough to find a Louise, cause she has that whole ballet. Its
87
tough, but at the same time, you know sometimes Ive been involved playing in
the pit for a production, where they completely restructured the ballet, like the
dream ballet, and when I did Oklahoma! back west, I did the whole Dream
Ballet. I knew it was going to be a beast, and some of its maybe not going
to make sense, but we did it. And it was just so incredibly powerful. To think that
so many people when they approach this show they think Weve got to cut,
weve got to cut, weve got to rewrite it. Theres something to be said for
looking at something the way it was written and see if that works before you
change it.
BP:
If you can. The other thing about the ballet, is you get to see the contribution of
Trude Rittman to Rodgers work. She always gave him the credit for the success of
their collaboration, but I think she was being modest. She was a wonderful
composer, as well as an arranger.
DM:
Do you know a gentlemen named Peter Purrin? Hes a graduate student like me,
but hes at the University of Kentucky. Hes doing a lot of research about Don
Walker right now. Theres also Kara Gardner, at University of San Francisco.
Shes getting ready to write a book or an article called Agnes de Mille, I think?
Its a lot about Trude Rittman, and Agnes De Mille, and Don Walker, and their
role in that process. Fascinating stuff.
BP:
Trude sometimes composed the connective tissue for her dance arrangements in
Rodgers shows, but essentially she was arranging the music Rodgers composed.
(This is not entirely the case with The Small House Of Uncle Thomas in The
King And I.) The reason people often think Trude composed some of the dance
music is that she was such a clever arranger, she could make the Rodgers
88
melodies she used sound like new ones. For example, the pas de deux in Louises
ballet in Carousel.
DM:
The six-eight section
BP:
Exactly. I was told by Ted Chapin that Dorothy Rodgers didnt like that Pas de
Deux music because she thought Trude Rittman had written it. But Trude didnt
write it. She based it on Rodgers music. You know which music that is?
DM:
No.
BP:
[Singing] I wonder what hell think of me? I guess hell call me the old man.
DM:
Cause it has all of those thirdsA major to F, to C
BP:
Its her improvisation on the Soliloquy. But she only uses only the few notes
Rodgers wrote for those words. And then she makes them something else entirely.
Only a good composer is capable of coming up with that kind of a variation.
DM:
Wow!
BP:
When you go hear it again, this section of the Ballet youll see how one might
wonder if it was composed by Rodgers or by Trude Rittmann.
DM:
Thats what I had been trying to think, and I figured it was Trude Rittman.
BP and DM: [both sing the rest of the six-eight section together.]
DM:
I just realized, and this is probably a little obvious, but that the opening Waltz
them [sings a bit of The Carousel Waltz] is the same as the main melody.
BP:
Yes.
DM:
So many things to dig into.
BP:
Youll have fun.
DM:
Thank you so much.
BP:
Youre welcome. I hope that we get to meet each other again some day.
89
DM:
Im certainly moving to New York in the next couple of years.
BP:
Okay. Youll come to the office. Ill send you the score right away. I want you to
have it.
DM:
Thank you. Ill follow up with an email when I get there.
BP:
Keep my posted on how your production goes.
DM:
Definitely.
90
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94
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Compositional Style and Process in Rodgers and Hammersteins Carousel

2010 by Imagem, C.V.

1.1 The Engine of Broadway

1.2 The Sound World of Carousel

Early Drafts of Carousel

2.1 Prologue (The Carousel Waltz)

2.2 Julie and Carrie Sequence: Mister Snow

2.3 Scene Billy and Julie: If I Loved You

The Legacy of Carousel

3.1 Carousels Afterlife

3.2 Operetta or Broadway Musical

Appendix: An Interview with Bruce Pomahac

1940 Higher and Higher

Jule Styne / Sammy Cahn

1.1 Songwriters and the Engine of Broadway

2. Bruce Pomahac, interview with the author, 26 July 2009, 51.

The Sound World of Carousel

4. Tim Carter, Oklahoma! (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 7.

17. Rodgers, Musical Stages, 238.

2.1. Prologue (The Carousel Waltz)

In 1944 Paul Whiteman convinced administrators of the NBC Symphony Orchestra to

intro (slower version of main theme)

EXPOSITION (pantomime begins on stage)

second theme A (with spirit)

true coda with variation 3 as fanfare

22. McMillin, The Musical As Drama, 129.

Example 1. Rodgers, Carousel Waltz, from Carousel piano-conductor score,

24. Pomahac. Restoration Notes, 592.

b. Published version, mm. 6781.

2.2. Julie and Carrie Sequence: Mister Snow

27. Pomahac, interview, 76.

Part 1: Youre A Queer One, Julie Jordan

intro (Carrie speaking with music)

Youre A Queer One 1st verse

Youre A Queer One 2nd verse

underscoring (Youre a Queer One)

(did not exist yet)

Part 2: His Name Is Mister Snow

His name is Mister Snow (1st verse)

An almost perfect beau

The fust time he kissed me (bridge)

Last night he spoke quite low

Next moment we were promised!

When I Marry Mister Snow (refrain)

Then its off work to well go 2nd verse

28. Rodgers and Hammerstein, Carousel piano-conductor score, 2132.

Hell carry me cross the threshold

Then Ill kiss him so hell know

29. McMillin, The Musical as Drama, 137.

Table 4. Form and Harmonic Structure in Bench Scene from Carousel31

Part 1: Youre A Queer One, Julie Jordan (reprise)

orchestral intro (Youre a queer one)

Billys 1st verse (Youre a queer one)

m. 16 Julies 1st verse (You couldnt take)

m. 26 Billys 2nd verse (Youre a queer one)

Billys 3rd verse (Do you love me?)

m. 45 Julies 2nd verse (Im never gonna marry)

(did not exist yet)

m. 53 underscoring (Youre a queer one)

Julies Verse (If I Loved You)

m. 37 underscoring (If I Loved You)

m. 49 Billys 1st verse (You cant hear a sound)

m. 81 Billys 2nd verse (Theres a hell of a lot)

m. 105 Julies interlude (Theres a feathery cloud)

Moschler, David - Compositional Style and Process in Rodgers & Hammerstein's Carousel

Moschler, David - Compositional Style and Process in Rodgers & Hammerstein's Carousel