Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Rodgers and Hammerstein
- Cambridge Companions to Music
- The Cambridge Companion to Rodgers and Hammerstein
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Musical Examples
- Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Chronology
- Part I Before Rodgers and Hammerstein
- 1 Rodgers before Hammerstein
- 2 Oscar Hammerstein’s Early Career
- Part II Being Rodgers and Hammerstein
- Part III The Musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein
- Part IV Legacies
- Select Bibliography
- Index
2 - Oscar Hammerstein’s Early Career
from Part I - Before Rodgers and Hammerstein
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 August 2026
Edited by
Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Rodgers and Hammerstein
- Cambridge Companions to Music
- The Cambridge Companion to Rodgers and Hammerstein
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Musical Examples
- Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Chronology
- Part I Before Rodgers and Hammerstein
- 1 Rodgers before Hammerstein
- 2 Oscar Hammerstein’s Early Career
- Part II Being Rodgers and Hammerstein
- Part III The Musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein
- Part IV Legacies
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960) is today mostly remembered for his eleven collaborations with Richard Rodgers during the 1940s and 1950s. His career as a professional lyricist, however, reached back to the 1920s; his musical collaborators included some of the major musical theatre composers of the 1920s and 1930s such as Sigmund Romberg (The New Moon, 1928) and Jerome Kern (Show Boat, 1927; Music in the Air, 1932). More than two-thirds of Hammerstein’s lyrics for over 850 songs were written for pre-Rodgers Broadway and film musicals. As such, they represent the majority of Hammerstein’s significant and sizable oeuvre. This chapter analyses the distinctive aspects of several of Hammerstein’s lyrics from his early career, including ‘I’ll Take Romance’, ‘Why Was I Born?’ and ‘The Song Is You’, as well as his adaptation of Bizet’s Carmen, Carmen Jones (1945).
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- The Cambridge Companion to Rodgers and Hammerstein , pp. 19 - 36Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
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