'Richard Rodgers: The Sweetest Sounds'

The Documentary is Part of the "American Masters" Series on PBS

Featuring the life and career of Richard Rodgers, the American Masters film "Richard Rodgers: The Sweetest Sounds" aired on PBS on Wednesday, August 17, at 9 p.m. ET (check local listings).

A master of the 20th-century musical, Rodgers was behind "Oklahoma!", "Carousel" and "The King and I." He created such classics as "Pal Joey," "The Sound of Music" and dozens of other Broadway shows. With his collaborators Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein, he composed more than 800 songs and wrote the scores for more than 70 musicals.

Producer and director Roger Sherman and Theodore S. Chapin, president and executive director of The Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, were online Thursday, Aug. 18, at 1 p.m ET to discuss the life and career of Richard Rodgers and the PBS film "Richard Rodgers: The Sweetest Sounds."

This film includes archival footage and live sessions with such contemporary performers as Julie Andrews, Maureen McGovern, Billy Taylor, Shirley Jones, Diahann Carroll and Andrew Lloyd Weber. The film received a 2002 CINE Golden Eagle and a Silver CINDY Award, among other honors.

Roger Sherman's documentaries have been honored with a Peabody Award, an Emmy Award, two Academy Award nominations and many other prizes. His subjects include films on music and art, history, nature and the environment, science and social issues. He's also worked as a documentary doctor, supervising producer and media consultant.

Theodore S. Chapin has been chairman of the Advisory Committee for New York City Center's Encores! series since its inception, and serves on several boards including Goodspeed Musicals, Connecticut College and City Center. He served as a Tony Awards nominator for two seasons, and is currently a member of the Tony Administration Committee. His career began as production or directorial assistant for the Broadway productions of "Follies," "The Rothschilds" and "The Unknown Soldier and His Wife," as well as Bernstein's "Mass" at the Kennedy Center and "Candide" in San Francisco.

The transcript follows.

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Roger Sherman: Hi all. Welcome to the chat. Ted and I are happy to "speak" with you about Richard Rodgers, his work, etc.

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Dodgeville, Wis.: It seems to me that a lot of what people praised on the show -- which I saw last night -- was actually work done by the arranger (whose name I can't recall) harmonics, chord complexity, etc. -- not Richard Rodgers. Who was his arranger for most of those years and why didn't he get a lot more credit?

Roger Sherman: the arranger for the film is Teese Gohl. We've worked together before. he composed the music for my film on Alexander Calder. I'm glad you liked it. He did a very sensitive and great job, having to arrange but not create, and there's often a fine line.

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Front Royal, Va.: I probably didn't appreciate Richard Rogers' incredible song writing ability until I started playing his music on the piano. Do you think people discover the music of great song writers like him later in life? I'm guessing very few people under the age of 30 could tell you who he was or what music he's written.

Roger Sherman: Sadly, I think your right. Young people usually know who I'm talking about when I say Rodgers & Hart, Rodgers & Hammerstein, but even then...

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Colorado Springs, Colo.: Did Rogers write the score after Hammerstein wrote the lyrics? Likewise with respect to Hart.

Theodore S. Chapin: With Hart, Rodgers wrote the music first. With Hammersteim, the lyrics came first. In Roger's excellent program (plug) Trevor Nunn states that it was genius for one composer to be able to do both, and with equal success. Recently I found an interview with Rodgers in 1968 in which he says that the last song he wrote with Hammerstein - "Edelweiss" - Rodgers had to write the music first because Hammerstein wasn't well.

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Crofton, Md.: Thanks for a moving tribute tour Mozart, Richard Rodgers. I wonder if you could shed some light on why the partnership of Alan Jay Lerner and Rodgers never came about. I understand RR even had title for the musical I Picked A Daisy.?

Theodore S. Chapin: My guess is that Lerner was a repeat of Hart for Rodgers, by which I mean the word man was not willing to be precise about a working schedule. Rodgers told a story about having a date with Lerner and when Lerner didn't show up Rodgers called the house only to find that Lerner was in Capri. But yes, they did some work on I PICKED A DAISY, and there are even a couple of lyrics, some of which look like morphed versions of songs that ended up in ON A CLEAR DAY...

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Washington. D.C.: Which musical theater composers today do you think Rodgers would admire in addition to his grandson, Adam Guettel? And what do you think he'd say or feel about his grandson's work like "Light in the Piazza?"

Roger Sherman: I think he'd he'd like Sondheim, maybe not the dark side, so much. And I'm sure he'd be so proud of Adam. When I saw "light" I thought, now here finally is a new era of the musical beginning after a very long, uninspiring hiatus.

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New York City: Do you think there is any parallel between the development by Rodgers of a new style of American musical (starting with Oklahoma) and the development of method acting (as opposed to the old star vehicle/revue-type musical and traditional acting)? Did Rodgers express any strong opinions about method acting?

Roger Sherman: I don't know about method acting being an influence. What I found interesting was how "old" musical theater was in the 20's, 30s 40s. There was very little story. A song, a dance, even a famous comedian not connected to the show would have it in his contract to come out at an exact time each night, then back to the show. I think Rodgers & hammerstein were just ready for a new style. Times were changing and so were they

Theodore S. Chapin: I don't think method acting had much place in Rodgers' creative life. He was pretty precise in what he wanted from his performers - tempo number one - and I'd bet he was happy with performers who just paid attention to what he had written and didn't try to jazz it up. There's the story of Peggy Lee's rendition of "Lover" to which Rodgers replied "You know it's a waltz..."

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Cincinnati, Ohio: "No Strings," favorite music of mine, seems to have not ever gained great popularity. Is this a fact and do you have any comments re the wonderfully beauty of the melodies?

Billy May produced a very fine album of that music that won liner note praise from the composer. Mr.May told me once that the album had not enjoyed great popularity. Have you any comments about the choice arrangements contained on this album? Thank you.

Theodore S. Chapin: I am a fan of NO STRINGS - especially since I find it remarkable that he wrote that score after what he had written with both Hart and Hammerstein. The lyrics may not be the best, but they're not bad. I don't know the Billy May album, but I know albums by both Ralph Burns and Peter Matz, and they're great. Something about the show just doesn't seem to have sustained popularity. Vanessa Williams asked Encores! about doing the show for her - Encores scheduled it (twice) for her, and then she dropped out. I think she'd be better in NO STRINGS than in some of the theater shows she has done. So I keep waiting...

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New York City: The PBS film mentions a reason Rodgers began producing, his earlier experiences of producers cutting important songs. Was the relationship between composer and producer always strained, or were there some producers he felt comfortable working with? In particular how was his relationship with George Abbott?

On another topic, how much of Rodgers's music was never published? Did he leave any uncompleted projects, or any early shows which were never produced?

Theodore S. Chapin: Taking the second part first, Rodgers left his musical manuscripts to the Music Division of the Library of Congress, and there is some unpublished and fragmented material in the collection there. While there were projects discussed throughout his career that he ended up not doing (there is conjecture, but not a lot of evidence, that he and Hammerstein contemplated a musical of PYGMALION, for instance) all the shows that he committed to did see the light of day. The two experiences he had earlier in his career that prompted his wanting to produce was POOR LITTLE RITZ GIRL, which Roger dealt with nicely in his wonderful program (plug) the other experience which probably hurt even more was when Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies" was inserted into BETSY, and Rodgers only discovered that on opening night in 1926.

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Washington, D.C.: Stephen Sondheim regarded Oscar Hammerstein II as a friend and mentor. What was his relationship with Richard Rodgers and was he an influence on his music?

Theodore S. Chapin: Sondheim had a more complicated relationship with Rodgers than he had with Hammerstein. Soon after Sondheim met James (son of Oscar) Hammerstein, he met Mary (daughter of Richard) Rodgers - so Sondheim was clearly known to Rodgers from an early age. There wasn't a cozy relationship, and then when they worked together on "Do I Hear A Waltz?" they didn't have a lot of fun. Sondheim did tell me recently, though, that the actual writing of "Waltz" was fine - the problems happened once they were in production.

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Arlington, Va.: How much time went into the making of the film? How did you decide to make it and when?

Roger Sherman: the film took about a year to make. I was approached by Susan lacy, exec producer of American masters. I grew up in NYC and saw every musical as it opened, during what I thought was a great time, the 50s and 60s. the biggest challenge was to make a film for people who know the music, who claim him as their own, to give them something new to be excited about and to bring him to a new audience as well. I didn't want it to be the greatest hits and go by so fast it wouldn't be entertaining.

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Washington, D.C.: What was your favorite part about producing this film?

Roger Sherman: the MUSIC. trite, yes, but to go home every night singing a song was just great. we finished the film just as 9-11 occurred. it was very difficult, but the wonderful music got us all through.

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Herndon, Va.: The program was great! Since Mr. Rogers was such a stickler for his songs being performed as written, how did he deal with jazz musicians and arrangers, who "had" to change the music?

Roger Sherman: he didn't like it much. it was HIS music, yet I think over time he respected it. like "my funny valentine." how could he not at least see the greatness in another rendition.

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Washington, D.C.: What were Rodgers and Hammerstein like together? Can you tell us how they worked together? Do you have any insightful stories of them to tell? Thank you!

Theodore S. Chapin: Because both Rodgers and Hammerstein had years of experience separately before they joined forces, they clearly thought as one when it came to the shows they wrote. (You can't write 11 scores in 17 years without speaking some kind of shorthand...) They talked and talked about the new project, then Hammerstein went off to write the words, taking far longer than it took Rodgers to set his words. Which Hammerstein was amusingly annoyed by... But Rodgers always said after all the talk and contemplation, he was churning the melodies in his mind for the lyrics he knew he would be getting and simply put the music down once the lyrics arrived. The famous shot of Rodgers at Josh Logan's dining room table writing the music to "Bali H'ai" is case in point: Hammerstein arrived for lunch with the words for the song; Rodgers push aside the cutlery, turned the paper over, write out musical staffs, and wrote those notes. Simple as that - we should all be so lucky!

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New York, N.Y.: The film presents the transition from Lorenz Hart to Oscar Hammerstein as Rodgers collaborator as both seemless and painfull. The first show that R&H wrote as a permanent team was 'Carousel', which Rodgers deemed as his favorite. What did Hammerstein bring that enabled Rodgers to tap into previously untapped music?

Roger Sherman: My feeling is Hammerstein knew how to tell stories in lyric form. It wasn't untapped music so much as inspiration to write to the lyrics. I thought it was amazing that Rodgers wrote music and after Hart wrote lyrics, and when he teamed with Hammerstein, they reversed the process. It didn't seem like Rodgers gave it a second thought and just did it. On the other hand, he didn't have to wrench the lyrics out of Oscar, so I imagine there was quite a bit of relief. And, when you have lyrics to compose to it must bring all kinds of focusing thoughts to the process.

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Arlington, Va.: Did you feel there was anything left out of the documentary that you wished you could have included? It must be difficult to have information that you'd want to include that you can't, I would think. How do you go about making those decisions and are you happy with the final outcome?

Roger Sherman: Actually, I can't say there was. The film began as a 60 minute program. Then, as we began researching and shooting interviews we realized that 60 would be impossible, so it was increased to 90. Then we went ahead made the film and were editing our hearts out. But we were having trouble getting it down to 90. We just felt that the guts of the film would be taken out, if it was ninety. I think we were trying to take some 16 minutes out. Susan Lacy, the exec producer watched it and declared it must be 2 hours. I've never had the experience. Almost always films are better if they are cut shorter, so the audience is left wanting more. But here I felt that 2 hours was the proper length. hope you weren't bored.

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Anonymous: Mr. Chapin, What was your favorite part about the American Masters film?

Theodore S. Chapin: Well, I sat at home last night at watched the whole thing - something I hadn't done since it was first aired. One thing I always loved was that Roger used that clip of the very old and unwell Rodgers explaining the beginning of the Rodgers & Hammerstein era, with a twinkle still in his eyes. Then I love the amazing clips that Roger found - NO STRINGS from a TV show, Louis Armstrong singing "You'll Never Walk Alone" Judy Garland singing "The Sweetest Sounds," etc. I think Roger did a splendid job showing a portrait of an extraordinarily talented composer.

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Alexandria, Va.: I watched the show last night on Maryland Public TV (too bad WETA didn't see fit to run it), and just loved it.

My only small complaint is you didn't tell us who some of the TV people were who interviewed Rodgers, and what show that was from.

I was especially interested in some of that archival footage of old shows, for example, the file of Babes in Arms that seemed to have been short from backstage. What did you have to go through to find those things, and the old TV shows?

Roger Sherman: Researching old films is one of the joys of filmmaking, especially with the Internet. A curator at the Museum of TV & Radio told us about some CBS educational show that was found in the producer's closet after she died. It had the wonderful Rodgers & hammerstine interchange at the piano, and many other famous people. the only problem is the estate of the woman couldn't get the license to release it. it was all very murky. we set WNET's legal department on it, and we were able to make a deal with CBS.

The backstage footage was just that. Someone had a camera and shot footage on their own dime, as it was. I'm glad they did.

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Arlington, Va.: Overall, how would you "sum up" Richard Rodgers? As a person, as a composer? How would you best describe him to someone who doesn't know too much about him? Thank you for your insights.

Theodore S. Chapin: What I think is most important about Rodgers is that he was a consummate man of the theater - and one who lived at exactly the right time. Bridging the Musical Comedy to the Musical Play, he was clearly enough of a composer to feel instinctively how to write music for both worlds, and with enormous success. I think what several of us said on the program holds true - that as a person his work came first, which made for a tough life at home and a tough life for him in the world outside a theater.

Roger Sherman: I think he's one of those geniuses who developed one part of his personality and left the rest behind. He was most comfortable in the theater. I've seen this with others as well. They just didn't develop social skills, or they weren't as loving to their families as they could have been. For me, I'm glad he gave us the music he gave us.

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Crofton, Md.: What is your opinion of the Sound of Music? I found it a little gushy. Why did they choose to make Maria so sentimental and not the tough woman he real Maria Von Trapp was. Also, is there a recording of Rex? I love that song Away from you.

Theodore S. Chapin: There is a cast album of REX, and I think it's still available on CD from RCA. "Away From You" is best on Sarah Brightman's CD of Broadway songs that are forgotten (I don't remember the title of the CD.) Andrew Lloyd Webber did a wonderful arrangement of the song. Now, re: THE SOUND OF MUSIC. As someone whose parents had no interest in taking me to the show when it was first on Broadway, I have come to be a fan of the show. Now I hear you say, "Hey, he has to say that. He runs the place!" And I say, "well, I see your point." But since I have had to see many a production, I say that the story is strong enough and yes, emotional, that when productions play against the sentimentality, it isn't too gushy. There are some amazing moments in the show (and movie) which people may not realize - Maria standing up for the children and risking her job (she gets fired), coming up with the notion of including the Captain in the Trapp Family Singers as a way to make an escape, etc. etc. Too many people think of the puppets and "My Favorite Things" in the bedroom as indicative of the whole. They're not.

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Columbia, Mo.: I have heard that Richard Rodgers felt great disappointment that his music was not taken seriously by the deans of "serious" American orchestral music. I recall that Rodgers felt that, for example, the "March of the Siamese Children" from The King and I should have attracted more attention from fans and purveyors of symphonic music. Could you comment on this aspect of Rodgers' own feelings about his reputation?

Theodore S. Chapin: I'm not sure where you got the sense that Rodgers felt disappointment that his music wasn't taken seriously. My sense is that he was fine with his place in American music, and did know several of the critics of serious music as friends. (Deems Taylor wrote the first book on Rodgers & Hammerstein.) In the 1950's, Rodgers and Hammerstein commissioned Aaron Copland to write an opera for television (THE TENDER LAND, which ended up not being performed on television) which I find fascinating. I only discovered this by finding a vocal score in the office signed by Copland "from one very happy commissionee." So it may be a stretch, but I would take from that that Rodgers liked to play whatever part was appropriate in the "serious music" world of his time. And frankly, "The Carousel Waltz" is played by more pops orchestras than maybe even the CANDIDE Overture!

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Chevy Chase, Md.: I know that Hammerstein was mentor to Steve Sondheim, who collaborated with Rodgers on at least one musical. Could you elaborate about the relationship between Rodgers and Sondheim?

Theodore S. Chapin: Rodgers and Sondheim never had a cozy relationship. I think their personalities were just too divergent. They shared a passion in the musical theater - and I'd bet deep down there was mutual respect. Of course "Do I Hear A Waltz?" was a bad experience for them both - Sondheim didn't want to do lyrics only, but Broadway wasn't yet hospitable to him as a composer. (It was the year of ANYONE CAN WHISTLE.) Rodgers wanted a collaborator, and having been through Hart and Hammerstein, why shouldn't he go for the best? But with John Dexter, Arthur Laurents, and Beni Montresor in the mix, those production meetings must have been choice. But, hey, listen to the show. Whatever those two may have felt about each other, there's some great work there.

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Roger Sherman: thank you all for being part of the chat. it was fun. I'll leave you with a bit of trivia. if you happened to be watching the premiere broadcast on November 4, 2001 and watched all the way to the end of the credits, which ran to Louis Armstrong's rendition of "You'll Never Walk Along" (one of my favorite songs), and you switched channels to watch the Emmys, you would have seen Babra Streisand singing "You'll Never Walk Alone." It was a great moment.

Take care. And, thank you again.

Roger Sherman

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Washington, D.C.: I've never read a very satisfying biography of Rodgers -- the William Hyland and Meryl Secrest books were Ok but not great. Can you recommend a good book or has the definitive one yet to be written? And has Rodgers autobiography, Musical Stages, inhibted would be biographers?

Roger Sherman: I've never read one that I really liked either. I don't think Rodgers own would inhibit someone, as it's written strictly from his point of view and there's a lot that could be illuminated. Are you ready to give it a try. I'd love to read it.

Theodore S. Chapin: I think you have to read them all to get an accurate picture - and also read "The Richard Rodgers Reader" which has lots of interesting stuff that Rodgers wrote over the years. Secrest was good on the social world from which Rodgers emerged (as she was on her Sondheim book) but really doesn't have much to say about the music. I hope MUSICAL STAGES hasn't inhibited would-be biographers. There's always room for one more - a Hammerstein lyric, and a good one with which to sign off.

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Theodore S. Chapin: This has been a lot of fun. Thanks to one and all.

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Washington, D.C.: There is very little mentioned of Rodger's "Victory at Sea" score, which I view as the preminant documentary background music of all time. Why so little attention to this?

Roger Sherman: Good question. It was one of those things that we couldn't find a place for. It was so different from everything else, it just didn't seem to fit in the tightly crafted story we were trying to tell. In addition, none of our interviews really talked about it in a captivating way. Since I don't like narration to editorialize, it didn't find a place.

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