The Sound of Music

The Sound of Music is a medley of twelve songs from the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. It was arranged by Robert Russell Bennett (see below) in 1960.

The Sound of Music was the ninth and final musical play with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It is based on the 1949 memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers. Set in Austria on the eve of the annexation of the Federal State of Austria in Nazi Germany in 1938, the musical tells the story of Maria, who takes a job as governess to a large family while she decides whether to become a nun. She falls in love with the children, and eventually their widowed father, Captain von Trapp. He is ordered to accept a commission in the German Navy, but he opposes the Nazis. He and Maria decide on a plan to flee Austria with the children.

The original Broadway production opened in 1959 and won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, out of nine nominations. The show has enjoyed numerous productions and revivals since then. It was adapted as a 1965 film musical, which won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The Sound of Music was the last musical written by Rodgers and Hammerstein, as Oscar Hammerstein died of stomach cancer nine months after the Broadway premiere.

This arrangement, written by one of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s favorite orchestrators, Robert Russell Bennett, was written years before the film. It includes three songs not used in the film, and does not include one of the songs from the film, as explained below.

Richard Charles Rodgers (1902-1979) attended Columbia University in New York, as did his collaborating lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II, but at different times.

When he was just out of college, Rodgers worked as musical director. In frustration, Rodgers briefly considering quitting show business altogether to sell children's underwear, until he and Hart finally broke through in 1925. They wrote the songs for a benefit show presented by the prestigious Theatre Guild, called The Garrick Gaieties, and the critics found the show fresh and delightful. Only meant to run one day, the Guild knew they had a success and allowed it to re-open later. The show's biggest hit — the song that Rodgers believed “made” Rodgers and Hart — was “Manhattan”. The two were now a Broadway songwriting force.

Throughout the rest of the decade, the duo wrote several hit shows for both Broadway and London, including Dearest Enemy (1925), The Girl Friend (1926), Peggy-Ann (1926), A Connecticut Yankee (1927), and Present Arms (1928).

With the Depression in full swing during the first half of the 1930s, the team sought greener pastures in Hollywood. The hardworking Rodgers later regretted these relatively fallow years, but he and Hart did write some classic songs and film scores while out west, including Love Me Tonight (1932), which introduced three standards: “Lover”, “Mimi”, and “Isn't It Romantic?”. Rodgers also wrote a melody for which Hart wrote three different lyrics which either were cut, not recorded or not commercially successful. The fourth lyric resulted in one of their most famous songs, “Blue Moon”.

In 1935, Rodgers and Hart returned to Broadway and wrote an almost unbroken string of hit shows that ended only with Hart's death in 1943.

Rodgers' partnership with Hart began having problems because of the lyricist's unreliability and declining health. Rodgers began working with Oscar Hammerstein II, with whom he had previously written songs (before ever working with Lorenz Hart). Their first musical, the groundbreaking hit Oklahoma! (1943), marked the beginning of the most successful partnership in American musical theatre history. Their work revolutionized the musical form. What was once a collection of songs, dances and comic turns held together by a tenuous plot became a fully integrated piece.

The team went on to create four more hits that are among the most popular in musical history. Each was made into a successful film: Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949, winner of the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Drama), The King and I (1951), and The Sound of Music (1959). Other shows include the minor hit Flower Drum Song (1958), as well as relative failures Allegro (1947), Me and Juliet (1953) and Pipe Dream (1955). They also wrote the score to the film State Fair (1945) (which was remade in 1962 with Pat Boone), and a special TV musical version of Cinderella (1957).

Much of Rodgers's work with both Hart and Hammerstein was orchestrated by Robert Russell Bennett (see below). Rodgers composed twelve themes, which Bennett used in preparing the orchestra score for the 26-episode World War II television documentary Victory at Sea (1952–53). This NBC production pioneered the “compilation documentary”—programming based on pre-existing footage — and was eventually broadcast in dozens of countries. The melody of the popular song “No Other Love” was later taken from the Victory at Sea theme entitled “Beneath the Southern Cross”. Rodgers won an Emmy for the music for the ABC documentary Winston Churchill: The Valiant Years, scored by Eddie Sauter, Hershy Kay, and Robert Emmett Dolan. Rodgers composed the theme music, “March of the Clowns”, for the 1963–64 television series The Greatest Show on Earth, which ran for 30 episodes. He also contributed the main-title theme for the 1963–64 historical anthology television series The Great Adventure.

Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals earned a total of 35 Tony Awards, 15 Academy Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes, two Grammy Awards, and two Emmy Awards.

A few brief notes about each of the songs in the medley, several of which are reprised later in the musical:

1. “The Sound of Music” – the song occurs early in the musical (but not first). Maria sings it while reveling in her enjoyment of nature.

2. “How Can Love Survive” – Captain von Trapp’s conniving friend, Max, sings it with Baroness Elsa, who cannot get the Captain to marry her. Max opines that “only poor people have the time for great romances”. The song is not used in the film.

3. “The Lonely Goatherd” – The children are frightened by a thunderstorm. Maria sings it to distract them. In the musical, there is no puppet show.

4. “My Favorite Things” – Unlike in the film, the song is sung by the Mother Abbess and Maria, somewhat to reassure Maria about her unsuitability to be a nun.

5. “Sixteen, Going on Seventeen” - Rolf, a young messenger, delivers a telegram and then meets with the eldest child, Liesl, outside the villa. He claims he knows what is right for her because he is a year older than she.

6. “So Long, Farewell” – The song appears late in Act One, when the Captain gives a party to introduce his fiancé, Elsa. Elsa asks the Captain to allow the children to say goodnight to the guests with a song.

7. “Do, Re, Mi” – Rather early in Act One, Maria uses the song to teach the von Trapp to sing. In the musical, it does not involve a picnic or adventures around Salzburg.

8. “Edelweiss” - At the Festival, after the von Trapps sing an elaborate reprise of “Do-Re-Mi”, Max brings out the Captain's guitar. Captain von Trapp sings “Edelweiss”, as a goodbye to his homeland, while using Austria's national flower as a symbol to declare his loyalty to the country.

9. “An Ordinary Couple” – the song is sung by the Captain and Maria, as they admit their love for each other and declare their desire to live an ordinary life away from war. In the film, it is replaced by “Something Good”, for which Rodgers wrote both the music and lyrics.

10. “No Way to Stop It” – It is another song which is not used in the film. Max and Elsa sing it in an effort to convince the Captain that the annexation of Austria into Nazi German is inevitable.

11. “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?” – Early in Act One, when Maria returns late to the abbey, the Mother Abbess and the other nuns consider what to do about her free-spirit.

12. “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” – It is the final song of both Act One and Act Two. At the abbey, Maria says that she is ready to take her monastic vows, but the Mother Abbess realizes that she is running away from her feelings. She tells her that she has to face the Captain and discover if they love each other. She admonishes her to search for and find the life she was meant to live. At the end of the play, it is sung by the nuns as the von Trapp family flees to Switzerland over the Alps.

Arranger Robert Russell Bennett (1894 – 1981) was best known for his orchestration of many well-known Broadway and Hollywood musicals by other composers such as Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, and Richard Rodgers. In 1957 and 2008, Bennett received special Tony Awards recognizing his orchestrations for Broadway shows.

Bennett was born to a musical family. His father, George Bennett, played violin in the Kansas City Symphony and trumpet at the Grand Opera House, while his mother, May, worked as a pianist and teacher. She taught Bennett piano, while his father taught him violin and trumpet.

After completing his secondary education, Bennett moved to Kansas City to be a freelance musician, performing throughout the city as well as with the symphony. He also began his first musical training outside of a home environment with Danish composer-conductor Dr. Carl Busch. Busch taught him counterpoint and harmony until 1916, when Bennett took his savings and moved to New York City. He eventually found a job as a copyist with G. Schirmer while continuing to freelance and to build a network of contacts, particularly with the New York Flute Club.

In 1917 he volunteered for the Army. Although he yearned for an active role, his health woes caused the draft board to mark him for limited service. He successfully appealed this classification and became the director of the 70th Infantry Band at Camp Funston, Kansas. He valiantly attempted to improve the “disgraceful” musical standards of the unit, but found his efforts thwarted when the Spanish flu swept through the post in 1918. Upon his discharge several months later, he returned to New York. His relationship with Winifred Edgerton Merrill, a society matron who had been the first woman to receive a doctorate from Columbia University, led to rewards both financial and emotional—she had been one of his first employers in the city, and she introduced him to her daughter Louise, whom he later married.

His career as an arranger began to blossom in 1919 while he was employed by T.B. Harms, a prominent publishing firm for Broadway and Tin Pan Alley. Dependable yet creative within the confines of formulaic arranging, Bennett soon branched out as an orchestrator and arranger for Broadway productions, collaborating particularly with Jerome Kern.

Although Bennett would work with several of the top names on Broadway and in film including George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Kurt Weill, his collaborations with Jerome Kern and Richard Rodgers stand out both for sheer volume and for highlighting different facets of an arranger's relationship with a composer. Bennett described his own philosophy: “The perfect arrangement is one that manages to be most ‘becoming’ to the melody at all points.”

Kern’s working relationship with Bennett serves as a clear illustration of this point. For example, when orchestrating Show Boat, Bennett would work from sketches laid out quite specifically by Kern, which included melodies, rough parts, and harmonies. The original sketches appear remarkably close to Bennett's completed scores; as one scholar puts it, “Bennett didn't have much to make up”.

In contrast, Rodgers allowed Bennett a greater degree of autonomy. The pair had first collaborated in 1927, but the majority of their partnership occurred in the 1940s and 1950s. While scoring Oklahoma! in 1943, Bennett proved himself invaluable by reworking an elaborate and possibly out-of-place selection into the title song. His most legendary contribution to the partnership, however, occurred during the scoring of the television series Victory at Sea (1952–53).

Richard Rodgers contributed twelve basic themes for the series, with three earmarked for the first episode; Rodgers’s Victory at Sea manuscripts total seventeen pages. The Rodgers themes total about twelve minutes of music, and are employed by Bennett in a bit more than two hours of the series’ scoring, which amounts to more than 11-1/2 hours of orchestra music.

With George Gershwin and his Broadway musical scores, Bennett would work from annotated short scores (dual folios for piano with general suggestions for which instruments would play what.) He worked very closely as Gershwin's assistant during the period in which Gershwin composed his score for the 1937 Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers film, Shall We Dance, often spending late nights with Gershwin rushing to complete orchestrations for deadlines. The next year Gershwin died. Later Bennett would be turned to yet again as a definitive orchestrator of Gershwin's other works, both on Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture and the orchestral medley, “Gershwin in Hollywood”.

The music for The Sound of Music was provided for the band by

Elbert and Carol Reed.