10 Rodgers and Hammerstein Songs You Should Know

I mentioned in a previous post that I wanted to share my love of musicals with you (I used to do this with my students when I taught and I miss that). I'll start with the classic shows that I grew up with.

Rodgers (music) and Hammerstein (lyrics) were a musical writing team from the mid-Twentieth century. They made a lot of classic shows and were envied by others.

Scene from one a movie that you should definitely watch at least once a year: White Christmas

Between their shows, they earned 34 Tony awards. While often lighthearted, their shows require audiences to confront social issues.

The difficult thing about making a list of songs you should know is what to focus on:

The best? (definitely subjective)
Most well known?
A sampling of styles and themes?

I've decided to go with the songs that I think you should hear if you never hear another thing from this team (that means that you've probably heard them all before. You are reading this article after all). Although the list could easily be 20 or 30, I narrowed it down to 10 so as not to bore you. I drew from 6 musicals:

Oklahoma! (1943) - The show that started it all
Carousel (1945) - Probably the saddest of their musicals, I don't usually watch it
South Pacific (1949) - Also sad. Takes place during WWII, so that's to be expected.
The King and I (1951) - Sort of based on a true story
Cinderella (1957) - Made for TV musical. Remade several times and always good.
The Sound of Music (1959) - I could have gotten all 10 from this one show, but wanted to be fair

So, here are my Top 10 (at least for today, song preferences can change with mood). I am presenting them without commentary. I hope that hearing a bit of the music will encourage you to watch the full shows over the Christmas break.

(NB: I try whenever possible to find video clips that you can legally watch. So, some of the clips might not be as long as I would like or my favorite version)

Oh What a Beautiful Morning

Oklahoma

If I Loved You

You'll Never Walk Alone

Some Enchanted Evening

Shall We Dance

Impossible

The Sound of Music

My Favorite Things

Do Re Mi

Bonus: Christopher Plummer's Original Vocals for "Edelweiss"

Christopher Plummer played Captain Von Trapp in 1965's The Sound of Music film adaptation. However, his singing was dubbed (not sure why). This video was released with the Super Deluxe Edition soundtrack just a few days ago.

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