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Re: Broadway shows -- Off Topic
- From: Marvin Margoshes <physchem...>
- Subject: Re: Broadway shows -- Off Topic
- Date: Sat 22 Mar 2003 16.21 (GMT)
Part II of the 3-part series "Sultans of Song" in Reform Judaism magazine is
now out. Read it online at http://www.uahc.org/rjmag/03spring/sultan.shtml.
Part II concentrates on Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein II, and Richard Rodgers,
but mentiosns some others as well.
Rodgers was not Bar Mitzvah, but was not divorced from his backround. "Kern
rarely spoke about the influence of his Jewish heritage on his music, though he
once commented, half in jest, that everything he wrote was Jewish music for the
simple reason that he was a Jew. When Hammerstein asked Kern what kind of music
he would write for a show based on Donn Byrne's biography of Marco Polo--"a
story," Hammerstein said, "laid in China about an Italian and told by an
Irishman"--Kern replied, "Don't worry, it'll be good Jewish music.""