Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern was born in New York City on January 27, 1885. He first studied the piano with his mother. After being graduated from Barringer High School in Newark, New Jersey, he attended the New York College of Music where he was a pupil of Alexander Lambert, Albert von Doenhoff, Paolo Gallico and Austen Pearce. He received his apprenticeship as composer for the popular theater in 1903 in London, where with P. G. Wodehouse as his lyricist he wrote a topical song, “Mr. Chamberlain” that became a hit. After returning to the United States he worked in Tin Pan Alley and immediately became a prolific contributor of songs to the musical stage. In 1905 his song “How’d You Like to Spoon With Me?” was interpolated into The Earl and the Girl and became an outstanding success. From that time on, and up to the end of his life, he wrote over a thousand songs for more than a hundred stage and screen productions, thereby occupying an imperial position among American popular composers of his generation. His most famous Broadway musicals were: The Girl from Utah (1914), Very Good, Eddie (1915), Oh, Boy! (1917), Leave it to Jane (1917), Sally (1920), Sunny (1925), Show Boat (1927), The Cat and the Fiddle (1931), Music in the Air (1932), and Roberta (1933). His most significant motion pictures were Swingtime with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, You Were Never Lovelier and Cover Girl both with Rita Hayworth, and Centennial Summer. Over a dozen of his songs sold more than two million copies of sheet music including “All the Things You Are,” “They Didn’t Believe Me,” “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” and “Look for the Silver Lining.” Two of his songs received the Academy Award: “The Way You Look Tonight” from Swingtime and “The Last Time I Saw Paris” interpolated into Lady Be Good. Kern died in New York City on November 11, 1945.
Kern wrote two compositions for symphony orchestra which have entered the semi-classical repertory even though they are also performed by major symphony orchestras. These were his only ventures into the world of music outside the popular theater. One was Mark Twain: A Portrait for Orchestra which he wrote on a commission from André Kostelanetz, who introduced it with the Cincinnati Symphony in 1942. This is a four movement suite inspired by the personality and life of Kern’s favorite author, Mark Twain. The first movement, “Hannibal Days,” describes a sleepy small town on a summer morning a century ago. The cry “Steamboat comin’!” pierces the silence. The town suddenly awakens. In the second movement, “Gorgeous Pilot House” Mark Twain leaves home to become a pilot’s assistant on the Mississippi steamboat; this period in Mark Twain’s life, which spans about nine years, ends with the outbreak of the Civil War. In “Wandering Westward,” Twain meets failure as a Nevada prospector, after which he finally turns to journalism. The suite ends with “Mark in Eruption,” tracing Twain’s triumphant career as a writer.
Kern’s second and only other symphonic work is Scenario in which he drew his basic melodic materials from his greatest and best loved musical production, Show Boat. Kern prepared Scenario at the behest of Artur Rodzinski, conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, who felt that the music of Show Boat had sufficient artistic validity to justify its use in a major symphonic work. Rodzinski introduced Scenario in Cleveland with the Cleveland Orchestra in 1941, and since that time it has been performed by most of the major American orchestras.
A discussion of Show Boat is essential before Scenario can be commented upon. The libretto and lyrics are by Oscar Hammerstein II, based on the famous novel by Edna Ferber. Show Boat, in a lavish Florenz Ziegfeld production, was introduced in New York in 1927 and was an instantaneous box-office and artistic triumph. It has, to be sure, become a classic of the American stage, continually revived in all parts of the country, three times adapted for motion pictures, and has been given by an American opera company in its regular repertory. It proved a revolution in the American musical theater by avoiding the usual stilted routines and patterns of musical comedy—chorus girls, production numbers, synthetic humor, set dances and so forth—and arriving at an integrated musical play filled with authentic characterizations, backgrounds, atmosphere and dramatic truth. The story opens and closes on Cotton Blossom, a show boat traveling along the Mississippi to give performances at stops along the river. The principal love action involves Magnolia, daughter of Cap’n Andy (owner of the boat) and the gambler, Gaylord Ravenal. They run off and get married, but their happiness is short-lived. Magnolia, though pregnant, leaves her irresponsible husband. After the birth of Magnolia’s daughter, Kim, the mother earns her living singing show boat songs in Chicago where she is found by her father and brought back to Cotton Blossom. Eventually, Magnolia and Ravenal are reconciled, and their daughter Kim becomes the new star of the show boat.
The most famous songs from this incomparable Kern score are: “Only Make Believe” and “Why Do I Love You?”, both of them love duets of Magnolia and Ravenal; two poignant laments sung by the half-caste Julie, a role in which Helen Morgan first attained stardom as a torch-song performer, “Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man” and “Bill” (the latter with lyrics by P. G. Wodehouse); and a hymn to the Mississippi which has acquired virtually the status of an American folk song, “Ol’ Man River.”
Scenario makes extended use of these songs in an integrated piece of music. It opens with a sensitive passage for muted strings and continues with a theme for horn; both subjects are intended to portray the Mississippi River and are the motto subjects of the entire work. The main melody of this tone poem is “Ol’ Man River,” first given softly by violas and bass clarinet. Other major songs of the musical play follow, among them being “Only Make Believe” and “Why Do I Love You?”, after which “Ol’ Man River” is heard for the last time.
Many of Kern’s more than a thousand popular songs are now classics in the popular repertory. They are so fresh and spontaneous in their lyricism, so inventive in the harmonic background, so filled with charm and grace that their survival seems assured. Two symphonic compositions by Robert Russell Bennett are constructed from one or more of Kern’s best known songs. One is Symphonic Study, a tone poem introduced in 1946 by the NBC Symphony under Frank Black. This work presents several Kern songs in correct chronological sequence beginning with “They Didn’t Believe Me.” After that come “Babes in the Wood,” “The Siren’s Song,” “Left All Alone Again Blues,” “Who?”, “Ol’ Man River,” “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” and “All the Things You Are.” The second of Bennett’s symphonic compositions is the Variations on a Theme by Jerome Kern, written in 1934 and soon after that introduced in New York by a chamber orchestra conducted by Bernard Herrmann. The theme here used for an effective series of variations is “Once in a Blue Moon” from the Broadway musical Stepping Stones.