PBS Great Performances: Broadway Musicals-A Jewish Legacy

[moira finnie]

Do you like the songs of what has been called "The Great American Songbook"? If so you might want to catch the PBS program BROADWAY MUSICALS: A JEWISH LEGACY that was shown last week featuring the contributions of a generation of immigrants and their children to American musicals (other than the WASP Cole Porter, though even he used Hebraic musical phrases in some of his songs such as "My Heart Belongs to Daddy"). The show made me look at the work of Irving Berlin, the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hart/Hammerstein, Yip Harburg, Harold Arlen, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim and Jerry Herman with fresh eyes. The film, which can be seen at the link below, traces the Hebraic musical and cultural roots of such diverse songs as "Swanee," "It Ain't Necessarily So," "I'll Take Manhattan," and "Hello, Dolly."

It was delightful to learn that the more remote the subject matter in a musical, sometimes the closer the musical might have been to the impish, deeply sad, and joyous parts of the Jewish experience in America.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/episodes/ ... film/1499/

[Vienna]

Would love to see this program but it won't play in UK.
I love all the great composers and lyricists from the 20s,30s and 40s.