Irving Berlin's American Musical Theater

by Jeffrey Magee

Overview

From patriotic "God Bless America" to wistful "White Christmas," Irving Berlin's songs have long accompanied Americans as they fall in love, go to war, and come home for the holidays. Irving Berlin's American Musical Theater is the first book to fully consider this songwriter's immeasurable influence on the American stage. Award-winning music historian Jeffrey Magee chronicles Berlin's legendary theatrical career, providing a rich background to some of the great composer's most enduring songs, from "There's No Business Like Show Business" to "Puttin' on the Ritz." Magee shows how Berlin's early experience singing for pennies made an impression on the young man, who kept hold of that sensibility throughout his career and transformed it into one of the defining attributes of Broadway shows. Magee also looks at darker aspects of Berlin's life, examining the anti-Semitism that Berlin faced and his struggle with depression. Informative, provocative, and full of colorful details, this book will delight song and theater aficionados alike as well as anyone interested in the story of a man whose life and work expressed so well the American dream.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199381012
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/01/2014
Series:	Broadway Legacies
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	410
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Jeffrey Magee is Professor of Music and Theater at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and author of The Uncrowned King of Swing, winner of the Irving Lowens Award from the Society for American Music.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction: Irving Berlin's Century
1. Irving Berlin's Theater
2. Legitimate Vaudeville: The Dillingham Shows, 1914-1915
3. Berlin's Follies, 1918-1919
4. "America's Greatest Show": The Music Box Revues, 1921-1924
5. "An Ideal Combination": Berlin, Kaufman, and Hart, 1920s-1930s
6. Musical Theater of War: This Is the Army, 1942-1945
7. Something for the Girls: Annie Get Your Gun, 1945-Present
8. State of the Union: Berlin, Lindsay and Crouse, 1950-1962
Conclusion: "This Is America"
Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

"Recommended." —Choice

"Drawing on a vast and previously unexplored gold mine of archival materials, Magee brilliantly shapes fresh perspectives on key shows by Irving Berlin, delivering a text that is simultaneously erudite and accessible." —Carol Oja, William Powell Mason Professor of Music, Harvard University

"An outstanding account of one of the leading composers of the Broadway and Hollywood musical. Magee has an unrivaled command of the sources, and offers important new critical approaches to this music in its theatrical contexts: the benefits are clear in his treatment of Annie Get Your Gun. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in American musical theater of the mid twentieth century." —Tim Carter, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, author of Oklahoma! The Making of an American Musical

"An astonishingly rich book. Everything about it is appealing. The research is prodigious; the cultural analysis fresh and compelling. Like Berlin himself, Magee makes show business come alive, from the first song to the last." —Rose Rosengard Subotnik, Professor of Music Emerita, Brown University

"One of the glories of Magee's book is the sheer abundance of fascinating detail." —Jewish Journal

"[A] very welcome book, the first to focus on the span of Berlin's career in American musical theatre ... Drawing on extensive archival resources, Magee includes both musicological and literary analysis along with the sociological setting with a thoroughness that often enlightens." —Times Literary Supplement

"Thanks to Magee and Sears as well as to other scholars, Irving Berlin's ever-trenchant Jewish inspiration continues to be revealed as a major aspect of his mighty achievement." —The Forward

"A fine addition to an already burgeoning section of a theater lover's bookshelf." —DC Theatre Scene

"Offers a unique perspective on the history of American musical theatre from World War
I to the early 1960s, and presents an immensely valuable portrait of a major creative figure whose pre-World War II shows have proven difficult to insert into the established narratives of pre-Rodgers and Hammerstein musical theatre." —Theatre Journal

"Extremely informative and engaging...Yet another fine example of the high quality material being offered by Oxford University Press's Broadway Legacies Series. Not only does this text offer a fresh analytical look at Irving Berlin's music and his significant role in American musical theater, it is also an important contribution to our understanding of American musical theater history as a whole." —Notes

From the Publisher

Magee (music & theater, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; The Uncrowned King of Swing: Fletcher Henderson and Big Band Jazz) combines scholarly credentials with fluent prose in this welcome exploration of the musical theater works of Irving Berlin (1888–1989). He adopts a chronological format extending from the first decade of the 20th century through the 1960s, treating the melodies and lyrics for each show in their musical and historical context and alluding to film versions. Berlin has long been known for "God Bless America," "White Christmas," and other standards, but much of his show music may be less familiar to readers and has not hitherto received such detailed study. Magee had access to the Irving Berlin Collection of manuscripts and supplemental materials at the Library of Congress and interviewed individuals who worked on the shows and knew Berlin. An exhaustive bibliography, charming historical photographs, and many musical examples add immeasurably to the book's value. VERDICT This superb effort should well serve academics and music theater specialists. Its specific focus complements such major titles from the 1990s as Laurence Bergreen's As Thousands Cheer, Philip Furia's Irving Berlin: A Life in Song, and Edward Jablonski's Irving Berlin: American Troubadour.—Barry Zaslow, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, OH

Library Journal