The Richard Rodgers Collection at the Library of Congress consists predominantly of Rodgers' music holographs -- sketches, piano-vocal scores (many with lyric sheets included) and short scores. In addition, the collection includes the full scores for eight of the Rodgers and Hammerstein shows (Allegro, Carousel, Flower Drum Song, The King and I, Oklahoma, Pipe Dream, The Sound of Music, and South Pacific). The majority of these scores are in the hand of the orchestrator Robert Russell Bennett, but other orchestrators are represented and identified in this guide whenever possible. The collection also includes a small number of programs, photographs, miscellaneous papers, and a few miscellaneous items. A few items have been transferred to the Motion Picture Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division -- Rodgers' "gold record" for The Sound of Music; two video cassettes of home movies; and one cassette tape recorded by Zoe Hyde-Thomson consisting of Rodgers' reminiscences during World War II. The two video cassettes of home movies are from the 20s & 30s, includes scenes w/ Larry Hart, Rodgers' family, and theatre & Hollywood people, such as Fannie Brice, Edna Ferber, Dorothy Fields, Herbert Fields, Lew Fields, Charlie Ruggles, Jean Harlow, Leila Hyams, Herbert Marshall, Al Jolson, Harry Langdon, and director Lewis Milestone on the set of "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum") 2c (1 including people above, w/ Mrs. Rodgers voiceover, the 2nd showing Mrs. Rodgers & her daughters, w/ no voice over), si. & sd., b/w, 3/4" Videocasettes VSA0082-83.

Series I -- Show Music -- has been divided into Rodgers' manuscripts and the full scores; each of these sections has been organized alphabetically by show title and by song title within each show. In the instances when a Broadway musical either was revised, subsequently filmed, or a film musical was re-made, the materials for subsequent productions have been interfiled with the materials for the earlier production. When there are collections of sketches for a show, they are at the end of the materials for that show. Where a collection of sketches contains material from more than one show, the sketches are listed with the show which appears most often; cross-references have been provided for other shows appearing within these sketches. Other collections of sketches, representing a variety of shows, are placed in the Miscellaneous Sketches series; they are listed in chronological order (as nearly as can be determined), and are designated M.S. 1 (i.e., Miscellaneous Sketches 1), etc. Known song titles from these sketches are also cross-referenced in the appropriate shows. When most sketches in a collection are identifiable, the occasional "unidentified" item is listed in the order in which it appears; when most of the sketches in a collection are unknown, there is only a general reference to the fact that unidentified sketches are included. When a portion of a song title is crossed through on the music, it is also crossed through in this guide. The appendix at the end of this guide is an alphabetical list of all of Rodgers' songs represented in this collection and where they can be found. This appendix does not include the full scores.

The music for I Picked a Daisy, Lawrence of Arabia and the second film of State Fair were found together in a way that necessitated our making a best guess as to which materials were intended for which show. Our determinations should be construed as educated speculation, not fact.

The full scores contain many examples of show material that was deleted or replaced with new orchestrations. In a few cases, well known selections are conspicuously absent, most notably, "Carousel Waltz" and "Soliloquy" from Carousel. The full scores are organized alphabetically by show, and by song titles within shows. Unfamiliar titles, and items such as "bridges," and "utilities" are grouped together in Miscellaneous sections at the end of each show. A number of the full scores are marked "N/G," apparently indicating that the score was "No Good" and was not used in the final incarnation of the show.

This collection is an exquisite representation of the working life of a composer in both the breadth and the depth of the material it encompasses: close to 1,000 known song titles (some in various stages of composition), over 80 shows, and hundreds of untitled sketches are represented, primarily as holographs. The assembled materials span approximately sixty-two years (1917-1979), encompassing both Rodgers' amateur and professional life. Rodgers later works are most completely represented, but almost all significant early works are represented as well. There are also a number of lyric sketches for those works on which Rodgers acted as his own lyricist.

Rodgers' melodic prodigiousness is evidenced in the collection by page after page of his sketches. They reveal intricacies of his working methods, for instance, there are lyric sheets with annotations by Rodgers indicating which syllables to accent, some have rhythms notated in the margins, or a melody may be scrawled on the back. There are series of sketches which show the evolution of a song -- giving three or four alternative themes, often with different time signatures and in different styles.

The Rodgers and Hammerstein Fact Book by Stanley Green and the Catalog of the American Musical by Tommy Krasker and Robert Kimball were enormously helpful in determining correct song titles, as well as identifying the shows for which the songs were written or in which they were sung. Scott Willis, a Rodgers and Hart specialist, was gracious with both his time and knowledge, identifying a number of untitled pieces from the collection. Enormous thanks are due to Albert Tucker for his yeoman like work on both the processing of the collection and the creation of this guide.

Mark Eden Horowitz, 1995