Loverly:The Life and Times of My Fair Lady (Broadway Legacies) by McHugh, Dominic (best ereader for pc .TXT) 📗

one in the rehearsal script (“It’s just faith, hope and luck, boy. Faith, hope and luck.”). The score shows no indication of any attempt to set the unfamiliar verse cited above, nor is there any sign of the cut “naughty dreams” verse. Confusingly, Loewe refers to Doolittle’s friend as “Jimmy” rather than “Jamie,” but in all other respects, it seems that this document dates from after rehearsals had started. Again, we can see that relying on the composer’s manuscript alone can be problematic.

Most of the “Luck” full score is in the hand of Jack Mason. It contains a two-bar introduction, which was crossed out. This brings it into line with the published version, which starts with Doolittle speaking the first three syllables of the first verse while the orchestra joins in at the start of the first full bar.7 Mason’s score blocks out the song over sixteen pages, indicating the different verses (including the cut verse about “naughty dreams”) with repeat signs. However, the third and fourth verses of the published song are separated by dialogue between Doolittle and some angry neighbors. This necessitates not only a repeat but two different endings to the song: one before the dialogue, and one at the end of the final verse. Since the song closes the scene, Bennett concocted a more conclusive ending for the final verse. As ever, the master orchestrator knew how best to serve the show.8

In his memoir, Lerner says that “Get Me to the Church on Time” was one of the last numbers to be composed. He claims it was finished “by the first week in December,” corroborated by the fact that the title of the song is not included in Outlines 1–4 (see chap. 3).9 The outlines do include a song at this point in the show, though—specifically, in Outline 4, a “rousing number by Doolittle and Ensemble.” Mention is also made of an important sartorial issue, signifying the oncoming matrimony and thereby Doolittle’s new social division from his former friends: “Doolittle will be in his striped trousers. Everybody else in Cockney garb, except, of course, Liza.” The song seems to have stayed almost in its original form from composition to performance, with the exception of the opening verse material. The published song has a stanza sung by Doolittle’s friends, Jamie and Harry, beginning “There’s just a few more hours.” The rehearsal script and a lyric sheet in the Warner-Chappell Collection, however, both follow this with two stanzas for Doolittle:

If I had stayed a bachelor all my life,

I could have had a beer in ev’ry pub in town;

I would have met a dozen different girls a week;

And every night put half a pint of whiskey down.

There’s just a few more hours

That’s left to have some fun;

A few more hours

For doing everything

I would have done.

The lyric sheet has these verses crossed out, and no musical setting of the first of them has survived.10 The autograph manuscript in the Loewe Collection might be taken to back up the view that these verses were originally set and then discarded; because the refrain is written on pages numbered 1 to 4 while the verse is marked “A” and seems to have been added to the front later, it is possible that all three stanzas of the original verse were set to music and then replaced by the single page in the Loewe Collection. On the other hand, the fact that the refrain starts on page 1 could mean that Loewe did not get round to setting the verse at all until it had been reduced to one stanza.

The autograph gives no more than a basic piano-vocal score of a single refrain. Following standard procedure, it was left to Rittmann to draft the dance music—no mean feat at over three hundred bars in length. Both Rittmann’s autograph of this music and the photocopy of it used by the dance pianist have survived.11 Rittmann’s score is fluently written and contains various suggestions for orchestration, as well as some of the choreographic gestures; Miller’s copy contains even more of these, presumably to orientate her during rehearsals. The climax of the dance is a return to the main theme of “Get Me to the Church” in double time, and Rittmann indicates it in shorthand, adding a note to Bennett: “Russell: follow song copy, as indicated, prego. For Coda, see pg.8.” As promised, the following page contains the end of the dance, with a further message at the end: “or notes to that effect!”

Rittmann also provides the introduction to the chorale version of the final verse (when Doolittle’s friends bid him farewell), but the vocal arrangement by Gino Smart is on a separate manuscript, showing the division of labor.12 Two different orchestrations of the number survive: the original, and the final version. Both are by Lang, but although there are numerous small changes throughout, the main difference is that the revision is kinder on Doolittle’s voice. Originally, Lang had the violins divisi doubling the melody in thirds, an octave higher than the vocal line; in the final orchestration, the violins double the vocal line in unison. The other big change is that the caesuras in the melody were punctuated by more assertive and aggressive fills from the brass and winds than is the case in the final version. To complete the texture, Lang went from having the brass play pianissimo and with mutes in the original to mezzo forte and open in the revision. There are changes in the dance section, too, but the majority concern coloristic nuance (the addition of a flute line doubling the melody, for instance); and the orchestration of the final version was simplified, removing scales and flourishes in favor of strong chords in contrary motion. Other than these, the decision to rewrite the whole orchestration seems to have been a matter of perfectionism rather than necessity, since much of it remained the same.

On one level, the song is absolutely tragic, ample evidence that Lerner and Loewe understood the depth of Doolittle’s character.