Enchanted Evenings:The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber (10 page)

In its purest form, closest to nature, like Mahler’s cuckoos in his First Symphony (1888), Kern has chosen to represent the river by the interval of a perfect fourth (the same interval that begins “Taps” and “Reveille”). As shown in
Example 2.1a
, “Fish got to swim [B
-E
], and birds got to fly” [E
-B
]), Kern uses this perfect fourth to connect the force of the natural world with the central human theme of the work embodied in “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man”: a woman in love is destined to love her man forever, even when he abandons her. The theme first appears early in the work as underscoring for the dialogue in which the unrequited lover Pete questions Queenie about how she acquired the brooch he had given Julie. Since audiences have not yet heard the words to this song, its meaning cannot be fully grasped during the exchange between Pete and Queenie that interrupts choruses of “Cotton Blossom.” But with
Example 2.1a
, the lyrical version of Julie’s song that whites would not know (it was sung by her African-American mother when Julie was a child), Kern and Hammerstein have successfully connected Queenie and Julie from the outset of the show. Julie’s identity as a mulatto otherwise remains undisclosed until two scenes later, when the meaning and impact of her association with Queenie’s race will be clarified.

Significantly, the five three-note
Show Boat
themes shown in
Example 2.2
are sung by and to people–or in one case to an anthromorphized boat—who are part of the river and close to nature.
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The largest group of these “river” motives, nearly all introduced in
Show Boat
’s opening scene, consist of short musical figures, in which Kern fills in the perfect fourth of “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” with a single additional note. The four notes of the “Cotton Blossom” (
Example 2.2a
) when reversed provide the opening musical material for the main chorus of Joe’s “Ol’ Man River” (
Example 2.2b
) and, when reshuffled, Cap’n Andy’s theme (
Example 2.2c
).
⁴⁶
Additional transformations of these three notes encompassed within a perfect fourth can be found in the opening of “Queenie’s Ballyhoo” (
Example 2.2d
) and in a prominent segment of “Mis’ry’s Comin’ Aroun’” (
Example 2.2e
), included in all three published vocal scores. Although Kern never acknowledged a source, all of these themes might be traced, appropriately enough, to Dvořák’s contemporaneously composed “New World” Symphony (1893) (
Example 2.2f
).
⁴⁷

Example 2.1.
“Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man”

(a) original form

(b) transformation into a rag

Parthy and Sheriff Vallon also lead their lives along the river. In contrast to the characters who are in sympathy with this life force, however (Cap’n Andy and his
Cotton Blossom
, Joe, Queenie, the black laborers, and the women of any race who can’t help loving their men), Parthy and Vallon demonstrate their intrinsic antipathy to the river with subtle alterations that intrude on the simplicity and perfection of the perfect fourth. Audiences first meet Parthy and her
theme (
Example 2.3
) after the climax of the song “Cotton Blossom” as underscoring to her yelling “Andy!!!! Drat that man, he’s never around!” moments before we hear Magnolia’s piano theme (
Example 2.4
).

Example 2.2.
“River Family” of motives (transposed to the key of C Major)

(a) “Cotton Blossom”

(b) “Ol’ Man River”

(c) Cap’n Andy’s theme

(d) “Queenie’s Ballyhoo”

(e) “Mis’ry” theme

(f) from Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony

The first two notes of Parthy’s theme are a descending perfect fourth (D-A). But although Parthy may lead a life along the river, Cap’n Andy cannot and Kern will not make her drink in its physical beauty and spiritual richness. Consequently, after this perfect fourth, Kern has Parthy introduce a Bb, only a half-step up from the A but a giant step removed from the natural world of the river. The Bb and its following note G combine with the still-held D above to produce a G-minor triad, significantly the same chord that generates and supports Magnolia’s inhibition and lament later in the scene in section 4 of “Make Believe” (“Though the cold and brutal fact is”). By the second measure of her theme Parthy has moved below the descending fourth of the “Cotton Blossom” (to an F
). In the third and fourth measures—a repetition of the first two but transposed up a sinister augmented fourth or tritone (D to G
), the tense and dissonant interval that will figure so prominently in the music of Sporting Life (
Porgy and Bess
) and the Jets (
West Side Story
)—Parthy’s theme has moved radically from G minor to C
minor (also a tritone) where it will remain for the duration of its remaining four measures. Perhaps in her musical resistance to the river Parthy is expressing a longing for her home state of Massachusetts, where “no decent body’d touch this show boat riffraff with a ten foot pole.”
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