An Evening with the Music of Marvin Hamlisch

from the Library of Congress in Washington DC you good evening I'm Robert Newland chief of staff for the Library of Congress and on behalf of the acting librarian of Congress David s now and our music division I'm excited to welcome you to tonight's concert in celebration of the music of Marvin Hamlisch it's very ironic that I'm standing here at a music stand since I have absolutely no music ability whatsoever so I'm gonna savor this moment using the stand this is quite a momentous season for the Library of Congress marking the 90th anniversary of concerts presented here in the Coolidge auditorium the storied history of the concerts here include hundreds of world premieres including Appalachian spraying Samuel Barber's songs performed by Leah tine price and bartók's fifth string quartet works the library also happened to commissioned but tonight is a Broadway night and one where you'll also hear some world premieres I I think I can state without risk of contradiction that the library has the finest and most significant collections of manuscripts and papers of the great Broadway songwriters I can't name them all but they include Jerome Kern Irving Berlin George and Ira Gershwin Rodgers and Hammerstein Lerner and Loewe and Leonard Bernstein the most recent addition to these collections is the papers of Marvin Hamlisch as Hamlisch was also a film composer I'd be remiss in not adding that his collection also joins the library's collections of manuscripts of film composers that include Henry Mancini Eric corngold and David R axons regarding Hamlisch composer of a chorus line the way we were and they're playing our song I hope you had a chance to see the exhibit in the lobby and just outside this auditorium Hamlisch is one of only two people who won all the major American Performing Arts & Entertainment Awards the Pulitzer Emmy Grammy Oscar Tony this afternoon I spent some time going through the exhibit and it's really wonderful and if you don't get goosebumps from looking at a letter from Barbra Streisand to Marvin Hamlisch you'll never get these funds I had the privilege of seeing mr. Hamlisch twice both times at Wolf Trap here you know just outside of Washington and suburban Virginia well as many of you know part of the seating of Wolf Trap in the summer is outdoors it's really great you can go and take a picnic and during one performance by mr. Hamlisch it began to rain and I don't mean just rain it was like a torrential downpour well generally if you've been there you know that it starts to rain everybody runs for cover or they run to their car and leave but for Marvin Hamlisch everyone remained and got totally drenched so in honor of the occasion he played April showers and raindrops keep falling on your head always the fast thinker it's now my great pleasure to introduce mrs. Marvin Hamlisch wife and donor of his collection to the library it's because of the vision and generosity of people like mrs. Hamlisch that the library is able to do what we do on behalf of Congress history scholars and the American people the experts staff here at the Library of Congress will preserve and protect it and make it available to all please join me in welcoming mrs. Marvin Hamlisch thank you and good evening he's a wonderful chief of staff Robert Robert thank you for the introduction he said he got a memo the other day that said chef's of staff so I don't think he cooks but he's a great chief of staff so let me say that it's very emotional for me tonight as this is my first time that I've returned to Washington DC since Marvin's death and it's a city that meant so much to Marvin Hamlisch Marvin was taken on a tour of the Library of Congress and Mark Horowitz showed him the original Gershwin manuscripts and Marvin actually wept this is a meaningful institution for Marvin and for our nation so meaningful that he left all his manuscripts his historic photos and awards here there are two people I need to thank very quickly tonight after I also think my girlfriend Val who came all the way from New York City with me Tod purred man who flew here from California Mitch Rhonda Pablo Cal Thomas and all the friends and family that are in the room tonight I just saw John such and the person the first person I need to thank is Mark Horowitz and his staff and his colleagues at the Library of Congress mark and his amazing man and he's filled with purpose passion for music musicians history and he's a brilliantly intellectually and with a great heart and I believe in the history of this institution we'll go down better for his being a part of it the Library of Congress is lucky to have Mark and his colleagues and it's through his tireless research it's true it's through his tireless research he has found songs of Marvins that no one knew existed and the second thank you is to my very good friend who's backstage Ted Sperling he's a consummate musician and I always want to be around Ted because his musical standards are top-notch and his daughters are quite beautiful I'd also like to thank the performers tonight especially Kapadia and Lindsey you're in store for a real treat some of the performers I worked with Ted at Marvin's benefit in Central Park for the Public Theater and I want you to know how much Marvin Hamlisch loved Washington DC he loved the people of this community the National Symphony Orchestra the Kennedy Center he really believed in the culture of our nation and he believed in education and music education in the schools I wish he could be here tonight I have to believe in spirit he is through all of you that came so thank you again Library of Congress Marc Horowitz and everyone for honoring Marvin Hamlisch I know Marvin would be humbled and he would be thrilled thank you [Applause] [Applause] [Music] I know I ought to the classical music play on little girl play on and I was taught to like classical music but with rondelay my thoughts begin to stray I left the kitchen door ajar I've got the stiffness in my knees a thought accompanies each lovely limpid bar haunts each sweet referee's when I leave [Applause] [Music] rum tum tum tum tum classical music I sit in my world withdrawn and what do I get from classical music [Music] and clear out of ballpoint pen losing a contact lens on every note that wolfgang amadeus wrote but here's where I started [Applause] [Music] [Applause] sound of falling rain or lemonade that stirred whistle of a train a whistle of a bird to some it's only boys but every sound diver seem sure like much more like us [Music] to me every day [Music] these songs to be worth singing like summer rains and wooden spoon and sassing trains and puppies and every sound from far and near it won't be long before you hear that [Music] Lehman's flight it's why potatoes as a bride I knows you gotta blow my nose the shots of girls and ball [Music] music in my my be lost to me every no likey [Music] and soon why be songs and songs to be words singing of sorry it's the sky sirens blare sizzling from honking honking no stopping for winter snows and summer rains and wooden spoons and passing trains and Papa loves every sound from foreign here it won't be long before you hear that you [Music] [Applause] [Music] music [Music] every dog leasing if days tonight we'll find write songs and songs and just keep singing a lion's roar crickets sure the father's snore baby's birth the two things sound of tapping feet a subway pounds we need the sorry sirens [Music] and stones and passing trains and [Music] good evening everybody I'm Ted Sperling and I'm so delighted to be your host a music director for tonight's concert celebrating the acquisition of the Hamlisch collection here at the library Marvin and I never met and it's one of the great disappointments of my life but all my childhood I was told I reminded people of Marvin and I don't think it was just the nose Marvin and I had an early love for music and it was very obvious to everyone around us and we in fact both went to the pre-college division the elementary and high school division of the Juilliard School in New York we shared some other things in common we were both born and bred New Yorkers our mothers were both from Vienna and we both grew up loving all kinds of music Marvin was famously the youngest person ever admitted to the Juilliard School I believe at age five and I decided to start tonight's concert with two songs that celebrate music the first classical music is from an early version of a Broadway musical he wrote called smile with lyrics by Carolyn Lee and I think it's a little gentle homage to his alma mater and the second song the music in my mind is one of the last songs that Marvin ever wrote it was written to go with a children's book he wrote called Marvin makes music now tonight's concert is one of many celebrating Marvin's enormous wonderful output but it's different from all the others we have the resources of this collection to draw from and in that collection we found many rarities so along with some of the greatest hits you're going to hear songs that have never been performed on any stage and this next one is one of them and it was actually not in the collection because it was already here at the library the reason is it's the first song that Marvin applied for a copyright for in 1957 when he was 13 and I'll give you just a little taste of that song now [Music] the beautiful changes it won't stay the same time is to blame things that are lovely change the beautiful changes in front of your eyes you don't realize it suddenly beauty's gone but in your heart there's a blaze the time and the memory of embrace can live with you the beautiful changes but love never dies and those who are wise no loveliness rise in the yard [Music] you in addition to those rarities we had decided to do some of Marvins personal favorites in fact there were some songs he said no concert of his should be without this is one of them from a chorus line daddy always thought that he married beneath him that's what he said that's what he said when she proposed he informed my mother he was probably a very last all she was 22 though she was 22 though she was 22 like with my dad wasn't ever a picnic more like a come as you are when I was five I remember my mother dug earrings out of the car I know that they weren't hers but it wasn't something you'd want to discuss he wasn't warm well not to her no not to us everything was beautiful [Music] graceful man lifts lovely girls in one yes everything was beautiful at the Bell [Music] I was happy at the ballet that's when I started class up a steep and very narrow stairway to the voice like a metronome up a steep and very narrow stairway it wasn't paradise it wasn't paradise it wasn't paradise but it was mother always said I'd be very attractive when I grew up when I grew up different she said with a special something a very very personal though I was eight or nine though I was eight or nine so I was eight or nine I hated her now different is nice but it sure isn't pretty - pretty is what it's about I never met anyone who was different who couldn't figure that out so beautiful I'd never lived to see but it was clear if not to her well then to me [Music] every parent's has got to have his yes everyone is beautiful I whisper the seat but very narrow stairs to the boys like a metronome Oh up a steep and very narrow stairway [Applause] it wasn't paradise wasn't paradise but it was home I don't know what they were for against really except each other I mean I was born to save their marriage but when my father came to pick up my mother at the hospital he looked at her and he said well I thought this was going to help but I guess it's not anyway I did have a fantastic fantasy life I used to dance around the living room with my arms up like this and in my fantasy it was an Indian chief and he'd say to me Maggie do you want to dance and I'd say daddy I would love to dance [Music] that's what he said that's what she said [Music] he wasn't one [Music] do you wanna dance daddy [Music] someone's always there [Music] yes everything was beautiful I was pretty I was happy I would love to [Music] I think Marvin was fascinated by Broadway from an early age I've been rehearsing at Professional Children's School on West 68th 60th Street near Lincoln Center and there are pictures of Marvin in high school up on the walls they're performing pieces that he wrote for school reviews I don't think any of those surfaced in the collection so far but I was wondering why was he at professional children's school because that's a school for professional children children who have jobs I know that some of Marvin's early jobs shaped the rest of his life he was straight man believe it or not - Groucho Marx in a show he played piano for Groucho Marx and was his straight man he also was a rehearsal pianist for the original Broadway production of funny girl starring of course Barbra Streisand and that's with that great friendship started but what did surface in the archive was an entire score for a musical adaptation of The Glass Menagerie written when Marvin was 15 so we're gonna do one of those songs probably for the very first time ever on a stage tonight the scene is one in which Amanda the mom in the show is yelling at her son Tom she doesn't understand what he does when he goes out all night he says he's going to the new to the movies and she doesn't believe him and he kept saying I'm going to the movies mom she says who goes to the movies all night he says okay fine and exasperation he tells her that in fact he's a criminal to be reckoned with I'm going to opium dens yes opium dens [Music] with killer killer Wingfield I carry around in a file in case your tank the killer killer Wingfield I'm leading my [Music] mana can house in the valley live in a back alley world yeah who your son is your son's a killer they call him killer Wingfield I'm a dynamic Czar of the underworld mother El Diablo each night of fortune I bet on a single turn of the roulette wheel just as I get feeling a little crazy crazy that's killer Wingfield I've no regard or respect for little fools we try to always be so correct they can expect I'm not afraid of a dare I don't care a fig for danger Oh danger is no stranger to little Sonny killed her Taylor Wingfield killer Taylor Whitfield kill her with me your son some of these early songs were left to us in a very elementary form for example that song just had the melody and the lyrics but no indication of what the accompaniment was so it was a bit of a detective job to figure out what to play and we were working on it and through a interesting channel actually through Michael Feinstein one of hamlisch 'as childhood friends Michelle Brewer Minh heard that we were resurrecting that song says I remember that I remember Marvin playing that to me in 1957 and I'll record what I remember of the piano part and it was very interesting was much better than what we'd come up with so thank you Michelle we're very grateful the lyrics for that song were written by Hamish his first major collaborator Howard Liebling with whom he would go on to write his first couple of hits including rainbows lollipops and roses and California Nights and Howard eventually became his brother-in-law in addition to his songs for Broadway musicals of course Marvin is famous for his movie theme songs the first of his film songs to be nominated for an Oscar was for the film Koch and I don't mean Edie Koch as Marvin put it Sammy Cahn gets a picture with a great title like three coins in a fountain Sammy fain gets love is a many-splendored thing I get Koch believe me there's not much you can rhyme with Koch and what you can rhyme with it is problematic there are other times when Marvin hit the jackpot the first song he wrote with lyricist Carole Bayer Sager was for the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me sung by Carly Simon that oscar-nominated song was perhaps the most sensuous he ever wrote and it was written over the phone while Sager was in LA and Hamlisch was in London here's Kapadia dissing that [Music] makes me feel sad for the rest nobody does it as good as you baby [Music] first I wasn't looking but somehow you found me I tried to hide from your love but like heaven above me the spy world of me is keeping all my secrets safe tonight nobody does sometimes I wish someone [Music] the way you do why did you have to be so good way that you hold me whenever you hold me there's some kind of magic inside it keeps me from running but just keep it coming how'd you learn to do the things you do [Music] nobody does better makes me feel sad for the rest nobody does it [Music] - ooh [Music] [Applause] baby baby [Music] [Music] [Music] I believe I'm correct in saying you actually sang that with Marvin is that true yes Thank You Kapadia it means a lot to us now not every project of Marvin's was a smash hit you would have thought that the goodbye girl had all the ingredients for a success it had a a book by Neil Simon based on his hit play at lyrics by David Zippo an incredibly talented newcomer and it starred Martin Short and Bernadette Peters and while it was a respectively good show it wasn't a smash I remember seeing it in loving many moments of it and particularly this next song which I asked that we perform tonight I think it has the potential to be a new classic and in it Bernadette sang about sometimes one can be one's own worst enemy [Music] I'll open my heart but just enough to keep an open mind but never close my eyes to the dangers are to myself making efforts to assert myself and discovering ways to hurt it's true how can i if i'm not on my how can I dare to feel again if I can't the call with past mistakes I've made living through each ordeal again the face that I misplaced the price I overpaid I've been able to endure enough but I must not want the Cure enough I get back on my feet and [Music] how can my way [Music] like my motion but I don't [Music] just who or what I'm fighting for when be my again they come but can it be that it's too late I want the Sun to shine but I must walk away from the shadows I create I tell my son I'd safer just to how can i if I keep retreating cheating myself it's self-defeating how can I win [Music] [Music] [Applause] so one of the head-scratching discoveries in the collection is a mini song cycle it's called national spelled na Sh io n al it's undated and we haven't found anyone who knows when or why Marvin wrote it it is setting several animal related poems by Ogden Nash you know of the inimitable light verse at life philosophies such as there is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball and that is to have either a clear conscience or none at all so as far as we know for the first time anywhere national [Music] [Music] [Music] but copies just have Li told it to lit too little little little [Music] I'd rather like the bat it's not a mouse it's not all rats no feathers yet has wings it's quite inaudible when it sings its exacts through the evening who lands on ladies hair a fact of which men spend their lives attempting to convince their wives some primal termite not on wood and tasted it and found a good [Music] through the parlor floor today [Music] [Applause] that was really hard to learn I have now on my computer over 350 songs by Marvin Hamlisch courtesy of the library and it was very hard to pick from amongst those but one of them stood out to us it's a very charming song also from the early version of smile and it's called walking in the sunshine my heart [Music] my days are no longer lightning and thunder four isn't it wonderful see hello again like a weekend dreaming up nothing up my sleeve your roses and your spring to me rub noses and come come clean to me honeysuckle vines and wisteria we could make them grow in Siberia anywhere with you there's a song songs on [Music] there I go again enough rain laughs and up my sleeve the make-believe blizzard on the way your roses and your spring to me rub noses and come come clean to me honeysuckle vines and wisteria we could make them grow in Siberia mrs. Hassan [Applause] [Music] I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce the band these are all buddies of mine from New York we've done many many projects together over the years on bass Dave Phillips on the drums sean mcdaniel on guitars Scott Cooney and on all four reed instruments aaron hike so Marvin's last Broadway show was sweet smell of success and for me it's an apex of his work it's a magnificent score and we would happily sing all the songs for you tonight if there were time I thought it would be nice to celebrate just purely the music for one song and show off our band a little bit so we're gonna do a song from sweet smell called I cannot hear the city featuring Aaron on the saxophone [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I have a special love for a chorus line I'd been taken to see Broadway shows when I was a child but they were all old shows I saw my fair lady with Rex Harrison and I saw the king and I with Yul Brynner and of course they were fantastic but the chorus line was the first show that if I felt was written especially for me I was a teenager when it premiered and I bought the album with my allowance remember albums and for my 16th birthday I asked my three best friends to buy us tickets to go see a chorus line it was the first show that I went to without my parents and it was a show that you know dealt with a lot of tricky subject matter I think I would have been embarrassed to sit next to my parents at a chorus line but it also it thrilled me and so it was an incredible honor to be involved with this gala two summers ago in Central Park where we examined the making of A Chorus Line with alumni from the show we had the original cast join us we had the most recent national company join us we had Eliot's felt 13 year old dancers join us and all in Central Park celebrating the making of this amazing show and that's when I got to know Terry and was welcomed into the Chorus Line family so we decided to finish this first part of our program with one of our favorite songs from A Chorus Line performed by Lindsay who performed it at that gala in Central Park I was so excited because I was going to the High School of Performing Arts I mean I was dying to be a serious actress well anyway it's our first an acting class and we're all in the auditorium and the teacher mr. Karp mr. Karp well anyway he puts us up on the stage with our legs wrapped around each other one woman back at the other and he says okay we're gonna do improvisation now you're on a bobsled and it's snowing out and it's cold okay go every day for a week we would try to feel emotion feel emotion every day for a week we would try to hear the wind rush hear the wind rush feel the chill so I dug down to the bottom to see down to the bottom of my soul I feel the cold I filled the air and mr. Clark turns to me and he says okay Morales what did you feel and I said nothing nothing could get a full transfer they all felt something except the feeling that this was absurd but then I said to myself hey you know what it's only the first week maybe its genetic between they don't have bobsleds in San Juan second week more advanced and we had to be a table B a sportscar ice-cream cone mr. Karpe he would say very bad effects after Morales try Morales all alone so I dug right down to the bottom of my soul to see how an ice cream felt yes I dug right down to the bottom of my soul and I try carpal out it which really mentally they were so helpful they go I really didn't know where else to turn mr. Karp said you know Miralles maybe you should transfer to girls high you'll never be an actress never Jesus Christ went to church bring some dumb arias guidance on my knees went to church this course is [Music] [Applause] [Music] I assure you that's what finally came to pass six months later I heard the carp had done and I dug right down to the bottom of my soul [Music] cuz I [Music] I can't believe it you hit a big one I hit a big loud robbing hi-c I practice my scales like a strict sauerkraut but it's always again I can't believe it it's such a killer and our vocal cords carry no warranty through our throats or defrosted you thinking what I'm thinking I bet I am well then let's tell him to your tonsils first an English teacher teaches you the proper English lingo an opera singer kills himself competing with Domingo [Music] a Maitre D' need only be Hanselman party odds to rate we must deflate the great a variety there's gotta be a better way to make a living you don't get vocal notes [Music] no I do you felt like that are you kidding me all my life you know what else I'm thinking yup there's gotta be a better way to make a living the painter gets a ladder when he paints the peaks of houses Sopranos burst their bladders as they shrieked a fleet of Mouse's it's gotta be a better way to start voices [Music] table find a better way to make a living and I hope that day soon I let's trade in our German for hip-hop or rap and Broadway tunes are easy they say [Music] she did two shows a day was a Sunday matinee so you and I we might as well just make a killing with something thrilling from a Broadway show with throwing out all throwing notes and breathing diaphragm --is-- and substituting Richard Rodgers Kurt and Marvin Hamlisch and you can MetroCard and makeup better living by sampling some Lerner Anson law oh if we do Jersey Boys the outcome would be frightful [Music] we know the way we should go we're gonna make everybody [Music] [Applause] we don't know much about that song except that the lyric was by Marvin himself there was recently a wonderful concert version done in New York of sweet smell of success and Lyndsey participated in that and sang this song called Rita's tune spruce up the roof before Oh fancy his socks from relax the pace and a fix your face tonight you get a sparkle like the wine music will followed from the Philco say and my boy could be mine the room will spin will order in and slowly slip our shoes off as we die me I'm here I'm his make me wait and I might bust I'll sit and look at look or life or I'll just just I'll give it a lick and a promise give me the same I'll be fine the future calls share within this Wars as if it all was part of some design and got a palace but I feel rich tonight safe at home in his domain scrounging up some glasses for [Music] [Music] [Music] wanted to eat California all these grapes from love to pop a cork in sweet New York I think tonight's the night to pop it reach the top then try to top it tonight [Music] tonight's the night [Music] [Applause] [Music] finally my life's gonna shine [Applause] [Music] [Music] don't let this feeling it's everything my and everything I want to be finding true [Music] looking through the guys I can take the time I can see my life as it comes up reaching out to I can't feel so [Music] looking through [Music] you're beside me [Music] please don't let this feeling and it might not come again and I want to I feel [Music] [Music] how it feels to touch you [Music] [Music] looking through the eyes [Music] thank you we are so lucky to have these four singers with us tonight Thank You Whitney [Music] that is of course the theme from ice castles we're gonna follow it with another song from sweet smell of success one of the things that I love about the score for sweet smell is how it captures the essence of film noir if you recall the stories about a press agent Sidney Falcone who's trying to make a mark and he needs the help of the Walter Winchell character in order to succeed and Winchell gives him some advice about his name which figures in this next song this is the moment when he finally feels like he might be making it in the trash you take the whole damn past and cash it in cash the whole thing not crazy [Music] Cloney my just wait so many times you thoughtful way was clay only to find you can't get there from here here's your chance met some dog change your name keep the [Music] hey Sydney you finally found some luck always been and so ran just racing for a boat a guy with a smile already you ever hear the one about Lana Turner sitting at the soda fountain dreaming her soda fountain dreams [Music] there was something he could see just to my heart it's like he's far inside what's really [Music] what I was what I am what first it's time to step up and drink and not even think you don't have to think to be smart time's the perfect fusing cuz it can bring you your break and answer the ache he offers you take Gardner Brando Harlow Monroe cheap feel Garba Brenda horn Roman Road cheap feel somebody buys a paper at this fortunes change [Music] fountains [Music] it's like he's inside of me where I'm where I could be and in the flashing up at me I'd swear you could see what's really Brenda my time [Music] I'm [Music] before a toy can be shut you go with your gut yes roll with your gut and your home [Music] it's so [Music] [Music] [Applause] where should I stand okay I'm gonna stand right here according to Hamlisch his memoir his greatest professional tragedy was the failure of his show gene which was produced by the National Theatre in London but never came to Broadway he was passionate about the importance of this show about the real-life actress Jean Seberg who became a civil rights activist and was targeted by the FBI as Hamlisch put it I saw her as a martyr her fate as our country's tragedy the prejudices that undermine our American dream I saw the panorama of the best of America where an unknown can become a star and the worst of America where you can be destroyed by it the show which seemed cursed from the beginning including having Michael Bennett dropping out his director opened in London in London in 1983 and became a legendary flop but a mystique has continued to grow around the score and many are convinced it's a lost treasure deserving a rediscovery and reconsideration the Hamlisch collection includes 29 songs written for Jean Seberg compared to they're playing our song which has nine and many of the songs have a dark underside but also some comic relief we're going to do two songs from Jean now the first is sung by a group of doctors at a psychiatric hospital it's called the least we could do we just cured a well-known schizophrenic both of him said that we were the best when he's feeling nuts they carry him into our sanitarium and we three take care of the rest when Miss Seberg arrived at our clinic she was practically dead you'll agree now she's singing for her suppers or we did was give her uppers she's all a star patient should be trained nurses and thousands of pills [Music] she may be broke but she is practically cured before lady was going insane one shot for $30,000 it's the least we could do always the least we could do it's the least we could do she almost was a goner but we gave our word of honor that we find a way to make apple fruit it's the least we could do I'm an expert at laying on couches we've heard while you doctors have fun with my mind but my brain is getting calluses from all of this analysis you found all you're going to find so I think that it's time for an exit sign I am perfectly healthy again aha you can bet that I am thankful guys I'll miss the way you tranquilize I swear I'll drop in now and then we're brilliant at working with scalps see Swanson she swinging [Music] any other patients flipped out or died [Music] strongest HR to you and you and you it's the least we could do is we could do this the least we could do she had a little trouble but our morphine made her calmer now your friends we give injections to you [Music] [Applause] [Music] dreamers have mountains they will climb there are dreamers who don't believe in time only three moons have worlds where they can go far away certain dreamers have kingdoms they will build filled with treasures and Dragons to be killed only three moons have wings with which to fly far away some people dream of being rich while others dream of being tall and there are people who don't [Music] three moons have shooting stars they chase there are others with nightmares they must face sometimes dreamers are forced to leave their dreams far [Music] some people dream of being rich while others dream there are people who don't dream [Music] sometimes you need to take the time to find treasures and mountains we can climb and maybe we dream to change the way that we feel cause to dreamers the real world can be [Music] [Applause] Marvin's second musical to make it to Broadway was there playing our song in 1979 hold on one second he had been collaborating with Neil Simon to turn one of his plays into a musical when Simon surprised him with a draft script based on observations Simon had made about the personal and professional relationship between Hamlisch and lyricist Carole Bayer Sager this song from they're playing our song was a song that Marvin himself liked to perform and so I do it in his memory if you really knew me if you really truly maybe you would see the other side of me I seldom see if there were no music if my melody stopped playing would you be the kind of girl I'd wanna see doesn't man make the music or does the music make the man and a mic everything I tried so hard to be if you really knew my if you take the time to understand maybe you would find me the part I left behind me maybe you'd remind me [Music] if there were no music if my melody stopped playing would I be the kind of man you'd wanna see tonight does the man make the music or does the music make the man and am i everything I tried so [Music] if you really knew moon if you take the time to understand maybe you could find me the part I left behind me maybe you remind me [Music] there's one other musical by Marvin Hamlisch that hasn't made it to Broadway yet the Nutty Professor had its premiere production in Nashville in 2012 beginning previews just a few weeks before mr. Hamlisch died directed by Jerry Lewis himself a true musical comedy Hamlisch left us with a twinkle and a smile at one part oxygen two parts hydrogen one part sodium this gas we come to potassium one small Fleck and a speck of protein though this formulation may seem dreary and austere it's just the equation for a single human tear simple scrawled with chalk on Slate fare my poetry but miss Purdy you are sure pure chemistry to me Stella your name reminds me of stalactites with their fluorescence lit by black lights within the caverns of the black [Music] South Dakota Stella I'm filled with awe and standing so Stella Kevin which means a stone or wooden relic such as a totem pole in Black Hills Minnesota all at once I'm yearning with my Bunsen burning picture us as pleasure seekers in a world of Pyrex beakers every test tube sings Stella your name reminds me names a constellation of every sorry cards creation a supernova in Jehovah [Music] talhah just picture how I'm meeting my goal like glycerin when treating nitro her grande kaboom that sends the room sky Stella Stella can't you see we equals you [Music] there is another song on Marvin's list of must perform at any Marvin concert this is what how much had to say about composing this song you may wonder how I knew when I'd written the right melody I can only say that one day I wrote a melody that just got to me it reminds me of the apocryphal story about Michelangelo someone asked the great artist how do you sculpt an elephant and he replied well I get this slab of marble and I chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant to me what's left is an elephant in the same way seated at my piano I chip away everything that doesn't feel like the correct melody what's left hopefully is the right one [Music] misty water [Music] scattered pictures the smiles will have to be [Music] smiles we bathe too for the way we know [Music] there was oh so simple very all his time we written every line and if we had the chance to do it all again tell me would we could we [Music] maybe beautiful and what's too painful [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] the way we were [Music] [Music] I'd like to invite the other singers out on stage and I'd like to say a few thank-yous first of course to the library for all that they did to make this evening possible particularly Ann McLean and Mark Horowitz I want to thank thank you so much for fifty once again I'd like to thank the amazing band and our four vocalist Bryce Pinkham kapadia Jenkins Whitney basher and Lindsey Mendez kiss today good the sweetness and [Music] wish me luck [Music] but I can't regret what I did for what I did for [Music] the gift was ours tomorrow it says [Music] and I won't forget [Music] [Music] [Music] sweet [Music] loves what will we [Music] kiss today good [Music] what I did for [Music] what I did [Music] has we tried loves what will remain [Music] today like me towards [Music] [Applause] [Music] what I did fall what I did [Music] [Music] we have one more this is another rarity it's a cut song from the sweet smell success but it speaks very poignant ly to our feelings about Marvin and having lost him far far too early [Music] something lost something that's how I say [Music] do you [Music] I know this feels [Music] my start so I say good [Music] it's halfway [Music] there too the day [Music] [Music] you you this has been a presentation of the Library of Congress visit us at loc.gov

Channel: Library of Congress

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Keywords: Library of Congress

Id: ZoyudxZlwc8

Length: 109min 7sec (6547 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 29 2018