Noel and Cole: The Sophisticates (Great Songwriters S.)

by Stephen Citron

Born an ocean apart--one in Peru, Indiana, to great wealth, the other in Teddington, England, to an itinerant piano salesman--Cole Porter and Noel Coward have come to represent the ultimate in sophistication and urbanity. "You Do Something to Me," Gay Divorce, "I Get a Kick Out of You," "Just One of Those Things," Anything Goes, "Begin the Beguine," Private Lives, "Night and Day," Blithe Spirit, "Let's Do It," Hay Fever, "It's De-Lovely"--the list of witty and irreverent songs and plays goes on and on. It is a body of work that was tremendously exciting when it first appeared and remains remarkably popular today.
Based on access to previously unpublished manuscripts, lyrics, scores and letters, plus dozens of interviews, Noel and Cole presents a fresh and often surprising portrait of these two geniuses and their work, packed with numerous photographs, some of which have never been published before. Stephen Citron interweaves the biographical strands with consummate skill, providing insight into both men's private lives--including a frank discussion of their homosexuality--while illuminating their musical achievements. Indeed Citron, a composer and lyricist himself, excels at musical analysis, and throughout the volume he sheds considerable light on Porter's and Coward's art. He tells us, for instance, that in composing the melody of "Night and Day," Cole Porter restricted himself to mid-range notes, with hardly any vocal leaps that would betray a breathless dancer, especially as the dancer was Fred Astaire, who had never studied singing seriously, and was just launching his solo career. (Citron also tells us that Astaire wanted "Night and Day" dropped from the show, because he feared that with its long-held notes, especially on the word "day," his voice would crack.) Citron also shows how fast a worker Noel Coward could be: Coward wrote Hay Fever in three days, for instance, and his finest play, Private Lives, took him four days (while he was laid low with a bout of influenza in Shanghai).
Packed with information, including a quintuple chronology and a fifty-page section devoted to the analysis of selected songs, Noel and Cole will be an essential reference as well as a fascinating dual biography of two men who brought style and dazzle to the art of popular entertainment.

• ISBN10: 0195083857
• ISBN13: 9780195083859
• Publish Date: 10 June 1993 (first published 6 July 1992)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 23 December 2009
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 368
• Language: English

Reviews

[brokentune]

DNF @ 24%

Enough.

This is not a great biography of either of its subjects. It's not even a good or tolerable biography... I weep for the trees that had to die for this waste of paper.

I should have stopped after the introduction which included the following clanger:

"Kate Porter and Violet Coward steered their young sons early into creative and performing lives. Kate did so because she was a frustrated singer and Violet because she hoped to rise above the penny-pinching boarding-house-keeper life she had been born into. Because of this interdependence, each youth was to revere his mother, have night terrors about losing her while writing off his milquetoast father who left breadwinning and discipline to the distaff side. Coming from such a classically twisted psychological situation it is not surprising that both Noel and Cole were homosexual. With their raising of women, especially strong, determined and opinionated women, to such an exalted pedestal, perhaps bisexual would be a more apt description of their libidinous behaviour."

The author clearly has issues.

And yet, I hoped he may have something insightful to say about the work of either of his subjects. Unfortunately, of the part of the book I managed to read, I believe I have learned more about the author's personality (and his many, many issues) from his gossipy, presumptive, speculative, condescending statements than I learned anything of impact about about Coward or Porter.

I finally drew the line when reading this about Coward's The Vortex:

"The idea for the play, whose controversial theme was one of the main reasons for the queues at the box office, came to Noel when he was invited to a party by his friend Stewart Foster. Across the room he glimpsed Stewart's beautiful and seductive mother, Grace, sharing a banquette with a young admirer. As soon as the party was seated one of the young girls blurted out, "Look at that old hag over there with the young man in tow; she's old enough to be his mother."
The Freudian Oedipus complex, the Hamlet-Gertrude relationship and perhaps Stewart Forster's own attentions to his seductive mother at the soiree immediately propelled Coward's dramaturgical mind into the concept of weaving the plot of a play wherein both a son and her young lover would vie for the love of the mother."

It's a good thing for the author that you can't libel the dead. Did I mention that there are little to no references to sources in this book?

I should have DNF'd this at the introduction.

On the plus side, it's another one off Mt. TBR.

I'm going to put on some Cole and make another cup of coffee.