The Periodical Observer

Web. But open access is not as “open” as it ap- researchers who want their work “open” to pay pears, and it raises a host of new questions for an author fee (so far, only one in five authors has universities, libraries, and publishers. opted to pay). The big question, reports Guterman, a For the time being, open access has com- Chronicle science writer, is, Who will pay the plicated things for almost everyone. It seems bills? Unlike traditional publications, open- to have allowed some libraries to negotiate access journals ask their authors to pay a pub- with publishers for lower subscription rates, lication fee of as much as $1,500. But more but libraries are now faced with paying author often than not this money comes from uni- fees and maintaining expensive subscriptions. versities—and university libraries—not the Researchers have shown interest in open-ac- author. Eventually, some critics say, this cess journals, but many end up submitting could cost schools—especially big research elsewhere for fear that the journals may not last institutions—more than journal subscriptions or that they lack enough prestige to help in the ever did. battle for tenure. Open-access journals are already seeking Yet in its first eight hours online last new sources of financial support. One of the October, the inaugural edition of PLoS’s flag- first organizations to advocate open access, the ship journal, PLoS Biology, received a surpris- Public Library of Science (PLoS), founded by ing 500,000 hits—and many supporters would Nobel laureate Harold Varmus, imitates pub- suggest that the “movement” has not yet lic radio, inviting frequent readers to become reached critical mass. Journal subscriptions “members” by pledging their support. Another will probably never be free, but even in its journal is experimenting with modified open ac- nascent state, open access is shaking up the cess, keeping some work private, but allowing $3.5 billion journal publishing industry.

Arts & Letters The Sweetest Sounds “Richard Rodgers: Enigma Variations” by Stefan Kanfer, in City Journal (Autumn 2003), 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10017.

Richard Rodgers (1902–79) wrote some of the lyricists he ruled Broadway from the 1920s most melodic and inventive popular music of through the 1950s, fashioning songs that, on the 20th century, but nothing in his personal- the basis of performances and record sales, are ity would have made you think him capable of even today, Kanfer reports, the world’s most that. The man who gave so much pleasure to popular. The melodies still enchant, and the others had little in his own life, and that re- words delight (“Manhattan”), enthrall (“Oh, mains the great puzzle about him. A lifelong What a Beautiful Morning”), inspire (“You’ll hypochondriac, he was a dour and unhappy Never Walk Alone”). fellow, despite his great success and the riches So Rodgers was a team player, but always the it brought. He drank too much and was de- name before the conjunction. There was a pressed too often. “No one in the [Rodgers] Rodgers and Hart phase to his career and a family (or out of it, for that matter) had ever Rodgers and Hammerstein phase (and a less- seen the composer sit at the piano and play for er phase with several other collaborators after sheer enjoyment,” writes Kanfer, a former ed- Hammerstein’s death in 1960, including, just itor of Time and the author of several novels once, Stephen Sondheim). The first team and social histories. The piano was for busi- gave the world smart, sassy, glittering, and bit- ness, the business was mostly Broadway, and tersweet stuff, such as—in a single show, the “Broadway was his life.” 1937 Babes in Arms—“Where or When,” Some people are lucky in their friends. “My Funny Valentine,” “The Lady Is a Rodgers was lucky in his collaborators. He Tramp,” and “I Wish I Were in Love Again.” found Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II For a single show of their own, South Pacific at key points in his career, and with the two in 1949, the second team produced “Some

104 Wilson Quarterly Enchanted Evening,” “Bali Ha’i,” “Younger more serious and sustained melodies,” such as Than Springtime,” and “There Is Nothin’ that for “If I Loved You” (Carousel, 1945), as ec- Like a Dame.” static a love song as any ever sung on Hart was an even more unhappy figure than Broadway. Their collaboration began with the Rodgers—“an undisciplined, unprepossessing revolutionary Oklahoma in 1943 and ended man,” says Kanfer, “whose furtive homosexual with The Sound of Music in 1959. Of the latter, liaisons invariably ended in sorrow.” No won- the critics disapproved: “Not only too sweet for der that “his natural métier was disappointed ro- words, but almost too sweet for music,” said the mance and unfulfilled yearnings.” (“Nobody’s New York Herald Tribune reviewer. But the heart belongs to me. Heigh-ho! Who cares?”) public adored the show and the subsequent Rodgers, on the other hand, “had a muscular movie, and there’s still no escaping “Do-Re- work ethic; music flowed out of him like con- Mi.” After 1959, Rodgers found no other Hart versation.” Yet the unlikely pair went from suc- or Hammerstein, and for one show, No Strings cess to success on Broadway in the 1920s and (1962), he wrote both words and music. So 1930s, until Hart simply hit the bottle too hard “The Sweetest Sounds” is entirely his. and began failing to show up for work. He died When the man whom Kanfer calls a “pan- of pneumonia in 1943, at the age of 48, after theon figure in American music, indeed, in being found drunk in the night rain, sitting on world music,” died, his body was cremated. a Manhattan curb. “There is no grave, no statue, no marker; the lo- By then Rodgers was working with cation of his ashes is a secret. As, finally, is the Hammerstein, who could not have been more musician himself. What had troubled him different from Hart: “a devoted family man in- from the early days has never definitely be- stantly accessible, disciplined by habit, and op- come clear.... That his mystery endures mat- timistic by nature.” Hammerstein caused ters little beside his sweet, ever-enduring Rodgers to dig deeper and, says Kanfer, “write melodies.”

Composer Richard Rodgers (at the keyboard) and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II in 1953.

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