Edelweiss

I don’t usually repeat a SOD but in this case it seems only fitting to finish off the week of The Sound of Music with “Edelweiss”. It is named after the edelweiss, (Leontopodium nivale), a white flower found high in the . The song was created for the 1959 Broadway production of The Sound of Music, as a song for the character Captain Georg von Trapp. In the musical, Captain von Trapp and his family sing this song during the concert near the end of Act II. Composer(s): Richard Rodgers It is a statement of Austrian patriotism in the face of the pressure put upon him to join the navy of Nazi Germany following the Anschluss (Nazi annexation of their homeland). It is also Captain von Trapp’s subliminal goodbye to his beloved homeland, using the flower as a symbol of his loyalty to Austria. In the 1965 film adaptation, the song is also sung by the Captain earlier in the film when he rediscovers music with his children. This was the final song of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical collaboration to be heard by theatre audiences, and the last song written by Oscar Hammerstein II, who died in August 1960. While The Sound of Music was in tryouts in Boston, Richard Rodgers felt Captain von Trapp should have a song with which he would bid farewell to the Austria he knew and loved.[ Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II decided to write an extra song that von Trapp would sing in the festival concert sequence towards the end of the show. As they were writing it, they felt this song could also use the guitar-playing and folk-singing talents of Theodore Bikel, who had been cast as the Captain. The Lindsay and Crouse script provides the metaphor of the simple edelweiss wildflower as a symbol of the Austria that Captain von Trapp, Maria, and their children knew would live on, in their hearts, despite the Nazi annexation of their homeland. The metaphor of this song builds on an earlier scene when Gretl presents a bouquet of edelweiss flowers to Baroness Elsa Schräder, during the latter’s visit to the von Trapp household. Rodgers provided a simple, yet haunting and affecting waltz-time melody, to the simple Italian style ritornello lyric that Hammerstein wrote about the appearance of the edelweiss flower. “Edelweiss” turned out to be one of the most beloved songs in the musical, as well as one of the best-loved songs by Rodgers and Hammerstein. “Edelweiss” is the last song Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote together; Hammerstein was suffering from stomach cancer, which took his life nine months after The Sound of Music opened on Broadway.