Stories of Standards: “Falling in Love With Love

Tune in to First Take with Lando and Chavis – weekdays from 6-9 am MT – for Stories of Standards to hear our favorite versions of this song all week long!

“Falling in Love with Love” (1938) by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart was introduced in “The Boys From Syracuse”, the first American musical to be based on a play by Shakespeare (“The Comedy of Errors”). Rodgers, Hart and George Abbott as librettist created the show and Muriel Angelus as the disillusioned wife of one of the twins introduced the song. Lorenz Hart’s brother Teddy Hart played one of the Dromio twins.

Richard Rodgers (1902 – 1979) and Lorenz Hart (1895 – 1943) began collaborating in 1919, averaging two new Broadway shows per season in their first decade together, from “Poor Little Ritz Girl” (1920) to “Garrick Gaieties” (1925 and 1926), “Dearest Enemy” (1925), “Peggy-Ann” (1926), “A Connecticut Yankee” (1927) and “Chee-Chee” (1928). In 1931 they went to Hollywood, returning in 1935 for “Jumbo”, the circus extravaganza created by Billy Rose. Their partnership did much to define America’s idea of musicals and lasted, with only brief interruptions, until Hart’s death from pneumonia.  A movie based on their partnership “Words and Music” (1948) starred Mickey Rooney as Hart and Tom Drake as Rodgers.