Pop Song 518 of 100 'Edelweiss' Richard Rodgers Hammerstein 1959

Pop Song 518 of 100 'Edelweiss' Richard Rodgers Hammerstein 1959

Please watch from The Sound of Music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bL2BCiFkTk

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.

Edelweiss, Edelweiss
Every morning you greet me
Small and white, clean and bright
You look happy to meet me
Blossom of snow, may you bloom and grow
Bloom and grow forever
Edelweiss, Edelweiss
Bless my homeland forever
Small and white, clean and bright
You look happy to meet me
Blossom of snow, may you bloom and grow
Bloom and grow forever
Edelweiss, Edelweiss