My Music Library Project wouldn’t be complete – wouldn’t even be in the same vicinity of “complete” – without today’s featured piece, which almost the whole world is familiar with: Edelweiss. Few other songs tug at the heartstrings quite like this one. Watching the clip again from the 1959 film The Sound of Music after many years apart made me feel reunited with family, youth, and the feeling of falling in love. All in all, it’s like coming home again, and suffice it to say, it made my eyes well up – just as they have many times before while watching it. The final look of Captain von Trapp toward Maria is immensely beautiful, and the scene as a whole is etched in film-musical folklore.
It’s also moving to note that Edelweiss was the final song of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical collaboration and the last lyric written by Oscar Hammerstein II, who died in August 1960. Hammerstein was already suffering from stomach cancer, which took his life nine months after The Sound of Music opened on Broadway.
What’s really interesting, though it leaves a bit of a sour taste, is that the original film version doesn’t feature Christopher Plummer’s voice, but rather that of playback singer Bill Lee. Although Plummer performed the song on set and recorded his vocals, his performance was dubbed over with Lee’s voice. But in the version below, the voice you hear is Christopher Plummer’s own. He plays it exactly as intended – a man uncertain of himself, who hasn’t sung or performed since his wife’s passing. A man hesitant to reveal even a hint of vulnerability before those gathered, yet moved by the stirrings of old and new love, he performs his cherished song. A genuine artist in every sense. You can hear the differences between Christopher Plummer and Bill Lee’s voices here. I don’t think they should have dubbed Christopher Plummer’s voice. He didn’t need to be dubbed.
This is what Plummer had to say about the dubbing of his voice:
PLUMMER: They did for the long passages. It was very well done. The entrances and exits from the songs were my voice, and then they filled in – in those days, they were very fussy about matching voices in musicals. And Julie, of course, had been – you know, trained since day one as a – I mean, she was … tone perfect since she was in her cradle, which is an exasperating thing to admit. And it was awfully hard to match her and her sustained, long notes. So yeah, I was – they did it very well ’cause it sounded very much like me.
Anyhows, Plummer’s original vocals were recently released as part of a remastered and expanded edition of the film’s soundtrack, allowing audiences to hear his authentic performance for the first time nearly 60 years after the film’s release.
The following was abridged from the Wikipedia article below:
The song is named after the edelweiss (Leontopodium nivale), a white flower found high in the Alps in Europe. In the stage musical and its 1965 film adaptation, Captain von Trapp and his family sing this song during the concert near the end of Act II, as well as a statement of Austrian patriotism in the face of the pressure put upon him to join the navy of Nazi Germany following the Anschluss (German annexation of Austria). 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 film version, the song is additionally sung by the Captain earlier in the film when he rediscovers music with his children.
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 remembered that Theodore Bikel, who had been cast as Captain von Trapp, was also a guitar-playing folksinger. They felt he could display that talent when performing the song. The metaphor of this song (as a symbol of Austria) 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.
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
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
References:
1. Edelweiss (song) – Wikipedia
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