Richard Rodgers is an enigma. We should know more about him than any other songwriter, but we don't. He is the only major American songwriter to leave behind an autobiography (Musical Stages, 1975), and it is very good. His wife, Dorothy, also left behind an intelligent memoir of sorts (A Personal Book, 1977). In addition, Rodgers was interviewed hundreds of times, including a four hundred page interview in the Oral History collection at Columbia University.

And yet Richard Rodgers eludes us in ways that America's other major songwriters don't. It is easy to chart his professional accomplishments but difficult to understand the emotional and intellectual stimuli that went into them. Of America's great 20th century songwriters, Rodgers led the most orderly life. He worked hard, kept reasonable hours (for a man of the theatre at least), had a solid marriage and, with his wife, raised two successful daughters. In reading about him, one gets the impression that each morning he sprang from his bed, donned his pin striped suit, breakfasted with the family, then went to the office and wrote musicals like Oklahoma! and South Pacific.

Of course I'm exaggerating, but not much. It is significant that William Hyland's new biography of Richard Rodgers is the first since Rodgers' death twenty years ago. By contrast, three major biographies of Irving Berlin have appeared in the 1990's; one major biography of Cole Porter has appeared each decade since his death, and an average of two Gershwin biographies have appeared each decade since his death. So why has it taken twenty years for a biography of Richard Rodgers?

A good part of the answer lies with Rodgers' own autobiography, Musical Stages, which is a disarming book. It has a warm voice, an open, honest tone and lots of detail. When reading it, one gets the impression that there is nothing more to say about Richard Rodgers. And yet autobiographies are often slippery, and Musical Stages is no exception. It is a professional autobiography rather than a personal one. That's fine, of course. Rodgers had a right to create the kind of autobiography he wanted, and I am grateful that he wrote as openly and thoroughly as he did. I wish other songwriters had done so. But professional details alone do not always unlock artistic insights. For that we need to know more about the inner workings of the artist. We need to know about values, about memories and life experiences that have shaped character, about fears, goals, aspirations and influences. Rodgers tells us very little about all that. In saturating us with professional details, he subtlety seals off personal ones. I don't mean to imply that this was a deliberate scheme; it was almost certainly the result of a natural character trait.

The result, however, is the same. Because Rodgers was naturally reticent about personal matters, he is a supremely difficult subject. No one has pierced beneath the surface to examine the inner workings of his heart and mind. William Hyland's book, though intelligent and informative, does not get to the heart of the matter. It is an excellent overview of Rodgers' professional achievements and contains some intelligent discussions of his songs, but most of the information is available elsewhere, most notably in Nolan Frederick's Lorenz Hart: A Poet on Broadway (1994), Stanley Green's The Rodgers and Hammerstein Story (1963), and Ethan Mordden's Rodgers and Hammerstein (1992).

Mr. Hyland's book is pleasant reading, and if you want to read a single book on Richard Rodgers, this would be a good one, but--like every book that deals with Rodgers, either centrally or peripherally--this one paints him from afar. We are told a lot about where he goes and what he does but little about what he thinks and what he feels.

Perhaps some examples would be helpful. Richard Rodgers struggled with depression off and on during his adult life. At one time, he was hospitalized for it. And yet Hyland refers to it only occasionally and devotes only a paragraph to the hospitalization (and most of that paragraph contains citations of other famous people who underwent similar experiences). As a reader, I would like to know more about that strain of Rodgers' character and how it might have deepened or colored his music.

Secondly, I would like to know more about Rodgers' relationship with and attitude toward Lorenz Hart. Frederick Nolan, in his sympathetic biography of Hart, portrays Rodgers as an increasingly distant, unfeeling partner. But Nolan didn't understand Rodgers any better than the rest of us. Rodgers, himself, speaks respectfully but cautiously about Hart in his autobiography, never once mentioning Hart's troublesome homosexuality. And yet however different their temperaments and lifestyles, there was something in Lorenz Hart that brought out the best in Richard Rodgers, from swing anthems like "The Lady is a Tramp" to poignant ballads like "Little Girl Blue." It is not fair to say that Rodgers' work with Hart was better than his work with Hammerstein, but it was certainly different, and his relationship with Hart, both personally and musically, surely had something to do with that difference. It is a topic that has not yet been explored thoroughly enough.

Thirdly, I would like to know more about why Rodgers' music took on a different flavor after he started working with Hammerstein. Part of the difference, clearly, was prompted by different working methods. (Hammerstein typically provided his lyrics before Rodgers wrote the music, Hart provided them after), but how much of a difference did this make? How much was caused by the changing demands of the theatre, by his increasingly middle aged circumstances and view of the world, by Hammerstein's deeper social consciousness? These are all matters that deserve more attention.

And yet I mean no serious criticism of Mr. Hyland or others who have written about Richard Rodgers. He is such a difficult subject because he was such a guarded man. He protected his privacy zealously, and we may never know as much about him as we would like. Someone may yet pierce beneath Rodger's public persona, but for the moment, he is giving credence to the adage, "the more you know, the less you know."