Hamilton
Hip-hop and Broadway balladry take turns bearing up the story of a nation's founding, in music where words themselves become weapons.
At a glance 🔭💭
Some coordinates adapted from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0) · Pleiades (CC BY 3.0)
The creators ⏳🌊
- ComposerLin-Manuel Miranda
He wrote the book and lyrics and played Hamilton in the original production.
- DirectorThomas Kail
He directed the show from its premiere through the filming of the movie version.
- ConductorAlex Lacamoire
He brought Miranda's melodies to completion in orchestral arrangements.
- LeadLeslie Odom Jr.
He won a Tony Award for playing Aaron Burr in the original production.
- LeadPhillipa Soo
Played Eliza Hamilton in the original production.
I. From mixtape to stage
(Chance) After finishing In the Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda set off on his first vacation, stopped at an airport bookstore, and picked up Ron Chernow's biography Alexander Hamilton. He had chosen it as light reading, but a few chapters into the flight he found in Hamilton the very rhetoric of the hip-hop lyrics he knew — the ambition of a poor immigrant set on turning the world upside down with words. (Decision) He began to conceive the story not as a traditional book musical but as a concept album, the so-called “Hamilton Mixtape.” Miranda is said to have spent considerable time on even the first song, 'Alexander Hamilton,' and he has said himself that the second, 'My Shot,' took him a year. The pace was slow, but that time was a search for a language in which hip-hop and the Broadway ballad could coexist within a single character. (Performance) In 2009, at a poetry evening at the White House, Miranda took the stage with nothing but one unfinished song, 'Alexander Hamilton.' The audience responded with a mixture of bewilderment and cheers. That public preview led, years later, to the premiere at the Public Theater and then to the transfer to Broadway; Miranda went on to work as a composer on Moana and Encanto as well, linking him to the two works covered in this series. (Collaborators) The director Thomas Kail and the music director Alex Lacamoire were longtime collaborators of Miranda's. Lacamoire translated the raps and melodies Miranda wrote into an orchestral language underpinned by strings and percussion, and that work made hip-hop not an exotic ornament but the basic grammar of the story.
II. A beginning spoken by many mouths
(Narrators) When the curtain rises, several characters take turns narrating one man's life. Burr opens, and Mulligan, Lafayette and Laurens each pick up a line in turn, telling us in fragments who Hamilton is. This narrative approach arose when Miranda divided what had first been written as a monologue for Burr alone among many voices, and that choice determined the way the entire work speaks. (Motifs) The brief melodic fragments introduced in this song return again and again later on as markers pointing to the characters. A rising line that traces Hamilton's ascent and a slow, sinking phrase that conveys Burr's caution first appear here, and they come back, transformed, until the show ends. (Joining forces) Arriving in New York, Hamilton falls in with Mulligan, Lafayette and Laurens and pours out the language of revolution in rap. The song in this passage alternates rapid-fire rap sections that drive the lyrics relentlessly forward with choral sections the four shout together, showing in music how one man's ambition spreads into a collective declaration.
An opening narrated in turn by several voices, introducing for the first time the melodic fragments that will recur throughout the show.
- The opening's structure, with several narrators each taking a line, is where we first hear the leitmotifs, the short melodic fragments that recur throughout the rest of the show.
- A short rising figure that points to Hamilton and a sinking one that points to Burr are presented side by side here, sketching the contrast between the two men in music ahead of time.
- Burr's opening lines, sung in the original cast by Leslie Odom Jr., are among the most often quoted passages in the work.
- The bass line that drives the whole song treads the same note again and again, giving the sense that history is being rewritten over and over.
The song in which the young Hamilton first pours out his aspirations, its rapid-fire rap portraying an urgent ambition.
- The passage in which Hamilton first pours out his aspirations is packed with breathless rapid-fire rap, expressing through sheer speed his urgency to escape poverty.
- In the refrain, the section where the four friends shout as one shows through ensemble singing the moment a personal vow spreads into a collective rallying cry.
- The choice to place rapid-fire rap, rare in the Broadway tradition, early in Act 1 struck critics and audiences alike as a refreshing shock at the premiere.
III. Between love and ambition
(Sisters) The scene in which the three Schuyler sisters appear on the streets of New York sets itself apart from the other characters' music with a buoyant pop rhythm. The harmonies of Eliza, Angelica and Peggy stack on top of one another while each keeps its own character, and among them Angelica's voice pushes forward with particular clarity, foreshadowing the place she will later have to bear. (Choice) At the ball, Angelica is drawn to Hamilton first, but she steps back for the sake of her sister Eliza. The song that treats this decision replays the same event at a different speed and from a different point of view, proving musically that a single moment is engraved differently on each of the three. (Waiting) The monologue-like song devoted to Burr is a rare slow, still number in this work. Rather than charging ahead as Hamilton does, he sings of a caution that waits for its moment, and this contrast is where the essential difference in temperament dividing the two men is heard most vividly.
A song that paints Eliza falling in love in tender rhythm and blues.
- Depicting the moment Eliza falls in love, this song borrows a light, sweet rhythm-and-blues idiom, setting its mood sharply apart from the other songs about war and politics.
- It forms a pair with 'Satisfied,' which covers the same events, and hearing the two side by side reveals that the same scene lives on as entirely different songs for the two sisters.
- The refrain's melody returns in a different key in Eliza's song late in the show, so that a moment of happiness comes back to life in the shadow of loss.
The stillest of the show's monologues, in which Burr confesses his caution.
- Sung by Burr alone, this song holds to a tempo rare in the show, slow and still, showing through the rhythm itself that he is a man who has chosen to wait.
- The chorus that builds over a low, repeating accompaniment conveys mounting pressure, letting us hear held-back feeling slowly welling up.
- Sung by Leslie Odom Jr. in the original production, the song was widely acclaimed and is considered a major factor in his Tony Award win.
IV. The room of power
(Battlefield) The Revolutionary War ends, and Hamilton rises under Washington to become Secretary of the Treasury. The music of this period moves quietly from the drums of the battlefield to the string accompaniment of the meeting room, announcing that the arena of combat has shifted from bullets to words and votes. (Battle) The cabinet debates between Jefferson and Hamilton are brought to the stage in the form of a rap battle. The two trade lines, firing back at each other's rhymes, while Washington stands between them like a referee and hands down the verdict. This device of turning political debate into competitive rap is one of the most frequently cited ideas in the show. (Resolve) In the song 'The Room Where It Happens,' Burr for the first time voices his anger that the decisions of power are made behind closed doors. His singing sheds the still tone it has held until now and, for the first time, surges forward with force, showing in music his turn toward a man who will no longer simply wait.
A jazz-inflected song in which Burr first unleashes his curiosity and anger about backroom politics.
- In this song, where Burr first casts off his caution, he rides jazzy syncopated rhythms, revealing in music that he is changing.
- Toward the end, the counterpoint (a technique of singing several melodies layered at once) section, in which the chorus stacks the same phrases on top of one another, holds both a collective curiosity about backroom politics and a resentment of it.
- It is counted among the stage musical numbers most often sung on their own in concert repertoire, and productions diverge in interpretation, some painting Burr's anger as more cynical, others as more desperate.
V. Scandal and downfall
(Confession) Hamilton himself publishes a pamphlet publicly admitting to his affair, a choice close to political suicide. In the song that deals with this event, Eliza burns her husband's letters and sings that she will erase her own story from history. Opening on piano, with acoustic guitar and strings quietly supporting it, this song is the first moment in the show when she does not hide her anger. (Rift) The events that follow bring the Hamilton family one loss after another. The music of this passage takes the tender melodies heard earlier, twists them into darker keys, and plays them again; it is here that the show's signature technique, in which the same melody carries an entirely different emotion as the scene changes, is used to its most painful effect. (Confrontation) The long tension between Burr and Hamilton finally heads toward a place from which there is no return. The music of this scene stretches that moment out so slowly that time seems almost to stop, making us gaze for several minutes at the brief instant when the two men stand face to face. What happens here is for the music to tell, not for this essay to reveal in advance.
A piano-driven song in which Eliza lays bare her fury as she burns her husband's letters.
- Sung by Eliza as she burns her husband's letters, the song opens with piano alone and voices her anger in the barest sound the score allows.
- A tender melodic fragment first heard in 'Helpless' returns here with its harmony darkened, showing most painfully the work's habit of making the same tune carry an entirely different emotion.
- Phillipa Soo's original cast recording is known for its restrained delivery, and in later productions this is the passage where singers part ways over how much passion to let show.
VI. The one who tells the story
(Silence) The song about the Hamilton family after their great loss has fewer words than any other in the show. Built from long rests and a plain piano accompaniment, it captures the moment when a hero who poured everything out in words falls silent for the first time. (Reckoning) In the show's final number the many voices return to ask how a single life should be recorded and remembered. Melodic fragments from the opening scenes come back one by one and pile up, completing at last the work's theme that the same life is remembered differently depending on who tells the story. (Legacy) At the close of the drama Eliza is left alone to live another half century. The music ends the show by placing the final sound in her hands, a choice that throws light once more on whose legacy the story was about all along.
A song that paints the silence after loss by paring back the words and filling the space with rests.
- The sparest song in the show in terms of lyrics, it portrays the silence after loss through long rests and a simple accompaniment alone.
- The chorus hums low beneath the couple's exchange, enfolding it as if watching from a distance, and so shows how song can shoulder a grief that words cannot fully explain.
- The tempo and the length of the silences shift a little from one performance to the next, making this a passage where the felt weight of the emotion varies widely with the cast.
A closing chorus in which earlier melodies return and accumulate, bringing the questions of memory and record to a close.
- Short leitmotifs heard early in the show return one by one at the end and build on one another, resolving in music the question of who gets to tell the story.
- Ending the show on the sound of Eliza drawing a final breath is the stage production's famous handling of silence, and it was preserved intact in the filmed version.
- A final chorus that recalls the work's reception — a Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album and a Pulitzer Prize — and is often cited as the passage that lingers longest in the house after the curtain falls.
Lesser-known stories
(Mixtape) Hamilton was not conceived as a stage work from the start. Miranda imagined the story as a concept album, "The Hamilton Mixtape," and the staging grew out of that idea. As a result, some early recordings differ in lyrics or arrangement from the stage version we know today. (Monologue) The opening number 'Alexander Hamilton,' now sung in turns by many characters, was first conceived as a long monologue for Aaron Burr alone. Only when Miranda divided it among several speakers did the narrative method of the whole show take shape — a change almost unknown to audiences who see only the finished work. (Sixteen) The melody of 'The Story of Tonight' comes from a song Miranda had written for another purpose when he was sixteen. It is a case of a tune composed long ago finding its way, decades later, into a key scene of an entirely different work, as the composer himself has said in interviews. (Preview) In 2009, six years before the finished show appeared, Miranda performed just one song, 'Alexander Hamilton,' still unfinished, at a spoken-word evening at the White House. Unlike the simplified origin story told later — that he read a biography on vacation and thought of a musical — the real process involved years of public previews and revisions like this one.
Glossary 📚🔎
Leitmotif
(Etymology) The German Leitmotiv means a leading (Leit) motive (Motiv), a short musical fragment that carries a particular character or idea along with it. (In film · musical-theater music) A short melody that always attends a particular character or event. When the melody sounds again, the audience knows from the music alone that the character or idea has returned. Much as the same tune comes back in another voice in a round, in Hamilton the rising melody that stands for Hamilton keeps returning, in altered shapes, deep into the second act. (Elsewhere) In literature, too, the word motif is used for a recurring symbol or theme.
Rap battle
(In film · musical-theater music) A hip-hop performance form in which two people trade verses, firing back at each other's lines to win the upper hand through logic or sheer momentum. Hamilton stages its cabinet debates in exactly this form, turning political sparring into contests of song. It resembles the moment in a classroom debate when you rebut your opponent's point right on its heels.
Reprise
(Etymology) The English reprise comes from an Old French word meaning to take back. (In film · musical-theater music) A device in which part of an earlier song's melody or lyrics is sung again later, so that the same tune carries a different situation or feeling. In Hamilton the same melody often recurs in different keys in happy scenes and in sorrowful ones. It is like singing the same field-day cheer at the start of a race and again at the moment of a last-minute comeback, and finding that the song now means something else.
Counterpoint
(Etymology) In Hanja it means to take a position (位) facing one another (對), carrying the sense of different melodic lines standing opposite each other in the same place. (In film · musical-theater music) The technique of singing or playing two or more independent melodies at the same time. In Hamilton's final songs there are passages where several characters pour out different lyrics simultaneously, layering one over another. Picture several groups each singing a different song at once, and the songs happening to fit together beautifully.
Syncopation
(In film · musical-theater music) A technique that pulls the rhythm ahead of or behind where the beat would normally fall, gently twisting the listener's expectations. It is especially beloved in jazz and hip-hop, and in Hamilton it stands out as Burr's songs grow more heated. It is like clapping on the beat and then clapping one beat early, so that the flow slips slightly out of step.
Mixtape
(In film · musical-theater music) Originally a hip-hop term for an unofficial recording made by stitching several tracks together. Miranda first conceived Hamilton as a concept album in this form, and that framework later became the backbone of the stage musical. The idea is much like hand-picking your favorite songs and stringing them together in order to make a playlist all your own. (Elsewhere) In the streaming era the word also refers to unofficial releases that artists put out between studio albums.