This is a blog about music, photography, history, and culture.
These are photographs from my collection that tell a story about lost time and forgotten music.

Mike Brubaker
{ Click on the image to expand the photo }

Climb Every Mountain

02 August 2025

 
Climb ev'ry mountain
Search high and low
Follow ev'ry by-way
Every path you know








* * *





Climb ev'ry mountain
Ford ev'ry stream
Follow ev'ry rainbow
'Til you find your dream






* * *






A dream that will need
All the love you can give
Every day of your life
For as long as you live








* * *




Climb ev'ry mountain
Ford ev'ry stream
Follow ev'ry rainbow
'Til you find your dream









* * *





A dream that will need
All the love you can give
Ev'ry day of your life
For as long as you live







Climb ev'ry mountain
Ford ev'ry stream
Follow ev'ry rainbow
'Til you find your dream

"Climb Ev'ry Mountain", 1959
Lyricist: Oscar Hammerstein II
Composer: Richard Rodgers





These postcard images of enthusiastic mountain hikers are
the work of 
Viennese artist Fritz Schönpflug (1873–1951) 
whose work I began collecting a few years ago.
The cards were produced in 1910 as a six piece set marked 
B.K.W.I. 727.
I'm still missing number 4 , but when I find it, I'll add it below. 

As I was preparing this story 
a song title came to mind
which inspired me to
 use the lyrics
as links  between 
Schönpflug's comical pictures.
"Climb Ev'ry Mountain",
is a famous 
show tune that was featured
in the 1959 musical and 1
965 film,
The Sound of Music.
The lyricist was Oscar Hammerstein II
and it was set to music by Richard Rodgers.

In the musical the song is sung
at the close of the first act by the Mother Abbess.
In the original 1959 Broadway production
the role was played by Patricia Neway (1919 – 2012)
an American operatic soprano and musical theatre actress.
Here she is singing on the Ed Sullivan Show, December 20, 1959.
Good ears will recognize that the song is in a different key
than in the 1965 film version.




I don't know why Hammerstein
put 
an apostrophe in the word "ev'ry".
Neway certainly sings it as "evverrrry"
and her voice is so powerful
it could bring down mountains. 

And here is a reprise
from the ending to the 1965 film
THE SOUND OF MUSIC.





 Georg Ludwig Ritter von Trapp (1880 – 1947)
Source: Wikipedia



It's quite possible that Fritz Schönpflug knew the original Captain von Trapp, patriarch of the Trapp Family Singers, Georg Ludwig Ritter von Trapp (1880 – 1947). Georg was an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Navy and during World War I became that navy's most successful submarine commander, sinking 11 Allied merchant ships and two warships. 

His first wife, Agathe Whitehead, died of scarlet fever in 1922, leaving behind seven children. In 1926 one of his daughters was an invalid at home so Trapp engaged Maria Augusta Kutschera, a novice from the nearby Nonnberg Abbey, as a tutor. They fell in love and married in 1927, eventually adding three more children to the previous seven. In 1935 during the Great Depression, Georg lost his inherited wealth in a bank failure. A Catholic priest, Franz Wasner, had been teaching the children music and he encouraged the family to perform concerts around Austria and on radio. 

In 1938 Trapp was offered a commission in the German Navy but turned it down in opposition to Nazi ideology. Recognizing the danger of staying in Nazi Austria the Trapp family left for Italy, traveling by train, not by foot across the Alps as depicted in the movie. There they arranged a concert tour of the United States. In 1941 after a brief stay in Pennsylvania the family settled in Stowe, Vermont where they purchased a 660-acre farm in 1942 and converted it into the Trapp Family Lodge. Trapp died of lung cancer in 1947 but his wife Maria von Trapp and his Trapp Family troupe continued performing and making recordings until 1957.







This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where being on the level is only a suggestion.




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