A Salute to Lerner and Loewe

The Magic of Lerner and Loewe

The special Ghemistry that takes place between two mdividuals to enable them to produce a successful blending of words and music has never been distilled in any laboratory's test tube. Some famous songwriting teams - Rodgers and Hammerstein, for example, have had markedly similar backgrounds and outlook; others - Rodgers and Hart, the Gershwin brothersmay have had similar, and even identical, backgrounds, but they have been made up of men with almost completely different personalities and tastes. In background, in personality, and in temperament, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe would seem to be two of the most dissimilar men in the theatre. Loewe, Lerner's senior by fourteen years, was born in Vienna on June 10, 1904. He was the son of Edmund Loewe, a well-known tenor who sang in many of the popular Viennese operettas. By the time he was seven, young Fritz could pick out tunes on the piano. He studied in Berlin under Ferruccio Busoni (Kurt Weill's teacher), Eugene d'Albert, and Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek. At thirteen, he was the youngest piano soloist ever to appear with the Berlin Symphony. Two years later, he wrote a popular song, "Katrina," which became one of the biggest song hits throughout Europe. In 1924, Frederick Loewe confidently journeyed to New York to continue his career. His difficulties with the English language and his seeming inability to write in an "American" style made it extremely hard for him to adjust to the new country. Instead of continuing his career as a composer, he was soon forced to take a job as a pianist at a Greenwich Village nightclub, and for a time, he was even a bus boy in a cafeteria. With his career in music apparently over, Loewe, a solidly built, athletic man, next became a riding mstructor at a New Hampshire resort and, later, a prize fighter at a Brooklyn athletic club. His pugilistic career, however, was painfully terminated when his teeth were knocked out in his ninth bout. After a few years in the West (where he was a cow puncher, gold prospector, and horseback mail deliverer), Loewe took a job as a pianist on board ships transporting thirsty citizens from Miami to Havana dunng Prohibition. When repeal ended this ferrying ervice in the early Thirties, he became a pianist at a Brauhaus in Yorkville, New York City's German section. During this period, he again began to compose, but it took Loewe almost fourteen years to get the opportunity to compose his first Broadway score. Unfortunately, Great Lady closed after twenty performances, and he was once again forced to return to his job as a piano player in a restaurant. Then, one clay in 1942, he introduced himself to a young writer named Alan Jay Lerner. Unlike Loewe, Lerner had never had to spend years toiling at strange occupations tn an alien country. He was born in New York City, on August 31, 1918, the son of the founder of a chain of women's specialty shops, the Lerner Shops. Instead of smothering his ability, the advantage of wealth and education only instilled in him a strong determination to succeed unaided by any parental assistance. Lerner was only eight when he first made up his mind to become a writer for the theatre. Young Lerner learned to play the piano at an early age, and later took courses at the Juilliard School of Music. At Harvard, he wrote music and lyrics for two Hasty Pudding shows. After graduating Lerner became a radio script-writer, turning out about five hundred scripts in two years. Desperation brought Loewe to Lerner in 1942. Henry Duffy, a producer, wanted to present a series of onginal mus1cal comedies at a theatre he owned tn Detroit. The previous year he had offered a musical adaptation of Barry Connors' play, The Patsy, in San Francisco, but he wanted an entirely different treatment of the same story for the Detroit production. Two weeks before rehearsals were to begin, Duffy met with Loewe at the Lambs Club to discuss the possibility of using the bulk of the Loewe-Crooker score for Salute to Spring. What Loewe needed to ensure the commission, however, was a librettist who could also update some of the earlier lyrics. Because he admired the sketches and lyrics Lerner had contributed to The Lambs Gambol, a revue put on by Lambs Club members, Loewe immediately thought of him for the new project. Seeing Lerner at the club that day playing cards, the composer introduced himself with the businesslike: "You are Alan Jay Lerner? You write good lyrics. I am Frederick Loewe. I have something to say to you." Two days later, they were on a train bound for Detroit; the show was written within the prescribed two weeks, and in October 19421 Detroit audiences saw the initial collaboration of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe - Life of the Party. There was nothing memorable about the musical, but Lerner's work convinced Loewe that they might succeed as a team. The following year they made their Broadway debut with What's Up and two years later brought forth The Day Before Spring. They came into their own with Brigadoon which opened in 1947 and ran nearly two seasons for a total of 581 performances, and numerous overseas productions brought them international recognition as one of our foremost collaborative teams. Their next work was Paint Your Wagon, a paean to the early American West, and several years later the legendary My Fair Lady which established a long-running endurance record on Broadway with an unprecedented 2717 performance, six-and-one-half year run. Its success was repeated in all the English-speaking countries, and 11 has been translated into a dozen foreign languages. The show has played for years in capitals all over the world; royalties have run into the multi-millions, and the recorded version is the largest-selling album of all time. Following the enormous success of My Fair Lady, Lerner and Loewe turned to the story of Gigi as the basis for a musical motion picture, and the resulting film was selected Best Picture of the Year and won seven additional Academy Awards. Camelot opened on Broadway late in 1960 where it ran for more than two years, then toured the country extensively. It, too, became a popular international favorite. At a recent meeting tn Palm Springs, final details were worked out paving the way for the return to the musical theatre of the team of Lerner and Loewe with a new stage version of the classic Gigi, to be produced next spring by Edwin Lester for the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera. The production will bring Gigi to the stage for the first time as a musical. The meeting at Loewe's Palm Springs estate was the culmination of some years of urging on the part of Lester for the pair to create a new musical for the stage. As in all their previous collaborations, Mr. Lerner has written the book and lyrics for Gigi, and Loewe has provided the music. Several new scenes have been added to the book for this stage version, and its score will be highlighted by at least six or seven new music numbers as well as favorites from the film. A new film project of the team is The Little Prince, now casting at Paramount, so there are many new delights in store for the musical public. Modern though their plays are in inspiration and execution, the distinguishing trait of Lerner and Loewe has been in their preservation of the values and traditions of the past. It has been this fidelity to places and periods - a 200-year-old Scottish town that has vanished in the highland mist, the colorful gold fields of California in the 1850s, London society just before the First World War - that has endowed their works with the rare feeling of authenticity. The musical world of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe is not concerned with the problems of today; but it is created for today's audiences. It is a world in which the past comes excitingly alive, while still remaining romantic and gay, and eternally appealing.