Lerner & Loewe

about

The collaborative team of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe dominated the Broadway stage and American musical theater from 1947 into the 1960s and their musicals – Brigadoon, My Fair Lady, and Camelot – still live on in revival performances and in their movie versions. Lerner was the playwright and lyricist, while Loewe composed the music. Alan Jay Lerner was born on August 31, 1918, one of three sons of Joseph Lerner, the founder of Lerner Stores, Inc. He had a good education, which took him to Harvard, and he studied at the Juilliard School of Music during his vacations from Harvard. He had done sketches and lyrics for two Harvard Hasty Pudding shows. He graduated Harvard in 1940 and wrote advertising copy and scripts for such radio shows as the Philco Hall of Fame. “Fritz” Loewe was older, having been born on June 10, 1904, in Vienna, Austria, the son of Edmund Loewe, a well-known operetta tenor. (Operetta, best known for the works by Gilbert & Sullivan, was the forerunner of American musicals.) A precocious youth, Loewe was playing piano at 4 and had by 9 composed the tunes for a music hall sketch with which his father toured Europe. At 15 he had a hit song with “Katrina,” which sold three million copies in Europe. In 1924 he came with his father to America, but his initial engagements at New York’s Town Hall and the Rivoli Theatre did not lead to follow-up bookings. The following decade saw him struggling with a variety of jobs, from cafeteria busboy to bo

top songs

albums

My Fair Lady

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My Fair Lady (Soundtrack)

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My Fair Lady: 1956 Original Broadway Cast

Paint Your Wagon

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Broadway First Take Vol. 1

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My Fair Lady (soundtrack) [Soundtrack]

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Lerner & Loewe: My Fair Lady (John Mauceri – The Sound of Hollywood Vol. 6)

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Brigadoon

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Camelot

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My Fair Lady [Original Soundtrack]

Paint Your Wagon: Music From the Motion Picture Soundtrack

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My Fair Lady: 1956 Original Broadway Cast [Cast Album]

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