Music Monday ~ Frederick Loewe & Alan Jay Lerner aka Lerner & Loewe

Loewe on left, Lerner, right.

Lerner and Loewe were the team of lyricist/librettist Alan Jay Lerner, and composer Frederick Loewe (he was born this week in 1901). They are known primarily for the music and lyrics of some of Broadway's most successful musical shows, including My Fair Lady, Camelot, Gigi, Paint your Wagon and Brigadoon.

Wiki's page on Lerner & Loewe tells that....

Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, more commonly known as Fritz, met in 1942 at the Lambs Club in New York City where, according to Loewe, he mistakenly took a wrong turn to the men's room and walked past Lerner's table. Having recognized him, he asked if Lerner wrote lyrics and Lerner confirmed he did.

Lerner claimed to be the more dominant member of the partnership, which is supported by interviews with their close friends,[citation needed] saying that he would throw out the first two melodies that Loewe would write to any song even if they were both perfect. He said he always knew, with a little pushing, Loewe was capable of greater work. Loewe also worked perfectly with Lerner, who would agonize for weeks over a lyric. Unlike other collaborators Lerner would work with, Loewe was the most understanding of the time Lerner needed for his lyrics and would never pressure him to complete the work.

Their last collaboration came with the 1974 musical film The Little Prince, which received mixed reviews but was lauded as one of the team's most cerebral scores.

Regardless of their professional relationship, Lerner and Loewe were close friends and remained so until the end of their lives. Their final public appearance was in December 1985, when they received a Kennedy Center Honor, six months before Lerner's death.

Lerner said this of Loewe: "There will never be another Fritz...Writing will never again be as much fun. A collaboration as intense as ours inescapably had to be complex. But I loved him more than I understood or misunderstood him and I know he loved me more than he understood or misunderstood me."

From Lerner's Wiki page:

The Lerner-Loewe partnership cracked under the stress of producing the Arthurian Camelot in 1960, with Loewe resisting Lerner's desire to direct as well as write when original director Moss Hart suffered a heart attack in the last few months of rehearsals, and would die shortly after the show's premiere. Lerner was hospitalized with bleeding ulcers while Loewe continued to have heart troubles. Camelot was a hit nonetheless, with a poignant coda; immediately following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, his widow told Life magazine that JFK's administration reminded her of the "one brief shining moment" of Lerner and Loewe's Camelot. To this day, Camelot is invoked to describe the idealism, romance, and tragedy of the Kennedy years.

Cue Richard Burton:



Robert Goulet with a medley of 3 Lerner and Loewe songs:



Julie Andrews with another medley of L & L songs:



Vic Damone with my personal favourite from My Fair Lady



ASTROLOGY

It'd be interesting to investigate whether their astrology tells the same tale of friendship and professional collaboration - with some challenges. I can find no times of birth for either of them, so 12 noon charts have to suffice. Moon positions will not be exact and ascendant remains unknown.

Frederick Loewe born in Berlin, Germany on 10 June 1901.

Alan Jay Lerner born in New York City on 31 August 1918.

Both men's natal Suns are in signs ruled by Mercury, planet of communication: Loewe, the composer, in Gemini, Lerner, the lyric writer, Virgo, and though the two signs have quite different attributes, they do often seem to work well together - depending on other chart placements.

It's possible (but can't be established without times of birth) that both had natal Moons in emotional Water signs; Pisces and Cancer - their Sun and Moon compatibility accounts, in part, for their longstanding friendship, and working relationship.

It's not surprising that, as stated in one of the quotes above, Lerner was the dominant personality in this partnership - his Venus, Saturn and Neptune in Leo gave him a goodly dose of confidence and ambition to take control and make his mark! The understanding and patience Loewe showed to his colleague might be represented by natal Mercury in gentle, sensitive Cancer; his Mercury has a conjunction of Jupiter/Saturn (excess and limitation) in opposition from Capricorn - some kind of balancing act?

Both men had Pluto conjunct a personal planet: in Loewe's case conjunct natal Sun; in Lerner's conjunct Jupiter - and possibly even Moon - depending on his time of birth. These conjunctions might reflect the strains and challenges the two faced from time to time, in some cases even affecting their health.