Frederick “Fritz” Loewe was an American composer best known for some of the most popular and successful hits in the musical theatre, in collaboration with Alan Jay Lerner. Each of their most successful musicals was equally beloved and eventually adapted for the silver screen.
Loewe was born on June 10, 1901, in Vienna, the son of German operetta star Edmund Loewe. From a young age he was exposed to music; initially he studied piano and began performing at age 13. His first song, composed at 15, was a hit in Germany, and in 1917 he appeared with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra. He studied both piano and composition with Ferruccio Busoni.
Loewe emigrated to the United States in 1924 but did not progress in the musical scene there. For the next seven years he subsidised his musical career with a variety of jobs, including prospecting and working as a cowboy, and during this time he played piano for some Broadway musicals. He worked with Earle T. Crooker on two musical productions in the late 1930s; but these brought little success.
Loewe first met Lerner by chance at the Lambs Club in 1942. According to Lerner, Loewe had actually been looking for the men’s room at the time. A simple exchange in the club grill led to a lifelong collaboration with Lerner.
Their first musicals did not meet with much acclaim. However, MGM purchased the screen rights to the 1945 musical The Day Before Spring, which gave them financial security. Brigadoon was their first hit musical, in 1947, followed by Paint Your Wagon in 1951. That musical was the only production of theirs set in the United States.
It was in 1956 that the pair’s most exceptional musical opened on Broadway. My Fair Lady ran for 2,717 performances, and the score was extremely popular. But to write for Rex Harrison, who was not a singer, posed a challenge. Loewe set the lyric in a sort of tuneful speech, a technique he would later use for Louis Jourdan in Gigi, and for Richard Burton in Camelot. The cast album for My Fair Lady would become the best-selling record of any such recording in history, as well as the best-selling record in the history of Columbia Records.
After the enormous success of My Fair Lady, the team was asked to write a musical directly for the screen. Lerner was eager; Loewe hesitant. Finally he agreed, and the resulting collaboration was Gigi. The 1958 film is considered one of the last of the grand, traditional Hollywood musicals. Loewe was hospitalised with heart problems after its completion.
After Loewe’s recovery, Lerner and Loewe wrote Camelot, which was to be their last musical. Camelot was fraught with production problems and the relationship between the partners was tense. However, Camelot, for all its preproduction difficul-ties, was a success from its opening in I960.
Following Camelot, Loewe retired. He emerged briefly to write the score for the film The Little Prince (1974). He divided his time among his homes in Palm Springs, California, and in the Mediterranean. He no longer enjoyed composing, and had no need to work. “There is no reason for me to work now,” he reportedly told The New York Times. “I don’t need the glory. I don’t need money.”
Loewe was not considered an innovator as a composer, nor did he possess a singular or unique style. He was, however, a solid craftsman, able to deliver music that suited the vocal abilities of the performers, as well as to reflect the period in which they were set. Fritz Loewe died in February 1988.
Linda Dailey Paulson
SEE ALSO:
FILM MUSICALS; MUSICALS.
FURTHER READING
Lees, Gene. Inventing Champagne: The Worlds of Lerner and Loewe (London: Robson, 1991);
Suskin, Steven. Show Tunes: 1905–91: The Songs, Shows, and Careers of Broadway’s Major Composers (New York: Limelight Editions, 1992).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
Brigadoon; Camelot; My Fair Lady.