Customer Reviews

The Wordsmiths: Oscar Hammerstein 2nd and Alan Jay Lerner (The Great Songwriters Series)

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I recently finished reading this dual biography of Hammerstein and Lerner. My overall impression was that it was interesting and insightful. I would have given the book a higher rating except that the number of typographical and minor factual errors was a little more than I feel is appropriate. As an example, in the section descrbing Hammerstein's "Allegro", the writer stated that the hero of the piece, Joseph Taylor, Jr., sings the number "So Far" to a college co-ed. A look at the score or the libretto clearly indicates that it is, in fact, the opposite. The co-ed sings the song to Joe. This may sound a bit nit-picky, and I could forgive one or maybe even two errors like this. Unfortunately, the book gets a number of these details wrong.