What makes a song lyric great? It was Sheldon Harnick, lyricist for such shows as Fiorello, She Loves Me and Fiddler on the Roof, who posed the question, then proceeded to answer it, in the tuneful, enlightening and entertaining February edition of the 92nd Street Y's Lyrics & Lyricists series. The program was L&L in top form - true to the series' original purpose of illuminating the art and craft of creating lyrics, yet brought refreshingly up-to-date with today's young performing talent.

The program presented 19 examples that, said Harnick, "inspired him to become a lyricist" - such numbers as Hammerstein’s picture-painting "Surry With the Fringe on the Top;" Meredith Wilson's "Ya Got Trouble (Here in River City)," set in 1912 mid-America yet anticipating today’s urban rap; Leigh's "The Impossible Dream," designed to balance Don Quixote's madness with nobility; Martin and Blane's "The Trolley Song," with, said Harnick, its "exuberant rhyming," and "Hurry, It's Lovely Up Here", displaying Lerner's "legerdemain" with words.

Top-flight singing was provided by Nancy Anderson, Maureen Brennan, John Ellison Conlee and George Dvorsky. Harnick himself joined in, underlining the "elfin quality" of Lane's "When I'm Not Near the Girl I Love." With Rob Fisher as artistic director and Lee Musiker as music director (and both on piano) and Gary Griffin as stage director, the evening was a joy to the head and heart of lyric lovers.

Next up at Lyrics & Lyricists: Say It With Music - The Songs of Irving Berlin, 3/17-19.

Peter Haas
Cabaret Scenes
February 11, 2007
www.cabaretscenes.org