Yesterday I lost a dear friend.

Les Miserables librettist Herbert Kretzmer passed away.

How many lyricists have written God-inspired moments without even realising that God was working through them? I think this was truly the case with the men who wrote Les Miserables.

Interestingly, Herbert Kretzmer wasn't even the first man for the job. He was chosen after the first librettist failed in his duties. He chained himself to his desk and over a period of five months, knocked out what are arguably the greatest lyrics ever committed to the stage and page.

I see Kretzmer as aligned similarly in the tradition of the great Jewish Tin Pan Alley, Broadway and West End authors, a lengthy tradition beginning with Gershwin, crossing the Atlantic by way of Lionel Bart and landing at Kretzmer's feet.

Kretzmer described his work as being anything by translation, and I think that's accurate. Without his keen wordplay and his ability to shape shift between characters and scenarios effortlessly, as well as spinning the wheel of emotion on a dime, there wouldn't be a show.

Interestingly, I see a great lineage of characterisation from Lionel Bart's Fagan to Thenadier, the Artful Dodger to Gavroche (although apologies to Dickens, of course Victor Hugo came first.) it is worth noting that French literature provided us with two of the biggest musicals of the 20th century, The Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables.

I grabbed a handful of my favourite Les Mis lyrical moments yesterday as I recall poring over the libretto growing up. I've mentioned this before, but my wonderful parents really opened up another world to me through musical theatre, which was my first love long before opera came along.

I can recall sitting in the back seat of our car on long road trips listening to Michael Ball crooning 'The First Man You Remember' from 'Aspects of Love' (one of Lloyd Webber's forgotten shows, though it still occasionally receives a revival.) 

That cassette tape, 'The Premiere Collection,' was one of my happiest early memories. I was recalling Starlight Express and playing the song 'I am the Starlight' with my flatmate yesterday.