He was a talented guy who produced a fine body of work but Berg's assessment of him as "perhaps the greatest melody writer of American musical theater," should have been qualified with "since the Golden Age of Broadway". Not to denigrate the man but IMO he was not on the same plane with George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Frederick Lowe, and Irving Berlin. No shame to play second fiddle to those guys though.