GLCD 5119 – The Golden Age of Light Music: The 1950s Volume 3 – Say it with Music
Various
To the CD in our Shop
International Record Review February 2007
‘Say It With Music’ has 27 tracks from the first half of the 1950s. The sound is excellent throughout, although not (yet) from the stereo era. The range of music is British, European and American, and the disc encapsulates the growing internationalism of light music in the decade following the Second World War. In each case, the music deserves revival. The performances are authentic, at times featuring the composers themselves conducting their own works. Tracks conducted by Leroy Anderson, Roger-Roger, Philip Green and Robert Farnon are valuable, and other items here contain popular music by serious composers: Auric’s Pavements of Paris and Frankel’s A Kid for Two Farthings are excellent examples. We also have two more `mini concertos’ composed in the Wake of Addinsell’s Warsaw Concerto – one being by Addinsell himself, Out of the Clouds, alongside Joyce Cochrane’s Prelude to Peace. Does a recording exist of Addinsell’s Southern Rhapsody for piano and orchestra, premiered by the Tate Clive Lythgoe at the launch of the UK Southern Television Station? This is a good piece. The music here ranges from the once well-known Holiday in Hollywood to Rainfall (for harpsichord and orchestra, with Percy Faith’s orchestra) – the last being new to me (Guild GLCD5119, 1 hour 17 minutes).
Robert Matthew-Walker
Fanfare January/February 2007
SAY IT WITH MUSIC-THE GOLDEN AGE OF LIGHT MUSIC, 1950s, VOL. 3 • Various conductors & orchestras • GUILD GLCD 5119 (77:14)
As Fanfare’s resident light-music enthusiast, I feel I should bring to your attention an excellent and comprehensive series of releases an the Swiss Guild label which now exceeds 20 volumes and is still going strong. Compiled by David Ades and engineered by Alan Bunting, both members of the England-based RFAS, the Robert Farnon Appreciation Society, a world-wide band of intrepid light-music fans-Ades was its founder), which is fast approaching its half-century mark, this series purports to select outstanding examples of the kind of intelligent and tasteful instrumental popular music that has become an antiquarian pursuit over the past 40 years.
Ades is so knowledgeable about recordings of quality pops that he includes in every volume both items well known to collectors but also rarities that have either been out of print for decades (many as only 78-rpm or 45-rpm Singles) or have never seen the public light of day at all under commercial auspices. In a decision that this writer has reservations about, Ades has sprinkled through out the series classic American pop tunes as arranged by legendary conductors as well as “originals” of light music per se. In some ways this gives the series a kind of grab-bag quality, because the choice of “Standards” is potentially infinite for all practical purposes. To hear Stanley Black’s rendition of Irving Berlin’s Say It with Music or David Rose’s That Old Black Magic (Arlen-Mercer) sandwiched in with a film theme by the Italian Mario Nascimbene, Song of the Barefoot Contessa, followed by the relatively obscure White Wedding by one of the unsung masters of authentic “English light,” Edward White, is somewhat disconcerting. But at least Ades selects unusual versions of these evergreens, such as Les Baxter’s Manhattan (Rodgers and Hart), the vibrant Robert Farnon treatment of Schwanz and Dietz’s If There Is Someone Lovelier than You, plus Gordon
Jenkins’s Till the Clouds Roll By (Kern-Wodehouse-Bolton), and these choices help to underline the orchestrating skills of these men who also wrote much music of their own.
To give an idea of the range of riches offered in this particular volume, we hear a rare and moody Pavements of Paris by the member of Les Six (Georges Auric) who had a hit single in this country with his Song from Moulin Rouge; a lovely ballad-Out of the Clouds, by the Warsaw Concerto composer Richard Addinsell; the exciting Bolero Without My Lover, an English adaptation of a theme by the French film composer Philippe-Gérard, who penned the melody for the perennial “When the World Was Young; the little-known Rainfall by the unique jazz pianist Eddie Canadian Sunset Heywood as interpreted by the ubiquitous Percy Faith; an early example of the enormously prolific and perkily individualistic Frenchman Roger Roger, The Toy Show Windows Barbara by Frank Perkins, composer of the great Standard Stars Fell an Alabama; the entrancing theme from Benjamin Frankel’s A Kid for Two Farthings as interpreted by Angela Morley (who was then known as Wally Stott); Savoir Faire, a distinguished example of the first-rank work turned out by Frederic Curzon (Brother to classical pianist Clifford), as performed under the baton of the famous Dutch conductor Dolf Van Der Linden, founder of the Metropole Orchestra; a charming Melachrino trifte, Waltz in Water Colours; the American maestro and Boston Pops arranger Richard Hayman’s recording of Port of Spain by the very obscure Arden Clar; a breezy but lesser-known Farnon contribution to the Chappell production music catalog, En route; a Big Ben Waltz by the “underappreciated” and versatile Frank Cordell (whose score for the film Khartoum garnered much praise); the dynamic Holiday for Hollywood by Patrick Dennis, a pseudonym for a composer and music producer who wrote under many names, as played by the Metropole Orchestra under Van Der Linden – one of this listener’s special favorites, which was briefly available here an a miscellaneous Epic LP.
Although Ades occasionally nods in the direction of Austria (herein it’s Waltz Dream by Oskar Straus, composer of Les rondes), he has yet to delve into the enormous fund of light music by German composers, which is still in use today by the German Radio (people like Mackeben, Kattnig, Haentszchel, Grothe, Richartz, Mattes, Eisbrenner, Kiessling, Carste, among many others). There exists also a more modest but now more or less defunct tradition of French light music, often conducted and sometimes composed by Paul Bonneau, with contributions by figures better-known in the classical field such as Tomasi, P. M. Dubois, Sancan, and others.
At this rate, the series could easily run to 100 volumes, so let’s hope sales will support this possibility, because this is a mammoth undertaking that has long needed doing and serves spectacularly to remind us of what a treasure-trove of light music the mid 20th century gave us. Long may this series prosper!
Paul A. Snook
SOURCE NOT KNOWN, 11-2006
Three More in the Golden Age of Light Music Series from
Buried Treasures. 21 tracks of various composers and orchestral. Recorded 1946-1954. Guild CLCD 5118. TT: 77:44.
1950’s Volume 3 – Say It With Music. 27 tracks of various composers and orchestral. Guild GLCD 5119. TT: 77:14. .
The Hall Of Fame – Volume 1. 22 tracks of various composers and orchestral. Recorded 1930’s-1950’s. Guild GLCD 5120 TT: 77:53.
The amount of music recorded an 78’s and so much stashed away in publishers’ music libraries that was never sold to the public continues to amaze. So much of it, of course, was for the British market and in any case from this point in time is unknown an these shores. But many of the names are old friends.
Mich in Buried Treasures is being male available for the first time. Alan Bunting’s audio restorations are first rate here and in the entire series. Among the highlights are Stanford Robinson’s Valse Serenade with the BBC Theatre Orchestra conducted by the composer. This was used as a BBC radio theme for “Tuesday Serenade” following WW II. Quite unusual for hem is George Melachrino’s London – March recorded in 1947 by GM himself with his orchestra.
Really special is Philip Green’s Song of Soho: Rhapsody for Piano & Orchestra with pianist William McGuffie taken from a film score for “Murder Without Crime” in 1950. This is another in the genre of the Warsaw Concerto and the Spellbound Concerto. You’ve never heard this one before!. There are many more winners from British and non-British composers. The CD ends with a selection of famous tunes by Robert Stolz who conducts them with the Tonhalle Orchestra of Zurich.
Say It With Music focuses on the composers. Aside from Americans Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen, Leroy Anderson, Rodgers & Hart, etc., many Brits are featured as well. The 1950’s sound was pretty decent to begin with, so not too much “restoration” was needed. Among my favorites are White Wedding by Edward White played by the New Concert Orchestra under Dolf van der Linden, Richard Addinsell’s Out of the Clouds with Joe “Mr. Piano” Henderson and Laurie Johnson and his orchestra, Eddie Heywood’s Rainfall with Percy Faith and his orchestra and harpsichordist (!) Bernie Leighton, Frederic Curzon’s Savoire Faire played by the NCO/van der Linden team, Melachrino’s Waltz in Water Colours, and Frank Cordell’s nifty Big Ben Waltz with the composer and his orchestra but using one of his composer’s names of Francis Meillear. This release is one of the best in the series.
The Hall Of Fame – Volume 1 has tracks recorded from the 1930’s to the 1950’s. There are many famous performances here including Morton Gould’s version of David Rose’s Holiday for Strings. Yes, Rose was born in England. The famed Vivian Ellis train piece Coronation Scot with Charles Williams and the Queen’s Hall Light Orchestra, Portrait of a Flirt by Robert Farnon (a Canadian by birth as you will recall) conducting the Kingsway Symphony Orchestra, and Noel Coward’s Mad About the Boy with Andre Kostelanetz and his orchestra illustrate just some of the gems to be found here.
Anthony Collins conducts his own famous Vanity Fair with the London Promenade Orchestra. Reginald King conducts a real rarity: Percy Fletcher’s My Love to You recorded in 1930. And that old warhorse In A Persian Market by Ketélbey with Stanford Robinson and the New Symphony Orchestra of London turns up as well.
On this CD Clive Richardson is the featured composer. His dates are 1909-1998. We have Robert Farnon and the Queen’s Hall Light Orchestra conducting a 1947 performance of Holiday Spirit, Sidney Torch doing Outward Bound with the same orchestra also in 1947, and best of all, Charles Williams and the Columbia Light Symphony Orchestra in London Fantasia with none other than Clive Richardson himself at the piano. This one dates from 1945. Here is another piece in the Warsaw Concerto mode. I’ll bet you didn’t know there were so many such things! This one is also among the best in the series and maybe a good starting place for you to start looking into these remarkable CD’s.
Review By John France
Let’s be honest: this is the sort of music that really gets the old spine tingling. Forget the complex aleatory music by Stockhausen and the incessant minimalism of Reich and Glass and even the integral serialism of Pierre Boulez. This is the kind of music that makes you feel good. Now do not get me wrong – I may not ‘groove’ to Stockhausen in the same way that I ‘dig’ Zeppelin and ‘The Dead’ and Robert Farnon but at least I do appreciate what the three above-named masters have done for music. The bottom line is this. If you want the musical equivalent of nursery food then this CD is for you. These tunes are a kind of musical ginger sponge with hot custard.
The numbers on this CD are all from the first half of the Fifties. Tis was a time of change in music – both popular and serious. It was an era when, if you were lucky, you could hear Elvis Presley or Bill Haley on Radio Luxembourg and Stanley Black and Frank Chacksfield on the Light Programme. Younger readers please note that the Light Programme became what is now Radio 2 – and did not have Terry Wogan. On the serious side of the musical equation, listeners were hearing much serialism and the beginning of what many would term anarchy – ‘play these notes in any order you please when you want’ type of tune. So this CD represents a kind of ‘Third Way.’
Most of the music on this disc I do not know. But it is somehow in my blood. I remember sitting for hours with my elderly, bedridden grandmother listening to the radio – both the Light Programme and the Home Service. And I know that this was the kind of music heard on this ‘medium’ rather than the burgeoning rock and roll, skiffle and ‘beat’ on the ‘Pirates’. And strangely I have never lost my affection for it. Perhaps, if I am honest, I can warm to some of the melodies and rhythms much more than I do to Beethoven, Mozart and even JSB? Maybe it is the evocative titles? Possibly the memories of a ‘better world’ just before I was born? (Rationing? Hmm.) Maybe the ‘romantic’ part of my nature needs to be ‘patronised’ a little bit more than the classical or intellectual (such as there is)? Or maybe it is just that I prefer Ginger Sponge to Nouvelle Cuisine?
But let’s glance at the music. There are 27 tracks – each and every one of them designed to bring back the memories. Some of the pieces are by ‘big names’ in the world of light music such as Richard Addinsell, Robert Farnon and Frederic Curzon. There are a few ‘musical’ composers here too such as Jerome Kern and Irving Berlin. And then there are the ‘classical’ or so called ‘serious’ writers such as Benjamin Frankel and Georges Auric. Some of the pieces are arrangements of ‘standards’ and many are novelties or original works.
This is less of a themed CD than others in the Guild series – but perhaps that is really irrelevant.
We meet a number of girls on this disc – Frank Perkins’ bouncy Barbara and Arend Honhoff’s Eleanora – the girl with a touch of Spain in her blood. I am not so sure about the Song of the Barefoot Contessa but it has a nice Gypsy swing to it. And of course love is never far away – Philippe-Gerard ‘Without my Lover’ is a little less evocative than it might have been with this particular emotion. Yet this is well balanced by Robert Farnon’s arrangement of the Arthur Schwartz ‘classic’ If there is Someone Lovelier than You. Of course all good lovers will answer NO! And then again lovers can either part or perhaps get married – and if they have been good can join Edward White for a White Wedding. Or maybe we will grieve our love lost and not be happy Till the Clouds Roll By with Jerome Kern.
Then there are the travel pieces. We can join Georges Auric on the Pavements of Paris – complete with evocative accordion – as another reviewer has said, “all Gauloises and berets”. Or perhaps we fly to Manhattan with Richard Rodgers. Now I do not know where Len Stevens situated Easy Street – but I guess it was not the Big Apple – perhaps just up from Knightsbridge? Philip Green returns to the States with his novelty Wagon Trail followed a few tracks later by the absolutely lovely Holiday in Hollywood by Peter Dennis. This piece evokes less of the Silver Screen than trips to Newquay and St Ives on the Cornish Riviera Express. But that is the beauty of light music – dream as you will! From Hollywood we go En Route with Robert Farnon. Perhaps we will eventually arrive at Arden E. Clar’s Port of Spain. Let us hope the weather is not like Eddie Haywood’s composition – Rainfall.
Of course the title of the CD is Irving Berlin’s ‘Say It With Music’ and this is the opening track which is presented in a ‘big’ Friday Night is Music Night type of arrangement. Another ‘standard’ follows with Harold Arlen’s That Old Black Magic.
Novelties are represented here with pieces such as the redoubtable Leroy Anderson’s Sandpaper Ballet – it could be by no-one else and Roger Roger’s The Toy Shop Window – complete with marching toy soldiers, rocking horses and dancing dollies.
Richard Addinsell’s film music for Out of the Clouds is a deliciously romantic period piece complete with piano obbligato which is absolutely nothing like the Warsaw Concerto. Benjamin Frankel is well known for his film music – and here we have the theme from A Kid for Two Farthings. It is a pity that he is not so well appreciated for his superb ‘serious’ music.
And then there are the inevitable waltzes and ‘nocturnal’ music. We can dream to Vercolier’s Starlight Lullaby – at least until it ‘goes’ Latin. The Waltz in Water Colours by George Melachrino is a particular favourite of mine. I seem to remember hearing this played on the Wurlitzer at Blackpool Tower Ballroom when I was an impressionable young lad. Oscar Straus continues the dancing mood with his Waltz Dream before we hear Frank Cordell’s attractive Big Ben Waltz – complete with the chimes.
And last of all we can join Joyce Cochrane with her Prelude to Peace – another big ‘Friday Night’ tune.
Guild have re-mastered this CD well – all these tunes sound much better than I imagine they did when they were released more than half a century ago. For this Alan Bunting must take credit. The liner notes by David Ades are excellent.
Big name bands feature on this CD including the David Rose Orchestra, Leroy Anderson himself, the Robert Farnon Orchestra and many, many more.
If you like this kind of music it is a must for your collection.
Klassik.com Friday June 23 2006
Der tut nichts, der will nur spielen
Der von Joggern meist- und, was Gott bewahren möge, der vielleicht zuletzt gehörte Satz: ‚Der tut nichts, der will nur spielen’. Begeben Sie sich lieber auf die sicherere Seite und setzen Sie sich vor ihren CD-Spieler, oder am besten gleich in ein Auto mit offenem Verdeck, legen Sie die vorliegende CD ein und frönen Sie dem ‚Easy Listening’. Denn ‚Guild’ pfeffert nun schon in dritter Folge bestaufgelegte orchestrale 50er Jahre-Nummern auf den Silberling, Bekanntes, Altbekanntes, Unbekanntes, völlig Unbekanntes. Die herrlichen Glanznummern im 50er Jahre-Sound tun keinem weh, und auch sie wollen letztlich nur spielen bzw. gespielt werden. 27 Tracks, alle wie die Seiten eines Hochglanz-Werbeprospekts für eine Traumreise rund um die Welt.
Die Band-Leader der 50er Jahre geben sich einmal mehr ein Stelldichein: Stanley Black, Charles Williams, Leroy Anderson, Les Baxter, Percy Faith, Robert Farnon, Philipp Green, um einmal mehr nur ein paar wenige aufzulisten. Die Komponisten: Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen, Mario Nascimbene, Leroy Anderson, Georges Auric, Richard Addinsell, Richard Rogers, Eddie Heywood, Frank Perkins, Philip Green, Robert Farnon, Frederic Curzon, Jerome Kern und viele, viele andere. Die Highlights: Andersons witzig-spritziges ‚Sandpaper Ballet’ oder Heywoods ‚Rainfall’ oder Frank Cordells ‚Big Ben Waltz’. In Arthur Schwartz’ ‚If there is someone lovelier than you’ wabern die Geigen von Robert Farnons Orchester wohlig wie in Butter in Portamento und Vibrato, dass es einem Sir Roger dieselbe womöglich vom Brötchen hauen dürfte. Die Orchester spielen allesamt in einer Perfektion und klanglichenBalance, wie sie später auf diese Weise nie mehr erreicht wurde. ‚Leichte Musik’, die so leicht wirkt, weil sie mit so viel Präzision interpretiert wurde. ‚Guild’ hat die alten Bänder aus den Jahren 1952 bis 1955 wieder klangprächtig restauriert und remastered. Eine Scheibe für den Urlaub, für Nostalgiker und solche, die es werden wollen.
Erik Daumann
Gramophone July 2006
In March 2005 I welcomed the first 10 releases in the Guild Light Music collection, featuring transfers from 78s and early LPs. Already the series has expanded to 21 volumes. Of the latest three releases, THE HALL OF FAME – VOLUME 1 offers a rich helping of light-music classics beginning with David Rose’s Holiday for Strings under Morton Gould and ending with a spotlight on Clive Richardson including his celebrated Holiday Spirit and London Fantasia. Among relatively few less familiar items I especially welcome the delightful My Love to You by the sadly underrated Percy Fletcher. ‘THE 1950S VOLUME 3 – SAY IT WITH MUSIC is devoted specifically to early-1950s recordings, and it covers a wide range of composers, orchestras and styles.
Whether it’s a plus or minus for a single CD to range through Roger Roger conducting his own music, the Hamburg Radio Orchestra playing Straus’s Waltz Dream, and Geraldo and His New Concert Orchestra playing a piece by Joyce Cochrane will depend on individual taste, but there will surely be welcome discoveries for all.
For me the greatest attraction lies in ‘JOYOUSNESS – THE MUSIC OF HAYDN WOOD, not least because it includes several items omitted from the Marco Polo collections of music by this British light-music master (8/92,8/97). Of the London Landmarks suite, for instance, we have not only the celebrated Horse Guards — Whitehall but also Nelson’s Column and Tower Hill, even if sadly scattered around the CD rather than grouped together.
I indicated previously that a major downside of the series was the curious attitude towards vocal items Rather than authentic vocal versions, we have here, for instance, a souped-up and distorted Vilia by the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, an over-the-top Till the Clouds Roll By by the Gordon Jenkins Orchestra, and a cringingly awful Roses of Picardy featuring Freddy Gardner on the saxophone. Truly one man’s meat is another’s poison!
For the most part, at least, these CDs make happily undemanding and highly pleasant listening. Alan Bunting has reprocessed the recordings expertly, and they come with informative notes by David Ades.
Andrew Lamb
The Kene Sentinal Thursday June 15 2006
Golden oldies restored
No sooner do I give a rave review of one Guild release than yet another one appears just as good. The latest addition to the spectacular Guild Golden Age of Light Music series is “1950s Volume 3: Say It With Music” (catalog number GLCD 5119). This disc holds 77 minutes of golden oldies such as the title song (which became Irving Berlin’s signature piece), “That Old Black Magic,” “Manhattan” and “Till the Clouds Roll By.”
Among the less familiar pieces are “Sandpaper Ballet,” “Easy Street” and `Big Ben Waltz.”
FRANK GEHRENS
In Tune International – June 2006
This wonderful series, the best light orchestral library ever assembled on compact disc, continues to weave its magic. A batch of five new discs is now available and three are reviewed this month with a further two covered in the next IT. For those readers yet to discover the Guild series may I summarise a few facts that are common to the project. The series draws on recordings made by commercial labels and music publishing companies during the 1930s, 1940s and the 1950s up to the existing copyright cut-off point. The compilation discs aim to offer light music items not available elsewhere. All recordings are digitally remastered to the highest standards. Two of the most dedicated and knowledgeable light music collectors combine their talents in creating the project which now totals 23 compact discs. David Ades is series producer and compiler and Alan Bunting is responsible for audio restoration and remastering.
For many of us who collect light orchestral recordings the “golden age” of the music began in the immediate post second world war years with the 1950s seeing the zenith. With the issue of GLCD 5119, SAY IT WITH MUSIC, the resourceful Guild team offer volume three of a sequence of discs featuring leading orchestras of the Fifties. A 27 track 77 minute long CD contains sumptuous performances of great “evergreens”, in a tastefully blended programme designed to provide maximum listening pleasure. That is guaranteed with the participation of Stanley Black, David Rose, Leroy Anderson and Robert Farnon to name just some of the great maestros who dominated the genre. To stimulate the enthusiasm of the serious collector any Guild CD invariably contains a rarity and/or a surprise. In the case of GLCD 5119 it is gratifying to find three recordings made under the baton of the distinguished Dutch conductor DoIf Van Der Linden. Light music is renowned for providing original compositions in “mood music” of a descriptive nature. On this disc, pieces such as Leroy Anderson’s famous Sandpaper Ballet, Phil Green’s Wagon Trail and Big Ben Waltz played by Frank Cordell’s Orchestra are typical examples. A disc that really hits the right note!
With THE HALL OF FAME – VOLUME 1 (GLCD 51120) the Guild team very sensibly take stock of the fact that light music has its newcomers who deserve to have the opportunity to buy CDs containing classic recordings by the music’s leading lights. In presenting a compilation of well known works the more seasoned collector is not forgotten as GLCD 51120 demonstrates. Alongside recordings of Holiday For Strings, Serenata, Portrait Of A Flirt and the like are fairly obscure pieces by leading orchestras, examples being Wedding Of The Rose (Ron Goodwin) and Wooden Shoes (Harry Horlick). Another nice feature is the “tribute” to a particular composer, in this instance, pianist-composer, the late Clive Richardson is remembered in three works, including his superb concert piece London Fantasia.
The work of a single composer is celebrated in depth with THE MUSIC OF HAYDN WOOD on GLCD 51121-JOYOUSNESS. 19 recordings by different orchestras illustrate the music penned by one of Britain’s most distinguished light music figures. Haydn Wood’s music has been represented before on Guild releases with regular selections from his large repertoire but “Joyousness” provides a substantial survey of his entrancing music, of which much is so very English in structure and content. The collection takes in recordings from the entire period of Guild’s scope, the 1930s to the early 1950s. Wood’s famous ballad, Roses Of Picardy is heard in the celebrated Peter Yorke recording with the great Freddy Gardner. The composers supreme versatility is demonstrated in compositions that don’t prompt thoughts of all things English via Seville, which features Reginald Foort at the organ and in the New Concert Orchestra’s playing of Vienna (from the “Frescoes Suite”). A collection of outstanding quality with the accent on the more serious style of light music that particularly illustrates the superb sound engineering work carried out by Alan Bunting for this unique series. More next time.
Brian Belton
MusicWeb Wednesday May 17 2006
A selection of material spanning a mere four years. A look at the bandleaders will alert one to the superior nature of the playing….
Like pyroclastic flows that Vesuvius of Light Music, Guild, regularly erupts with molten material from the vaults. The unsure reader can only wonder that so much was recorded. Those versed in the history of light music on disc – however it’s defined – will know better. There’s tons of the stuff out there. Here is a selection of material just up to the copyright cut-off point, spanning a mere four years.
A look at the bandleaders will alert one to the superior nature of the playing. And a look at the songs will show a good balance between favourites and the now lesser known. The orchestras are predominately British but – London-born though long American domiciled – David Rose shows yet again just why he was such a master of his craft. Canadian-born Farnon led a series of recordings in Scandinavia – here with the Danish State – and there’s the Augmented Hamburg Radio Orchestra (augmented by what I always wonder) doing Oscar Straus proud. Flying the French flag is Roger Roger, an irresistible name for Anglophones, with his Champs Elysées Orchestra playing his own piece.
The roll-call is impressive though this selection is certainly not to be taken in one sitting as indigestion may ensue. Best to take a few chunks at a time. Amongst them you will then find the sheeny magic of David Rose and the jovial presence of Mario Nascimbene, quite a distinguished figure in film music. Fans of Edward White will note the first cousin relation of White Wedding to Puffin’ Billy and admirers of Leroy Anderson – and can there be any other? – will exult in his soft shoe shuffling Sandpaper Ballet.
Georges Auric mines some generic accordion for his contribution and as played by Frank Chacksfield it bears the dead hand of International Franglais – all Gauloises and berets and glistening Parisian pavements. There is farther flung exotica courtesy of Philippe Bloch, whose Without My Lover gets overheated and the unusual interjection of Bernie Leighton’s harpsichord in Eddie Haywood’s Rainfall.
Philip Green hands down some Western clichés in Wagon Trail and much better is the soprano vocalise of the ever splendid Frederic Curzon’s Savoir Faire. We also encounter some cosmopolitan suavity from Melachrino, sunny Iberian swoops from Arden C Clar and – no Light Music Collection is complete without it – a pocket Rachmaninov Piano Concerto courtesy of Joyce Cochrane. The Prelude to Peace is a portentous piece of bluster, rather splendid in its way, nimbly played by Geraldo’s brother, Sidney Bright.
You will also encounter the usual high standard of notes from David Ades and smooth, noiseless transfers into the bargain.
Jonathan Woolf