The Music of 'Picnic'

William Holden and his torn shirt were the image by which Columbia Pictures promoted its 1955 drama Picnic, its adaptation of a William Inge play. Our interest today is less with ripped apparel and more with the music that accompanied this tale of a drifter (Holden) who manages to disrupt a small Kansas town in the space of a day.

The stranger who comes to town and changes things is a common plot device that in 1950s musicals alone can be found in The Pajama Game, which was on Broadway when this film came out, and in The Music Man, a few years in the future.

The ads seem to associate Kim Novak with the torn shirt but it actually was a jealous Rosalind Russell who did the deed. She was the second woman instantly besotted with Holden; the third was Novak's sister Susan Strasberg, who is peeking around the picnic basket in the poster above.

It must have been moonglow ...

This action took place at a town picnic and dance, which is where the film's most famous music cue is heard. The band plays "Moonglow," the beautiful Hudson-DeLange song from the 1930s, and as Holden and Novak dance, the soundtrack segues into George Duning's memorable theme from the film.

It's a bit of genius that was a chart hit in three different versions in 1956. First is the soundtrack version conducted by Morris Stoloff, which of course is on the LP. I actually prefer the George Cates record that came out on Decca's sister label Coral, because I enjoy Stan Wrightsman's piano playing and his interplay with the group's superb guitarist, who I suspect is George Van Eps. This version is included as a bonus track.

A second bonus is a vocal version of the theme, with words by Steve Allen. Performing are the McGuire Sisters, who are quite good. (Oddly, Allen himself issued a version of the song with wordless vocals.)

Addendum: reader Stephen mentioned the excellent Gisele MacKenzie record of "Moonglow - Theme from Picnic". It turns out that I posted that version years ago, on her RCA Victor LP Giselle. I've now refreshed the sound and reposted the album here.

George Duning

George Duning doesn't get the attention of contemporary innovators like Alex North or Elmer Bernstein, or such masters as Bernard Herrmann or Dimitri Tiomkin. But he produced good scores and has been featured on this blog many times.

Rosalind Russell and Arthur O'Connell

As for the story, Holden ends up with Novak, and Rosalind Russell ends up with Arthur O'Connell, a talented actor who made a career out of these supporting roles. He also was in the Broadway production.

The soundtrack's early stereo sound was dry and harsh, which I've adjusted.

LINK

Hanson's Romantic Symphony

I never do this, but my recent post of Howard Hanson's Columbia recordings has, as they say in the movie business, failed to find an audience.

So let me draw attention to the fact that the post includes Hanson's little-known 1952 recording of his popular Romantic Symphony (the Symphony No. 2). It's a thrilling performance in very good sound that I'm sure many of you would enjoy. It comes with Edward MacDowell's Piano Concerto No. 2, with soloist Jesús María Sanromá.

Here's the download:

LINK

Howard Hanson's Columbia Recordings

The American composer-conductor Howard Hanson is strongly associated with the Mercury recordings he made in the 1950s and 60s, but they were not his first.

For those acquainted with his Mercury discs, it will not surprise you to learn that the records he made for Victor in 1939-42 and for Columbia in 1950-52 were almost exclusively of American composers, including his own works. This is except for a fantasie from Oscar Straus's operetta Mariette and Grieg's Holberg Suite, the latter of which is included in this post.

Hanson made only two and a half LPs for Columbia - the two we discuss today, and a recording of Wallingford Riegger's Third Symphony, coupled by the label with Mitropoulos' reading of Peter Mennin's Third. That disc can be found here in a transfer by my friend the Shellackophile.

For us, we have a pairing of Hanson's Piano Concerto in G with the Grieg Holberg Suite, and of his Symphony No. 2 with Edward MacDowell's Piano Concerto No. 2. The two discs date from 1950 and 1952 respectively. All recordings are with the Eastman-Rochester Symphony.

Hanson Concerto in G, Grieg Holberg Suite

This first recording appeared on the blog many years ago, but has been redone with much better sound and complete scans this time around.

For the concerto, Hanson had the good fortune of collaborating with the superb Czech pianist Rudolf Firkušný, then 38 years old, who had the demands of the work well in hand.

Rudolf Firkušný

The critic Irving Kolodin was an admirer of composer and pianist, writing this in Saturday Review:

Were Howard Hanson a Welshman, an Australian, or a Rooshian (to borrow W. S. Gilbert's spelling), one imagines he would have a wider vogue and a higher standing than is presently his in America. For his kind of frankly personal, unvarnished emotionalism is a little out of fashion in contemporary musical circles, where to be contemporary is often more highly valued than to be musical. However, in following without deviation his own inclination Hanson has shown a consistent artistic growth not at all common among native writers.

This concerto, for example, is what few creations in that genre (at any time) are - a piece of honestly felt, truly meant music, which conveys a mood and states a point of view as well as filling a form. The form, in fact, is decidedly amorphous; but the mood and the point of view are crystal clear. With the gifted Firkušný as his whole-hearted collaborator, Hanson has put into circulation a testament of his artistic faith which will be widely heard and, I think, as widely admired.

In truth, the concerto does reflect the artistic currents of the time - the scherzo is motoric, for example. And it also displays Hanson's penchant for belaboring a simple motif beyond the bounds of patience - in the slow movement, for example.

But here's another critic who was an admirer - Donald Ritchie of the American Record Guide: "Written for the Koussevitzky Music Foundation in 1948, this piano concerto contains some of the most interesting Hanson I've heard. There are not too many atmospherics, no programmatic allusions and a minimum of Sibelius' effects. He uses jazz very well and constructs some highly interesting interplay between soloist and massed orchestra. The concerto is tightly written and is both spare and clean. Firkušný, who first performed the work, is completely competent and lends it an excitement all of his own."

The familiar Grieg suite is well done, but even back then it hardly needed another recording.

Rudolf Firkušný has been heard here before in Samuel Barber's Four Excursions, which is coupled with Eleanor Steber's first recording of Knoxville: Summer of 1915. I renovated the sound of the LP a few years ago.

LINK to Hanson concerto and Grieg Holberg Suite

MacDowell - Piano Concerto No. 2; Hanson - Symphony No. 2

This 1952 disc represents the second recording of both works - MacDowell's Piano Concerto No. 2 of 1890, and Hanson's Symphony No. 2 of 1930.

The concerto soloist here is Jesús María Sanromá, who also was the pianist in the first recording, with Fiedler and the Boston Pops - which has appeared on the blog here.

Jesús María Sanromá

The popularity of the concerto has waxed and waned over the years. It is a Lisztian exercise that also more or less quotes the Grieg piano concerto in the first movement.

However, others see much more merit in the work that I. Irving Kolodin had this to say (while admitting that the work is derivative): "The manifest quality in the music, its power and musicality, would certainly seem to merit more consideration from pianists (especially those of his own land) than has been the case. Indeed, if it were labeled a 'Concerto No. 2 by Edward Grieg,' I suspect it would be regular occurrence on our symphony programs."

Edward MacDowell

Ray Ericson in the American Record Guide was similarly enthusiastic: "MacDowell's two piano concertos, produced toward the end of the nineteenth century, were instrumental in gaining status for American music both here and abroad at a time when it had practically none. In them MacDowell succeeded in combining European style with individualistic, flavorsome harmonic and melodic devices thought to be authentically American."

Hanson's symphony is undoubtedly his most popular, and for good reason - it is quite beautiful and has many memorable passages. Some of its themes have been widely used by musical institutions and classical radio stations. Some critics do hone in on its weaknesses, however. Ericson: "The symphony, written in 1930 for the Boston Symphony's 50th anniversary, has pretty, somewhat banal, tunes, formal simplicity; and lush orchestration. The performance, presumably authentic, and the recordings are unexceptionable."

Kolodin was an admirer: "Hanson's second recorded version of his 'Romantic' Symphony is even better than his first (for RCA in the late Thirties), and, without the problem of balance with a piano to fret over, the engineers have done very handsomely by him - as Hanson has by himself."

Jesús María Sanromá has also appeared on the blog in Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F, which can be found here. Howard Hanson has been featured many times, most recently in works by Piston, Riegger, Hovhaness and Cowell.

LINK to MacDowell concerto and Hanson symphony

On Holiday with Kermit Leslie

Back in 2017, good friend and fellow blogger Ernie sent along a 10-inch LP I had never seen - "Middlebrow" Music for the Hi-Fi Fan by the Kermit Leslie Orchestra.

It turned out to be a delightful collection of light music, consisting of songs written by Leslie and his brother Walt, presented in Kermit's imaginative arrangements.

The 10-inch LP cover

Now Ernie has come up with an expanded, 12-inch version of the same material, and sent it along for us to enjoy. The title (A Holiday in Hi-Fi) and the cover are new, and the LP has four additional songs - "Night Flight to Madrid," "Jungle Flower," "Montana Round-Up" and "Bermuda Holiday."

Now let me liberally quote from my earlier post, since it provided a good introduction to Kermit and his music. 

As many musicians of the era did, Leslie had big band experience. The earliest mention of him (at least as found by me) was as an alto saxophonist in Alvino Rey's big band in 1940, under his birth name of Kermit Levinsky. The 20-year-old was already a composer, having produced Rey's opening theme "Blue Rey."

The liner notes for the LP say he stayed with Rey until joining the Army in 1941, spending the war arranging and conducting for broadcasts and shows. Postwar, he studied music formally and became a free-lance arranger, then joined the Tommy Dorsey staff in 1952.

Anne Phillips and Kermit Leslie

Apparently Leslie was often an uncredited "ghost" arranger, similar to other musicians who have appeared on this blog, such as George Siravo and Heinie Beau. In 1959 Leslie did the charts for a fine LP by singer Anne Phillips, who tells the story: "At the end of the song's first run-through, a beautiful thing happened. Every musician in the room put his instrument down and applauded - not for me but for Kermit. Some years later I learned that Kermit had been 'ghosting' for many arrangers for some time. I think this was his first session with his name on the work, and the musicians were overjoyed for him."

In the early 1960s, Time Records engaged Leslie for three LPs. He also did arrangements for albums by both Les and Larry Elgart, and for two of the once-ubiquitous Christmas records sponsored by Firestone. He also did much commercial work, and arranged Marvin Hamlisch's score for Woody Allen's second film, 1969's Take the Money and Run. Leslie's brother Walt, who generally used the family name Levinsky, himself worked on several of Woody's films, in addition to becoming a well-known reed player in big bands and studio orchestras. Kermit died in 1973, Walt in 1999.

Once again thanks to Ernie for bringing this enjoyable record to our attention for a second time and in expanded form. Please enjoy his excellent transfer!

LINK

Two Views of Chopin's First Concerto

Frédéric Chopin

A while back I observed that Frédéric Chopin wrote his two piano concertos 200 years ago and ever since critics have been complaining about the orchestrations - too thick, too dull, etc. And other composers and many conductors have gone about revising them. 

Today we'll listen to two versions of the composer's first concerto, one with the orchestrations as Chopin wrote them, and one with revised scoring by another notable composer, Mili Balakirev.

These performances are notable for other reasons as well, as will be explained in what follows.

The Pollini-Kletzki Recording

First up is a performance that makes use of the orchestrations as the composer wrote them, although I'm not smart enough to know whether conductor Paul Kletzki did or did not revise them a bit.

It is one of the great recordings of all time, in my estimation. The pianist is the 18-year-old Maurizio Pollini, fresh from his triumph at the 1960 International Chopin Competition. That's the one where Artur Rubinstein is said to have told the other judges that Pollini was better than any of them.

Maurizio Pollini at the Chopin Competition

Listening to this performance, it's easy to understand why. Pollini's skill and musicianship are astonishing. Here are a few comments from The Gramophone's Roger Fiske, all of which I agree with:

[Pollini] gives a spine-tingling performance of this magnificent music, and if you have not in the past thought it magnificent, listen to this performance and be converted.

Orchestral accompaniment and balance are worthy of the solo playing. I have never heard the opening given with such fire. The orchestra stays on its toes throughout, and Kletzki makes a splendid job of following every variation of tempo.

Thus the triumphant success of this record is a team effort, but the last word must be for the soloist. Directions like agitato, espressivo, and perhaps above all leggierissimo extract an instinctive response from him of a kind which very few pianists can parallel and which Chopin would surely have loved. I do not ever expect to hear the concerto played better.

Paul Kletzki

Pollini is so commanding that it might be ȧ surprise to learn that he was not secure about his playing. At the time, Charles Reid reported in High Fidelity the following drama in the recording studio:

Came the first playback. After a few bars Pollini put his head in his hands. "What's wrong ?" asked Kletzki. "Nothing much," said Pollini. "My playing is very bad, that's all." 

Kletzki clapped him on the back. "You've nothing to worry about," he tried to reassure him. "If that's bad playing, all I can say is that I've heard playing five times worse on many a successful first record."

Pollini refused to be persuaded. When the others went out for a meal he stayed on in the studio, sat down at the keyboard, and, frowning doggedly, began to play scales and arpeggios. The recording was finished in two and a half sessions. The master tape differed little from the playback which had provoked Pollini's despair. The young man's attitude at the end was one of stoical resignation. His EMI mentors were jubilant.

 There's more. In another report a few years later, Reid wrote:

In the autumn of the same year, Pollini came back to the Abbey Road studios here and recorded the Chopin études, which were scheduled for issue on two discs. Again he buried his head when he heard the tapes; again everybody else was congratulatory. But this time the young man was adamant as well as irreconcilable. He refused to approve the tapes, went home to Milan, and that was that.

The story goes on, which you can read in clippings in the download. Suffice to say that Pollini was always an idiosyncratic character. Also a brilliant pianist, which you can hear in a recording of Beethoven's Fourth Concerto from years later, which I shared following the pianist's death.

LINK to the Pollini-Kletzki recording

The Gulda-Boult Recording

This record is the one that started me thinking about this post. Until I came across it not long ago, I was unaware that a recording with a revised orchestration had ever been issued. In fact, on the record's packaging it's hard to even find any evidence that this is the Balakirev edition. A careful reading of the notes yields this statement, after the obligatory slam of the composer's "clumsy" orchestration: "This recording features the attractive, stylish arrangement penned by Balakirev." Rather like Chopin in a new frock.

Actually, this is a very fine record in its own right, with the fascinating Friedrich Gulda and the reliable Adrian Boult. And Balakirev's orchestrations are not as block-like as Chopin's, not that it makes a hell of a lot of difference. The interest is in the remarkable solo part.

Friedrich Gulda

In reviewing the 1954 performance in The Gramophone, Trevor Harvey, himself a conductor, did not seem aware that the orchestrations had been changed - or at least he did not mention the fact.

He did opine that, "It is a very sound performance, with a good deal of brilliance to it and some nicely sensitive singing tone too ... I think I can safely say, the best yet - and, indeed, most commendable."

Gulda was an exceptional character in his right. He had a side career as a jazz pianist, and an accomplished one at that. In that guise, he appeared on this blog many years ago via the 1956 LP Friedrich Gulda at Birdland, in the company of some noted jazz musicians - Phil Woods, Seldon Powell, Idrees Sulieman and Jimmy Cleveland. The pianist sounds as home in "A Night in Tunisia" as he does in Chopin. The Birdland LP has been newly remastered for this occasion.

LINK to the Gulda-Boult recording

Ad in High Fidelity, September 1956

Two Early LPs from Gordon Jenkins

Composer-conductor Gordon Jenkins was a musical force in the 1940s and early 50s through his recordings with Decca records. He had hits backing up such diverse acts as the Andrews Sisters, Dick Haymes and the Weavers, and produced a long string of high quality discs under his own name. The two 10-inch LPs in this post bring together many of them. One is a collection of Jenkins' own songs, the other a miscellany. The 16 items feature an array of excellent vocalists, all obscure these days and deserving of recognition.

Gordon Jenkins Playing His Own Compositions

The LP of perhaps the greater interest is this 1950 disc of Jenkins songs, which tend to be romantic, nostalgic or regretful. Look at the titles, among them "Blue Prelude," "Blue Evening," "Homesick" and "Goodbye." He must have been a melancholy soul.

This is a new transfer of an LP that I first presented 14 years ago. Back then, I observed that, "Jenkins was a formidable songwriter whose material is of unusual emotional depth. He worked with fine lyricists - here Johnny Mercer, Tom Adair and Joe Bishop. His own lyrics for 'Homesick - That's All' (a war song) and 'Goodbye' are excellent, if occasionally awkward. The latter is one of the most wrenching pop songs ever composed."

Bob Stevens

Three vocalists are featured on this disk. The first is the fine tenor Bob Stevens, who is heard on "You Have Taken My Heart," "With You So Far Away" and "Blue Evening." The lyricists were, respectively, Mercer, Adair and Bishop.

"With You So Far Away" was written for the 1949 Broadway revue Along Fifth Avenue, which ran for half a year. The number was apparently dropped before the show's opening; it doesn't appear in the first night's Playbill. 

At various times Bob Stevens belonged to many busy studio groups, including the Norman Luboff Choir, Randy Van Horne Singers, Mellomen, Ralph Brewster Singers and the Sportsmen Quartet.

Bonnie Lou Williams

Bonnie Lou Williams is the soloist on "Blue Prelude," "When a Woman Loves a Man" and "Goodbye." The words are by Bishop, Bernie Hanighen, Mercer and Jenkins himself, respectively.

The composer later made a memorable recording of "Goodbye" with Frank Sinatra, but this version is worthy, too. Jenkins also recorded "When a Woman Loves a Man" with Billie Holiday.

Bonnie Lou was previously a vocalist with Tommy Dorsey and Will Hudson.

Don Burke

Another talented singer, the baritone Don Burke, presents "Homesick, That's All" and "P.S., I Love You." Both are full of nostalgia - the former with words by Jenkins, the latter by Mercer. In the first, the singer misses "the fragrant bonfires in the fall" - presumably a reference to burning leaves, which is generally illegal these days. In the latter, the singer asks his absent wife - no reason is given for her trip - "Was it dusty on the train?" This likely refers to the soot from a steam locomotive. These are things that were well known in my youth, but vanished from the world of today.

As a bonus, I've added another song that Jenkins and Adair wrote for Along Fifth Avenue. Like "With You So Far Away," it apparently was dropped before the show's opening. "Skyscraper Blues" was a hymn of urban anomie; entirely characteristic of Jenkins, if not Adair. It would have fit well with the composer's Manhattan Tower, the 1946 concept album that was later expanded. (Both versions have appeared on this blog.) The song was issued under Dick Haymes' name, with backing by Jenkins and ensemble. The two often worked together on radio and records.

Haymes and Jenkins also recorded another song supposedly from Along Fifth Avenue - "Maybe It's Because," written by Johnnie Scott and Harry Ruby. It was apparently cut from the show as well, and is not included in this set.

LINK to Gordon Jenkins Playing His Own Compositions

For You

The second Jenkins LP is For You, a 1951 compilation of 1945-49 singles. It too features fine if obscure vocalists.

First up are the Five Hits and a Miss, a group often heard on records and radio at the time. (Depending on who was on the date, the group could be called anything from the Three Hits and a Miss to the Six Hits, etc.) Bill Seckler was a founding member and still in the group at the time of recording. This "miss" in this configuration was Beverly Mahr, who married Jenkins in 1946.

The album's title tune features the group. "For You" comes from 1931, Joe Burke and Al Dubin, and was making a comeback in 1947.

Five Hits and a Miss also take on the quasi Russian folk song "Dark Eyes," which had become popular in a version by Chaliapin. It was frequently recorded during this period, even parodied.

Nat Simon and Jimmy Kennedy wrote "On the Painted Desert." Jenkins recorded it late 1947; the songwriters had recently had hits with "The Old Lamplighter" and "An Apple Blossom Wedding." Bob Stevens presents this tale - very well, too.

Charles La Vere

Also in 1947, Gordon had a hit with "Maybe You'll Be There," the Sammy Gallop-Rube Bloom song that here has a fine vocal by Charles La Vere, a pianist that Jenkins often used for vocal chores. Charlie had a pleasing natural quality that suited such wistful numbers as this. In this collection, he also solos in "My Funny Valentine."

As a pianist, La Vere made many records with his Dixieland group Charlie La Vere and His Chicago Loopers. Years ago I compiled - but never posted - a set of these along with a number of other vocal sides he recorded for Decca with Jenkins and under his own name. La Vere also wrote songs; Andy Kirk recorded his "Cuban Boogie Woogie."

Joe Graydon

The multitalented Ida Lupino introduced "Again" in the 1948 film noir Road House, where she played a torch singer. The film's music director, Lionel Newman, wrote the music, Dorcas Cochran the words. Jenkins did well with his recording that featured vocalist Joe Graydon, who is very good in this, his only hit.

Bill Seckler; Beverly Mahr and Gordon Jenkins

The 1944 film Meet Me in St. Louis brought the old folk dance "Skip to My Lou" to the fore, and Jenkins issued his own version, with Beverly Mahr and Bill Seckler doing a highly polished hillbilly routine, if that isn't a contradiction in terms. It's an interesting tune that came from the 19th century. While similar to a square or round dance, it uses the participants as singers, rather than a caller. This was apparently a way of getting around prohibitions on the other forms of dancing.

The final song is "Temptation," which bandleaders and singers were often tempted to record during this period. Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed wrote it for Bing to croon in 1933's Going Hollywood. Here it's done by chorus and orchestra.

LINK to For You

More Mozart with Marriner, Cotrubas and Co.

I much enjoyed producing the recent post on Mozart's sacred music as performed by the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, conductor Neville Marriner and soprano Ileana Cotrubas.

Today's follow-up - the Mozart Requiem - includes much the same roster of artists, including contralto Helen Watts, tenor Robert Tear and baritone John Shirley-Quirk. The only change is in the choral group, which here is the then-new Chorus of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.

The Kingsway Hall recording was made in 1977, six years after the Coronation Mass.

The Requiem is a famously fraught work. Incomplete at the death of its composer, it was completed by his pupil Franz Xaver Süssmayr, unfortunately not nearly as skilled as his teacher. This record was the first, or among the first, to attempt to clean up Süssmayr's musical solecisms, using the 1971 edition of the work by Franz Beyer. (Since then, there have been many other such editions to the same purpose.)

Robin Golding of The Gramophone outlined the major changes: "The most noticeable features are a reduction of the colla parte writing for the three trombones (especially in the Benedictus); the curtailing of the trombone solo in the Tuba mirum, after the words 'ante thronum' (at the entry of the solo tenor) - and the slight extension of the closing bars of the Osanna fugue."

Antony Hodgson elaborated in Recordings and Recording: 

It is often conjectured that, despite the very full notes left by Mozart and his direct instructions to Süssmayr, it was perhaps the pupil and not the master who was responsible for the composition of the last three of the 12 sections; and that even the re-use of some earlier music was Süssmayr's re-working rather than Mozart's intention although the music was his.

The sections thought by scholars to be Süssmayr's entire composition (nos 10 and 11) are used in Beyer's edition: this makes it possible, though not certain, that what we have there is Süssmayr edited in Mozart style by Beyer.

At the recording session: Neville Marriner, John Shirley-Quirk,
Robert Tear and Ileana Cotrubas

The critics were pleased with the performance. Typical was Robin Golding:

The choral singing and orchestral playing are of high quality, and there is an excellent team of soloists ... If the performance as a whole suggests the concert hall rather than the cathedral, it is nevertheless appropriately restrained and classical in style notably so in a direct comparison with Karajan's gleaming, operatic performance on DG.

Neville Marriner's version is certainly worth a place among the two or three most satisfactory recordings of this great work; and in its use of the Beyer text it has some claim to being closer than any of the ten other available versions to the sound Mozart himself had in mind.

The sound is among the best late analogue recordings I've heard. The download includes texts and translations from a Böhm release; there were none with the Marriner LP.

LINK