Boult Conducts Walton, and Related Reups

I recently remastered an old post of Sir William Walton conducting his own music - which led me to working on another LP of his compositions, this one conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. This led me in turn to remastering a Boult recording of Elgar's music.

All three are presented below; let's start with the new transfer of Sir Adrian's Walton record.

Boult Conducts Walton

Boult devoted most of three October 1954 recording sessions in Kingsway Hall to a program of Sir William's most popular works - adding Elgar's Three Bavarian Dances to one day's schedule.

The Walton pieces all ended up on the LP shown above, with an unattractive cover that contrasts with the British 10-inch issue shown below, which contains Siesta and the overtures Portsmouth Point and Scapino.

The Decca album neatly depicts the themes of these three works - the seaport of Portsmouth Point, the lazy mood of Siesta, and the amorous adventures of Scapino. Of the latter, the composer wrote the following:

Scapino is one of the less familiar characters of the Commedia dell'Arte, the hero of Molière's Fourberies de Scapin, who may figure in the complicated ancestry of Figaro. We owe him the word "escapade", which is descriptive of the character's stock-in-trade. Callot's etching portrays him in his traditional costume.

Walton is referring to the 1619 Jacques Callot etching below.

Scapin by Jacques Callot

Portsmouth Point was also inspired by another piece of art - Thomas Rowlandson's 1814 etching of that name, which depicted the port's lively goings-on.

As for Siesta, it reflects Walton's love of Italy. According to musicologist Christopher Palmer, Siesta depicts "an Italian street-scene drawn or sketched in deftly evocative strokes."

The London LP also includes The Wise Virgins, a ballet suite that Walton wrote in 1940 for Sadler's Wells and Sir Frederick Ashton, utilizing themes from Bach's music. The sources of the selections are as follows (they are not outlined in the LP's notes):

What God hath done, is rightly done (Cantata 99)

Lord, hear my longing (Chorale Prelude 'Herzlich tut mich')

See what His love can do (Cantata 85)
Ah! How ephemeral (Cantata 26)
Sheep may safely graze (Cantata 208)

Praise be to God (Cantata 129)

 

F.W. Schadow - Die kluge und törichten Jungfrauen (detail)

The "wise virgins" are characters in the parable of the wise and foolish virgins found in the book of Matthew, which concerns preparedness, spiritual readiness and faith. Ten virgins await the coming of the bridegroom (Jesus), who is delayed. The wise virgins have included enough oil to light the vigil; the foolish virgins have not.

Andrew Porter greeted the LP in The Gramophone as follows:

This is a most welcome collection, a record to have; the first LP Scapino and Siesta, and the definitive Portsmouth Point, I would say, despite the composer’s own version being available [see below]. How wonderfully fresh Portsmouth Point (after Rowlandson) and Scapino (after Callot) still sound; the former dates from 1925, the latter from 1940. Siesta, a piece that seldom seems to be given in the concert hall, is contemporary with the final version of Façade (1926). I hope Sir Adrian’s record will give it a new lease of life, for it is well worth hearing - like a more extended and elaborate version of a Façade slumber piece. All this side of the disc is most brilliantly recorded, and admirably played.

LINK to Boult conducts Walton

Walton Conducts Walton

As mentioned, my notion of transferring the LP just discussed came from remastering a "Walton conducts Walton" record. The latter was prepared for the Coronation of 1953, and included the composer's march Orb and Sceptre written for the ceremony. That 10-inch record also includes Walton's 1937 coronation march Crown Imperial, the Portsmouth Point Overture, and the "Sheep may safely graze" section of The Wise Virgins.

It was the latter that caused me to seek out more Walton - I wanted to transfer the entire suite.

The two Walton marches, of course, are well within the tradition of such works as most famously represented by those of Sir Edward Elgar - and are brilliant examples of their own.

Elgar's music also makes an appearance in this collection, directly below.

LINK to Walton conducts Walton

Elgar's Three Bavarian Dances

As mentioned, Sir Adrian's Walton sessions also yielded a tape of Elgar's Three Bavarian Dances. It so happens that recording has appeared here before, so I decided to remaster it for this occasion.

The Bavarian Dances were coupled on the 10-inch LP with two other light pieces - the Chanson de Nuit and the Chanson de Matin, which had been recorded earlier in 1954.

Sir Adrian Boult

It's a fine effort. Trevor Harvey said of it in The Gramophone: "An attractive record of some of the best of Elgar’s light music (and how good the best of it is). The Bavarian Dances are played with both charm and gusto, and the Chanson de Nuit is particularly distinguished by its feeling, as well as by the quality of sound Decca have given it. Light music done as well as this should give pleasure to everyone, whatever the expanse of their brows."

LINK to Boult conducts Elgar

Matt Dennis' First Two LPs, and More

It's a pleasure to present the first two LPs by singer-songwriter Matt Dennis, who is a favorite around here, but had never been represented by one of his few albums. This post begins to set that right by offering Matt Dennis Plays Matt Dennis in a transfer from an original 1954 Trend pressing, along with his first RCA Victor album, 1955's She Dances Overhead, a tribute to his favorite songwriters, Rodgers and Hart.

The latter comes with two bonus tracks taken from a Treasury Department Guest Star transcription, where he performs two of the Rodgers-Hart numbers. (The complete show also is available.)

Finally, I've remastered two of my older Dennis posts: his complete Capitol recordings with Paul Weston, and the various artists LP Night Out Music for Stay-at-Homes on Coral. Information is below.

Matt Dennis Plays and Sings Matt Dennis

The best introduction to Matt Dennis is listening to him playing his own songs. This Trend album is one of two such entities; a companion on RCA is coming up. (Pay no attention to the hideous cover above; this is quite a good record.)

Many of these numbers are from Matt's early career as a staff composer for the Tommy Dorsey band, where he wrote for the young Frank Sinatra. Songs such as "Violets for Your Furs," "Let's Get Away from It All" and "Everything Happens to Me" come from that era, as does "Will You Still Be Mine," introduced by Connie Haines. 

Another classic, "The Night We Called It a Day," was Sinatra's first solo recording, in 1942. All these songs have lyrics by the gifted Tom Adair. The pair broke up when Dennis joined the Army Air Force. Postwar he worked with other lyricists as well as Adair.

Tom Adair in later years

One early postwar effort was the quintessential saloon song, "Angel Eyes," which Matt wrote in 1946 with lyricist Earl Brent. For her 1953 film noir Jennifer, actor-director Ida Lupino had Matt perform the number as she danced with her real-life husband Howard Duff. This is another song that Sinatra made his own, which he had a habit of doing, although it was not written for him.

That same year Lupino directed and starred in The Bigamist, and called on Dennis for "It Wasn't the Stars," a very good song with words by Dave Gillam.

Dennis makes fun of his Hollywood experience in new lyrics for "Everything Happens to Me," claiming that he ended on the cutting-room floor, which really isn't true for Jennifer (you can see for yourself) but may be for The Bigamist.

Matt and Ginny Dennis

Dave Gillam also wrote the words for Matt's song "When You Love a Fella," which is performed on this record by Virginia Maxey, who became Dennis' spouse in 1953. She later joined his act as Ginny Dennis, and can be heard on a set of The Navy Swings programs that I posted a few years ago. Ginny was a former big band singer who had a tendency to belt, probably reflecting that experience.

On this record, the couple duets on "We Belong Together," a fairly well known piece with lyrics by Don Lodice, a saxophonist and veteran of the Dorsey band. "Junior and Julie" is a postwar domestic reverie about having children that is entirely reflective of the times. The Dennises had three children, one of whom was named Julie.

The other songs are "Compared to You" (lyrics by Paul Herrick) and "Tired Routine Called Love" (words by Ted Steele).

Dennis accompanies himself on piano, assisted by bassist Gene Englund and drummer Mark Barnett. The recording was done in the Tally-Ho club in Los Angeles.

LINK to Matt Dennis Plays and Sings Matt Dennis

She Dances Overhead

In contrast to the album above, She Dances Overhead has no songs by Dennis, and his accompaniment is by an ensemble directed by Harry Geller, who has appeared here before backing Anita Ellis and in his own For Cat Dancers Only LP.

As noted, She Dances Overhead is a tribute to Rodgers and Hart, the title being a reference to the song "Dancing on the Ceiling," one of the duo's most celebrated (and best) songs. It comes from the 1930 West End show Ever Green, where it was sung by Jessie Matthews.

Two songs are derived from the pair's 1932 foray into Hollywood, where they supplied the numbers for Rouben Mamoulian's famed Love Me Tonight, which starred Maurice Chevalier and Jeannette MacDonald. Chevalier introduced both of the songs heard here, "Isn't It Romantic?" and "Mimi," although in the film others joined in as well. Dennis includes the seldom-heard verse of the former, and does it wonderfully well.

The remarkable "Nobody's Heart" and "Wait 'Til You See Her" are from By Jupiter from 1942, the final Rodgers and Hart show. There's more about these songs and the score in this post from earlier this year.

For such a famous song, "Blue Moon" had a difficult gestation. Here's the explanation from SecondHandSongs: "The song was originally titled 'Prayer,' and written for Jean Harlow to sing in the movie Hollywood Party. However, it was never used in this movie. The lyrics were then rewritten for the movie Manhattan Melodrama where it was sung by Shirley Ross [as 'The Bad in Every Man']. Finally, the lyrics were again rewritten and the song released as the famous pop song 'Blue Moon' in 1935."

"I Married an Angel" is a good but overlooked item from the 1938 show of the same name. That musical also has had a post devoted to its songs, which you can find here. Matt does the verse of this tune particularly nicely.

One song that continues to be overdone is "Mountain Greenery," which appears in seemingly every Rodgers and Hart collection. This, however, is a relatively recent phenomenon. The number comes from a 1926 Garrick Gaieties revue, but was little recorded from then to the 1950s. Dennis is highly effective, particularly in his jaunty verse. He launches into scat singing, too - and for some reason I don't mind when he does it.

"Give Her a Kiss" is a comparative obscurity from the 1932 film The Phantom President, itself obscure. I haven't seen the film, but IMDb tells us the tune was "sung by chorus of wildlife (uncredited voices) and tenor."

"I Didn't Know What Time It Was" is one of the pair's greatest songs. It derives from Too Many Girls, the 1939 show that is the subject of this post from a few years ago.

The 1926 Ziegfeld show Betsy gave us the little-known "This Funny World," but the biggest hit from the score was the interpolated "Blue Skies" by Irving Berlin.

"Have You Met Miss Jones?" completes the collection. Although I am a major Rodgers and Hart fan, this enthusiasm does not extend to this overdone number.

This is another excellent LP, with pleasing charts played by a large orchestra and fine singing. It's also well recorded. There are two bonus songs, too, discussed below.

LINK to She Dances Overhead and bonus songs

Treasury Department Guest Star

Possibly to help with promotion of the Rodgers and Hart LP, Dennis appeared on the US Treasury Department's transcription program Guest Star in 1956. He sang two numbers with the Harry Sosnik Orchestra - "Mimi" and "Blue Moon."

I've added those songs to the She Dances Overhead download above, but the entire program also is available, including a brief interview of Matt, a Savings Bonds spot and two instrumentals by the Sosnik band.

This transfer is from my copy of the 16-inch transcription disk.

LINK to Treasury Department Guest Star

Remasters - Capitol Recordings and Night Out Music for Stay-at-Homes

The links below take you to the downloads.

The Capitol Recordings. Dennis made nine recordings with Paul Weston for Capitol in 1946-47 - unfortunately not including any of his own material. This is still a worthwhile collection with, for the most part, good songs and excellent arrangements. Beside the two songs in the ad at left, the collection includes "So Would I," "At Sundown," "Linda" and "(Love's Got Me) In a Lazy Mood." The latter is a enjoyable number by Johnny Mercer and tenor saxophonist Eddie Miller, who solos on the record. All the sides are newly remastered with smoother sound and improved vocal quality. LINK

The Coral Recordings. Matt made four single sides for Coral in 1949-50. Three were included on this compendium LP from circa 1956. Also in the album are two early King Cole Trio recordings from 1940-41, three Erroll Garner sides from 1945, two Billy Taylor recordings from 1950, and what I believe were the two earliest recordings by famed songwriter Cy Coleman, when he was a virtuoso pianist. The latter numbers also were from 1950. The sound on many of these sides is now greatly improved - particularly the Garner recordings, which had made his piano sound like a banjo. LINK

Vaughan Williams' 'The Pilgrim's Progress'

Here from the original HMV pressings is Ralph Vaughan Williams' adaptation of John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, an important setting that is nonetheless neglected. This 1970-71 production was the first recording of just two to date.

The work is certainly an opera, although the composer did not call it that, yet it may be unlike any other example of that genre because of its source material.

Based on a 1684 portrait of John Bunyan by Thomas Sadler

Bunyan was a 17th century nonconformist preacher. The full title and subtitle of his book explains its premise: "The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come. Wherein is Discovered the Manner of His Setting Out, His Dangerous Journey and Safe Arrival at the Desired Countrey."

It is one of the most significant and influential works of the English language, although hardly fashionable in the mid-20th century, when it had its unsuccessful premiere at Covent Garden. This recording's producer, Christopher Bishop, explained, "An opera house audience has certain preconceptions about opera (or had in 1951), and Pilgrim certainly does not fit them. There is really no dramatic conflict. Pilgrim has the unfair advantage of having God on his side, and one knows that he will reach the Celestial City from the rise of the curtain. There is no heroine, and there are no set arias to applaud."

His summary: "I think The Pilgrim's Progress is a marvellous work. It has been called undramatic, and is not easy to stage effectively, but all its difficulties are worth overcoming for the sake of its magnificent music and its spirituality."

John Noble as the Pilgrim

The composer labored over the work on and off for thirty years. At one point, despairing of ever having it staged, he reused some of the music he had sketched for the opera in his luminous Symphony No. 5. Thus when it finally was mounted at Covent Garden, its failure was a blow, but a new staging at Cambridge in 1953 was a triumph. Those performances had cast the undergraduate John Noble as the Pilgrim. He became identified with the part and repeats his role in this recording.

Here let me call in Christopher Bishop for a precis of the story:

The opera opens with Bunyan alone on the stage, while the brass of the orchestra play the great Puritan hymn York. Bunyan is seen writing his book, and all that follows is the dream which inspired him to write it.

Vanity Fair

Pilgrim enters with his burden, and meets the Evangelist who directs him on the path to Life Everlasting. He is prepared ceremonially for his journey, and then he sets out along the King's Highway. He meets with the trials of the Valley of Humiliation, where he fights and overcomes Apollyon, then he visits Vanity Fair, and is thrown into Prison, after declaring "I buy the Truth". 

The Meeting with Appolyon

He is released from Prison by the Key of Promise and goes on his way to the Delectable Mountains, meeting on his way Mr and Mrs By-ends, who provide a moment of humour. He leaves them to go on his way to the Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains, who prepare him to cross the River of Death. Then "the trumpets sound for him on the other side", and the chorus sing Alleluias to welcome him to the Celestial City.

The choir fades, and Bunyan returns and holds his book out as an offering to the audience.

Vaughan Williams' version is much compressed from the approximately 400-page book. The Pilgrim (actually, Bunyan called him "Christian") visited 21 locales on his journey, the names of which are still used even today: the Slough of Despond, House Beautiful, Valley of the Shadow of Death, Vanity Fair and the Celestial City.

The composer's identification with the work is well captured by the critic Edward Greenfield:

Vaughan Williams, I have kept remembering during my listening, was a life-long agnostic, deeply sympathetic to the church but not in fact himself a conventional believer. Yet he was devoted to Bunyan's great work and its spiritual message, relentlessly pursuing his vision of turning it into music over half a lifetime. He insisted that the hero in his opera should lose his first name "Christian" and remain simply "Pilgrim", not just to bring the message home to as wide an audience as possible, but so that he himself could identify the more closely. It is obvious in almost every bar of this glowing performance how strongly he felt each situation from the heart. Here we have Vaughan Williams, the greathearted agnostic, finding his own spiritual salvation through personal individual struggle, drawing from his own musical achievement not just in experience but in specific quotation.

It remains to be said that this is a definitive performance, beautifully performed and recorded. Greenfield wrote, "As to the music itself, the records demonstrate very clearly the meatiness of inspiration, no thin passages here. For the listener already impregnated with love of the Vaughan Williams idiom these five sides will, I predict, draw regular gasps of delight, as one gorgeous passage succeeds another."

The performers include a long list of the best British singers of the time, including Raimund Herincx, John Carol Case, Norma Burrowes, Alfreda Hodgson, Ian Partridge, John Shirley-Quirk and Sheila Armstrong. Sir Adrian led the London Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra in the Kingsway Hall recording.

Sir Adrian Boult

As a fill-up on the sixth side, the set includes rehearsal extracts with Boult. Christopher Bishop explained, "I have always wanted to produce a record of Sir Adrian in rehearsal, but he normally says so little during rehearsals (preferring to use his eyes and baton to indicate his wishes), that up to now there has not been enough material. However, with a full length opera, and with a chorus present I felt we would have enough to make up a side. Christopher Parker, the balance engineer, hid a microphone by Sir Adrian's desk, so that we could catch clearly what he said, and ran a tape from that microphone during the rehearsals before each 'take'."

The recording session in Kingsway Hall

Edward Greenfield observed, "Whether fairly or not, these present Boult as a far sharper-tongued, no-nonsense figure than the general public will ever have realised." I will add that the sessions were with a large orchestra and a far-off choir and soloists in a huge hall, so Sir Adrian perforce had to shout to be heard and understood.

The download includes complete scans, including the original 16-page booklet with libretto, the Greenfield review and Bishop's article on the production.

LINK

Ad in The Gramophone, February 1972

Dolly

So much has been written about the life, career and legacy of the great Dolly Parton that anything I post here would approach the superfluous. But let me say a few words and post a few songs anyway, as a brief remembrance.

For those who do not know her songs and singing, the photo above may be misleading. Dolly was known for her wildly artificial look. But if you examine the photograph closely, you will also find evidence of her great sincerity; her ability to perform simple songs with simple messages in such a way that they transcended artifice to reach the very core of the listener.

Today we have one of her best and most famous albums, 1973's Jolene, which begins with its deservedly famous title song where she begs a beautiful rival to stay away from her man. The other side leads off with a second astonishing (and famed) composition, I Will Always Love You, supposedly written in farewell to her singing partner, Porter Wagoner, whose act she had joined at age 21. This heavily gospel influenced number was later to become a mega-hit for the remarkable Whitney Houston, herself from a gospel background.

Gospel - along with true folk music - was the root of Dolly's career. She learned music from her parents and relatives in rural Tennessee. The talent and endless drive was hers alone. Allied to a big heart, and a welcoming and accepting nature, she became a legend, and rightfully so.

In addition to the LP, I have added another of Parton's greatest songs, and my personal favorite, the hugely affecting and deeply meaningful Coat of Many Colors from 1971, which somehow captures both her hardscrabble background and her great humanity. May she rest in peace.

LINK

Ileana Cotrubas with Marriner in Mozart

This post is a memorial tribute to the Romanian soprano Ileana Cotrubas, who had died at 87. She was a huge opera star for about 15 years before developing vocal problems and retiring in 1989.

Cotrubas was known both for her affecting performances and for her uncompromising views, leading the adulation from critics and audiences and occasional conflicts with directors and conductors who did not meet her standards.

Her obituary in the New York Times (gift link) quotes the critic Alan Blyth saying that she had the power "to make the audience’s heart beat just that much faster as soon as she appears onstage, and to convince it that for the moment nothing in the world matters more to her than to convey the particular predicament of whichever character she is portraying."

Today we will hear her not in opera but in sacred music by Mozart, via what may be her first recording, that of the Coronation Mass, K 317, of 1779, and the  Litaniae Lauretanae, K 195, of 1774. Neville Marriner conducts the Schola Cantorum of Oxford and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, with contralto Helen Watts, tenor Robert Tear and baritone John Shirley-Quirk. The recording is from May 1971, several years before Contrubas' most celebrated opera recordings. It was, however, not her sole venture into sacred music: she also recorded Mozart's Mass in C minor and Requiem, and perhaps other works.

This recording - and in particular the soprano - impressed critic Trevor Harvey of The Gramophone: "I can whole-heartedly recommend the present disc, and not least for the contribution of Ileana Cotrubas. Her singing is simply gorgeous. The others of the solo quartet need no commendation from me by now, for you have only to look at the names. Marriner conducts the Mass with first-rate rhythm and gets great intensity of singing in 'Crucifixus'. Ileana Cotrubus is really marvellous, with her quality and firmness of line."

John Shirley-Quirk, Helen Watts, Robert Tear

The Coronation Mass is, as you might have guessed, associated with royalty. The first record of it being performed was at the coronation of Francis II as Holy Roman Emperor in 1792; and it soon became a favorite for use at important ceremonies at court in Vienna. (The sleeve commentary states that it was associated with the miraculous crowing of an image of the Virgin in 1744; this is now thought not to be the case.)

Mozart composed two settings of the Litaniae Lauretanae, the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This is the second. "Lauretanae" refers to Loreto. This is a reference to Mary's and the Holy Family's home in Nazareth, which medieval tradition has the angels removing to Dalmatia and then to Loreto, Italy in the 13th century, to escape wartime destruction. The Litany was written for Salzburg Cathedral.

Neville Marriner

While Trevor Harvey singled out Cotrubas in his review, all the soloists are excellent, as is the vintage ASMF under the estimable Marriner. The chorus master was Andrew Parrott, at the time the conductor of the Schola Cantorum. George Malcolm provided the organ continuo.

The fine recording was made in St. John's, Smith Square, London.

LINK

Ad in The Gramophone, September 1972

Ray Anthony Causes a Rumpus on Campus

I wanted to post a Ray Anthony record, and I will admit that I chose this one for its fun and very much of its time cover.

Also, it goes very well with a previous Anthony upload called Houseparty Hop, which took place at a rather more rumbustious fraternity house (see below).

The older LP has been newly remastered for this occasion. You can find it and my musings about the cover goings-on in this post from 2017.

Houseparty Hop was a 10-inch LP with recordings from 1951. Campus Rumpus started out as a 10-incher in 1952, but today's version is the 12-inch variety from a few years later.

Younger readers may be wondering what a "rumpus" was or is. Well, actually I gave a clue a few paragraphs above by using the related archaic term "rumbustious," which means pretty much what it sounds like. "Ruckus" is somewhat similar - noise and celebration.

That's what you will find if you examine the LP cover at top. An enormous fraternity house - Alpha Omega Phi (presumably a slightly reordered Alpha Phi Omega) - is holding a dance, with the clarinetist wailing away above the crowd. (You would think it would have been a trumpeter in honor of Ray Anthony.) Joe College can't wait - in his rush he is just about yanking Betty Co-ed's arm out of its socket.

Joe is dressed in his best Ivy League attire - a camel hair blazer, bow tie, argyle socks and saddle shoes, all of which are wildly out of style today but were still in vogue when I was a young fellow in the 60s. (Well, maybe not the bow tie.)

On the second floor, while the left hand room appears to house two drinkers, the right hand window shows the only person who is actually doing what college is for - studying. This was true to life then and probably is today, with the possible exception of the studying.

BMOC

Well, Buster, what about the music, I hear someone asking. It's very much in the vein of other such records. Anthony's band was less R&B than Ralph Marterie's and not as jazz oriented as Les Brown and especially Sauter-Finegan. Ray had a straightforward, chrome-plated dance band.

The songs are a combination of standards and semi-standards with originals by Anthony and George (the Fox) Williams, who was Ray's arranger at the time. (George has been featured here a few times under his own name - The Fox in Hi-Fi, with a cover that has to be seen to be believed, and Rhythm Was His Business, which actually has another outrageous cover. Both are newly remastered and well worth hearing.)

George Williams

The standards on the Anthony record include "The Continental" (Con Conrad and Herb Magidson), "They Didn't Believe Me" (Jerome Kern), "Walkin' My Baby Back Home" (Roy Turk and Fred Ahlert), "Deep Night" (Charlie Henderson), "True Blue Lou" (Leo Robin-Sam Coslow-Richard Whiting), "It's De-Lovely" (Cole Porter) and "Dancing in the Dark" (Dietz and Schwartz).

A special mention of Gene Gifford's "Smoke Rings," which he wrote for Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra, and which became that band's theme. An extensive post is coming up on the Casa Lomas, assuming I ever get it written.

Now that the music's out of the way, let me provide my deconstruction of the back cover.

On this side, Joe and Betty have disembarked from a hot road/jalopy whose wheels have serious camber issues. The vehicle appears to be a 1932 Ford minus bumpers and fenders, and with a fox tail on the radio antenna. (I don't think this vulpine affectation was a thing in the 50s; rather the 20s, if then.) Everyone else seems to have the same Model A, although some examples have fenders. In the 60s, in contrast, the fashion was not for old beaters but for small sports cars - MGs and Triumphs. No one wore bow ties - but then they didn't in the 50s either.

LINK

Victor de Sabata

The intensity you see in the photo of Victor de Sabata above is what you hear in his recordings.

De Sabata (1892-1967) was a hugely gifted conductor, but circumstances denied him lasting fame - at least in the U.S.

It was his misfortune to be a countryman and contemporary of perhaps the most renowned conductor of the day, Arturo Toscanini. Unlike the anti-Fascist Toscanini, he was a friend of Mussolini. Also, his primary position for much of his career was at the head of La Scala rather than as conductor of a symphony orchestra. His best known recording is certainly the La Scala production of Tosca with Maria Callas, from 1953. He suffered a severe heart attack soon thereafter and quit conducting.

De Sabata's recordings reveal a maestro of remarkable gifts, inspiring orchestras to produce music of passion and color - his podium appearance being famously described as being "a cross between Julius Caesar and Satan."

The Trevi fountain

Today's recordings begin with a set by the Santa Cecilia Orchestra of Rome, which de Sabata had first conducted early in his career. These were made in 1947 and 1948. 

We start with one of the great orchestral showpieces, Respighi's Fountains of Rome. I suppose this could be considered impressionist music, but the way it is played here, it is startlingly realistic. The violin geyser effect would be one that de Sabata would invoke in other contexts.

Vaslav Nijinski in Jeux

For many years, Debussy's Jeux was not considered among his best works, but today that has changed. Composed for the Ballets Russes in 1913, it had to wait until 1947 for its first recording, which this is. The work's constantly changing moods and colors are made for de Sabata's gifts.

As mentioned, de Sabata was a famed opera conductor. The program includes several examples of his work, limited in these instances to overtures and preludes.

We start with the dramatic prelude to Verdi's I vespri Siciliani. Notice how the conductor builds intensity throughout the opening even though the music itself is choppy. This is followed by the preludes to Act I and Act III of La traviata.

The secret revealed: Mario Sammarco and Lydia Lipkowska
in Il segreto di Susanna

Next we have the overture to Ernanno Wolf-Ferrari's most famous work, Il segreto di Susanna, a comic opera from 1909. Or perhaps it's just the delightful overture that's famous. This is followed by an intermezzo from the same composer's Il quatrro rusteghi.

The balance of today's program is primarily from 1939 sessions with the Berlin Philharmonic. First is another recording premiere, Kodály's Dances of Galánta, written just six years before. This folk-based work was perhaps a surprising choice for de Sabata. He does it well, without quite the panache that he displayed in the Respighi, perhaps.

Finally, orchestral excerpts from Wagner: first, an passionate reading of the Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde. De Sabata conducted at Bayreuth that year.

To complete the program, I've added de Sabata's remarkably dynamic 1946 recording of the Ride of the Valkyries from Die Walküre. This is with the London Philharmonic.

LINK