Let's return to the 10-inch LP format and to conductor Efrem Kurtz for today's selection. This is the other album resulting from Kurtz's six-year tenure as the music director in Houston - suites from the mega-musicals
South Pacific and
Kiss Me, Kate.
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| Efrem Kurtz with members of the Houston Symphony |
Cole Porter's
Kiss Me, Kate had appeared on Broadway in late December 1948, with Richard Rodgers'
South Pacific in April 1949. Kurtz and the Houston Symphony recorded the two suites from these tremendously popular scores on December 14, 1949, the day all the Kurtz-Houston records were made. Their coupling of Satie and Auric ballets appeared
here in February of this year. The only other work taped that day was
Fauré's brief Pavane. The latter work became, incongruously, a fill-up for the 78 set of the Rodgers and Porter suites, but was jettisoned for the LP release.
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| Robert Russell Bennett |
Robert Russell Bennett, the orchestrator of both shows, assembled the suites contained on this LP. He called the
Kiss Me, Kate suite a "Selection for Orchestra," but grandly titled the
South Pacific potpourri a "Symphonic Scenario," whatever that might mean. Both are smoothly done, as you might expect from Bennett, and well handled by the Houston Symphony and by Kurtz, who could not have had much experience with this type of material.
Columbia had issued the original cast albums for both
South Pacific and
Kiss Me, Kate, and may have seen this 10-inch LP as an attractive alternative for those who didn't want or couldn't afford the full albums.
Columbia's sound is good. The album sports a characteristic cover by Alex Steinweiss.
A reader requested this LP a few months ago - I didn't have it then, but, as sometimes happens, I stumbled across a nice copy not long ago.
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| The Houston Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, 1949 |
Link (Apple lossless):
ReplyDeletehttps://mega.nz/#!2R0GnSaK!RX6G6qlDEwA1lQW-gERW-0oioUsIOvd-19zNrOLHc2I
Wonderful! As always, many thanks indeed.
ReplyDeleteP
Fantastic! Thanks Buster.
ReplyDeleteI love it when you return to the 10" records. :)
ReplyDeleteGreat symphonic orchestration!
ReplyDeleteNow we're in my research area. Bennett tended to reserve Symphonic Scenario for his lengthy medleys that attempt to include most of the songs from a show, sequenced and transitioned in such a way as to suggest its whole story to those who know it.
ReplyDeleteThis "South Pacific" example follows that plan, including hints of the Twin Soliloquies and of the morse-code wartime suspense in the later scenes, and preserving the hands-under-the-table final music.
But he also liked to reserve the right to do some things differently from his pit scoring, given the bigger complement guaranteed for these pieces. And thus we have Gamelan-type effects in the opening music, suitably suggestive of the South Pacific region.
I'm pleased that this performance is uncut, unlike the (roughly contemporaneous? or originally on 78s?) Kostelanetz, which despite massive abbreviations was spread over both sides of a 12" LP. (It's since been used as filler for the OCR on CD.) Kurtz impresses me with his idiomatic command here, even giving in to the temptation of "swinging" the rhythm TOO much at points (in "Happy Talk," where admittedly the alternations of style are tricky), as many a conductor has done.
The "Kiss Me Kate" selections are a weird item, and it's not surprising we don't hear them as much as Bennett's other pieces of the sort. In this case, the it's telling seems to be "The orchestra keeps trying to play 'So In Love' but keeps getting distracted. When it finally succeeds, there's nothing more to do and the piece ends." Which makes it unique, as these things go.
Bennett turned out a lot of Selections (even from shows he didn't score) for Chappell, always with his ingenious rescoring and witty transitions. Several have had no recording yet.
Thanks, everyone, for the comments!
ReplyDeleteJAC - Thanks in particular for your fascinating and informative thoughts. I wonder why Columbia didn't use the Kurtz recording in preference to the Kostelanetz for the CD version of the OCR.
Argh, there's always a mistake somewhere: in my comment just above, in the 2nd-to-last paragraph: "the STORY it's telling seems to be..."
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot Buster for this very rare recording...and for JAC so instructive comments.
ReplyDeleteOnce again Kurtz is stylish and balanced.
A real pleasure in this (fantastic) repertoire that could be under others a bit on the show-off side...