We start off this season's holiday shares with an early Columbia LP that combined two 78 sets, one from England and one from the US - one from the Celebrity Quartette, the other from the Mount Holyoke College Glee Club.
Also today, we have another welcome contribution from David Federman - details below.
The Celebrity Quartette
On the LP, the better known ensemble may be the Celebrity Quartette, a super-group of sorts selected from among the finest song and oratorio exponents that the UK had to offer. I believe this was an ad-hoc group; at any rate, English Columbia later recorded an ensemble with a somewhat different members under the same grand title.
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| Gladys Ripley, Isobel Baillie |
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| Harold Williams, John McHugh |
The repertoire is familiar fare, save perhaps for "Christians, Awake," the lovely Anglican hymn that is not heard as often in the US. All are exceptionally well done; the singers may be celebrities, but they are suitably reverent in this religious fare. Isobel Baillie is featured throughout, and Harold Williams is impressive in the Coventry Carol.
English Columbia issued four of the six carols in late 1947. Columbia in the US brought all six out in a 78 set in 1949, combining them with the Mount Holyoke set for this LP that same year.
The Mount Holyoke College Glee Club
The 110-voice Mount Holyoke College Glee Club makes an effective contrast to the quartet, both in size and in its more adventurous selections. The chorus makes pleasing sounds under the direction of long-time Mount Holyoke professor Ruth Douglass, although a snappier tempo might have been adopted in such joyful tunes as "In Dulci Jubilo." Large amateur choirs are difficult to maneuver, though.
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| The Mount Holyoke Glee Club in 1951 |
Mount Holyoke is historically a women's college; it is one of the schools in the Northeast US that are traditionally known as the "Seven Sisters." During the 1940s, the Glee Club traveled down from Massachusetts to Manhattan for a yearly Christmas concert. While the New York Times always announced the concert, I only found one review, from 1946, which was positive. The choir's selections on that date included music by Kodaly and Virgil Thomson's "Scenes from the Holy Infancy According to St. Matthew." None of that here, but the selections are nonetheless diverse and well presented.
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| Mount Holyoke 78 set |
US Columbia issued these 10 songs on six-sided 78 album in 1949, at the same time as this LP. The download includes a review of this LP from Billboard, a brief 1947 review of the Celebrity Quartette 78s in The Gramophone, and the New York Times review mentioned above.
Bonus: Brief Music for Two Pandemics
David F.'s latest compilation, "Brief Music for Two Pandemics," commemorates the two viral catastrophes that struck 100 years apart. It contains 10 songs that take their cue from the Stephen Foster song of 1854, "Hard Times Come Again No More," heard in two versions in this typically thoughtful playlist.
A link is in the comments section, along with the usual link for the LP of the day.
May everyone have a wonderful (and safe) holiday season!
17 comments:
Links:
Celebrity Quartette, Mount Holyoke Glee Club
https://mega.nz/file/3FNUXZDA#1GVzURPY3qy-XUifAhnlhDqymVjU8BQqhTZL0wQtQdY
Brief Music for Two Pandemics
https://mega.nz/file/DIlwwAxC#6GSnQZkPW6vvIhojqwawFdlH0ANalyIBlHAdrBHbIC4
Looks interesting, Buster! That Mount Holyoke set cover looks familiar, but the LP is new to me! You dig up great stuff. :)Thanks!
Hi Ernie - I think that's a cover template that Columbia used for a short time. Looks like it, anyway.
Isn't Christmas Songs by Sinatra in that same type cover?
I think the Sinatra is similar to the LP. I'll have to see if I can find the 78's in the archive, but it looks really similar in my mind.
It is very similar, in that it had a green background with red ornaments. Steinweiss must have been running out of ideas. This is the CD, but it is more or less the same as the 78 album:
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81Vthasy1YL._SL1500_.jpg
Those Celebrity Quartette recordings are glorious. The history of the phonograph record is studded with such all-star groupings of great singers. Just go back to the Shannon Quartet, maybe even earlier. In any case, you have helped make caroling a blissful joy again. Thanks for this fabulous retrieval.
Just a quick listen--these sound like my brand of art carols! Will give a proper review when I have time to hear everything, but I wonder why the lack of good press for the excellent and spirited Mount Holyhoke singers? They're superbly rehearsed, for one thing...
And, thanks!
Lee - Yes, I meant to mention that their repertoire was most interesting. The download includes a positive NY Times review of one of their concerts. Ruth Douglass was apparently a talented choir director.
Thanks for sharing this, Buster.
Thank you very much!
You're welcome, folks!
Thank you! The Mount Holyoke website says the 78 rpm set (Columbia Masterworks MM-856) was released in 1948.
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/~dalbino/recordings/xmas1948/index.html
RL - Thanks! That's possible but I think it's unlikely. There is a Columbia M set recorded in 1949 that is above them in numerical sequence.
Thanks for the share, Buster! Very enjoyable!
Celebrity Quartette members Isobel Baillie (I.B.) and Harold Williams (H.W.) in this edition, together with Muriel Brunskill (M.B.), Heddle Nash (H.N.), and Norman Allin (N.A.) of the other edition whose cover you included in the image folder, were part of the original group of 16 performers for Ralph Vaughan Williams' "Serenade to Music," which premiered at Royal Albert Hall in 1938. In fact, RVW personally chose those singers and composed the vocal parts with them in mind, listing them in the score by initials when their solos arose.
Sergei Rachmaninoff himself was in attendance at the premiere. According to Wikipedia, he "played in the first half of the concert as soloist in his Second Piano Concerto; when he heard the Serenade from his place in the audience, he was so overcome by the beauty of the music that he wept."
Believing that it would be difficult to assemble another 16 soloists of such caliber for subsequent performances of the "Serenade," RVW wrote arrangements for four soloists plus choir and orchestra, for choir and orchestra, for choir and piano, and for solo violin and orchestra.
They truly were celebrities!
Thanks, Mark - The recording of the Serenade with the original soloists is one of my favorites. I posted it last year at my other blog:
http://bustersss.blogspot.com/2019/11/more-vaughan-williams-vocal-works-in.html
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