Andre Kostelanetz's Complete 1940s Recordings of Richard Rodgers

As might be expected from someone who recorded so much music, Andre Kostelanetz returned several times to the works of Richard Rodgers during his long tenure in the studios.

Kostelanetz made a number of 78s in the 1930s, but his recording career began in earnest with a move to Columbia records in about 1940. His first album for that company was titled Musical Comedy Favorites, and it was a hit, quickly spawning a sequel. Both included songs by Rodgers and Lorenz Hart.

Today we will present all the Kostelanetz-Rodgers recordings from the 1940s, notably the 1946 album Music of Richard Rodgers but also several other items. Let's take things in chronological order, starting with that 1940 album.

Musical Comedy Favorites

Kostelanetz's two volumes of Musical Comedy Favorites date from 1940 and 1941-42, respectively. The earlier set included Rodgers' "Falling in Love with Love" from The Boys from Syracuse, a 1938 production.

The conductor reached back to 1929's Spring Is Here for the Vol. 2 selection, "With a Song in My Heart," which has been interpolated into many films since then, and even was the title song of the 1952 Jane Froman biopic.

FYI - Columbia combined the two volumes of Musical Comedy Favorites on an LP. My transfer can be found here.

Oklahoma! Medley

Rodgers had a huge (and highly influential) success with his 1943 show Oklahoma!, with book and lyrics by his new partner, Oscar Hammerstein II.

Kostelanetz surely wanted to record the music from the score immediately, but the 1942-44 Musicians Union strike presented him from doing so. On November 11, 1944, Columbia finally capitulated to the union, and the next day, Kostelanetz and orchestra were in the studio to record a two-sided medley of songs from Oklahoma!

The Music of Richard Rodgers Album

In May and September 1946, Kostelanetz and his forces assembled in New York's Liederkranz Hall for their most extensive look yet at Richard Rodgers' compositions. The sessions resulted in a set of eight 12-inch 78s entitled Music of Richard Rodgers. My transfer comes from the corresponding LP issued a few years later.

The album includes 11 songs, all standards with the possible exception of the title song from 1926's The Girl Friend, the biggest hit show to that time for the 24-year-old composer.

The album closes with one of the ballets from Rodgers and Hart's superb On Your Toes, the enduringly popular "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue," here abridged (as it generally is).

Kostelanetz generally did not repeat himself in his various recordings. So there is nothing in this set from Oklahoma! And while he included "It Might as Well Be Spring" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's much-underrated 1945 film musical State Fair, he saved the irresistible waltz "It's a Grand Night for Singing" for a later album (see below).

A Motion Picture Favorite and an All-Time Hit

Following the success of his Musical Comedy Favorites sets, Kostelanetz turned his attention to Hollywood in 1947 with a set of Motion Picture Favorites. Despite Rodgers having done little work for film, he was favored with a spot in this eight-song album. "It's a Grand Night for Singing" is a marvelous piece that was introduced by Dick Haymes, Vivian Blaine et al.

The conductor's final project of the decade was an album of Eight All-Time Hits, recorded in late December 1949 and early January 1950. Rodgers was represented by "The Carousel Waltz" from the 1945 show. The number opens the musical, but Kostelanetz saved this spectacular piece for the end of his program.

As I mentioned above, the Music of Richard Rodgers LP comes from my collection, and "The Carousel Waltz" is from my LP of Eight All-Time Hits. (A complete transfer of Eight All-Time Hits is available here.) Otherwise, I went back to the original 78s, cleaned up from transfers available on Internet Archive.

I wish I could tell you who arranged the various songs in this collection, but Kostelanetz seldom if ever credited his arrangers. He did mention in his biography that his radio arrangers included Carroll Huxley, Nathan Van Cleave and George Bassman. We also know that Amadeo De Filippo, a CBS staff arranger, did some work for him. And I have read elsewhere that Jimmy Carroll, Leo Addeo and Bill Finegan arranged for him at various times.

An amusing article on the Space Age Pop site likens listening to Kostelanetz records to being "gently anesthetized." But I find the listening to be absorbing. The arrangements are ingenious; the conducting and playing are wonderfully alive; the recordings are sonorous. Kostelanetz' métier was (as I have written before) conducting popular classical music and classy popular music, and at that he succeeded brilliantly.

Interestingly, Rodgers himself chose to gently distance himself from the Kostelanetz approach in his liner notes to the Music of Richard Rodgers album. He explained that he wrote the music to function in a dramatic setting, adding, "Its popularity has been a corollary, and a decidedly welcome one." Rodgers also admitted to the lure of compensation - "let it never be said that I resist the idea of large sheet music and record sales. Mr. Kostelanetz and I have formed the habit of eating and we like it."

Kostelanetz was not done with Rodgers' music. In 1951 he would record Robert Russell Bennett's South Pacific Symphonic Scenario and a repeat of the "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" music for a Columbia LP made with the Philadelphia Orchestra Pops. The Kern Show Boat Scenario for Orchestra also is on the disc. I have the record and hope to transfer it soon.

Later in the mono era, Kostelanetz came out with The Columbia Album of Richard Rodgers, a mix of new recordings with some from the 1940s. And there were a few more excursions into Rodgers' music later on.