Cole Porter's 'Let's Face It!' - The Early Recordings

That's the young Danny Kaye riding in a Jeep on the Let's Face It! program cover above. He was the motive force behind Cole Porter's 1941 hit show following his breakout performance in Kurt Weill's Lady in the Dark, which had its opening early that same year. Just nine months later Kaye's name appeared above the title on the Imperial Theater marquee for Let's Face It!

The exclamation point in the title was apparently optional

The book by Herbert and Dorothy Fields was basically a sitcom - three suspicious wives decide to bribe some soldiers at a nearby base to take up with them in a jealousy ploy. The soldiers' girlfriends find out. Complications (and Kaye specialties) ensue.

The cast was a starry one, at least in retrospect. The three wives were Eve Arden, Vivian Vance and Edith Meiser, two of whom became famous. (So did Arden's understudy, Carol Channing.) The soldiers' sweethearts were Nanette Fabray, Sunny O'Dea and Mary Jane Walsh, one of whom became famous (Fabray), and one of whom recorded several songs from the show (Walsh).

Edith Meiser, Vivian Vance and Eve Arden show Danny Kaye the big bucks 

As usual with the musicals of the time, there was no original cast album; however, Kaye did record three of its songs for Columbia, and Walsh did four for the Liberty Music Shop label. As far as I can tell, those four were exactly half of Walsh's total recorded output. Earlier, Columbia had engaged her for four songs from her other notable Broadway appearance, in Rodgers and Hart's Too Many Girls. That 1939 show is coming up in this series.

As was the practice back then, an original cast member's presence didn't mean they recorded the numbers they sang on stage. So for the first item in this collection, "Farming," we have recorded versions by Kaye, who did perform it on stage, and Walsh, who did not. The song was a sendup of the then-current fashion of the elite taking up the rural life, a topic that also inspired movies, an S.J. Perelman book, and latterly television's Green Acres.

Next in running order (at least here; this post covers only a minority of the show's score) is possibly the best known song in the show, "Ev'rything I Love." As the title might suggest, it's a tender song, and a good one. It was certainly the most popular with the record companies: Victor alone had four recordings of it - by Glenn Miller, Sammy Kaye, Dinah Shore and Tito Guizar. It has quite a lovely melody, and Liberty Music Shop broke the budget to bring in a chorus to support Walsh in her fine recording. In the show, Kaye and Walsh sang it in duet.

Mary Jane Walsh

Leading the orchestra in Walsh's recordings was Max Meth, who also conducted the theater performances. I don't know whether the stage orchestrations are used here, but I doubt it. In any case, the show's orchestrators were Hans Spialek, Don Walker and Ted Royal, a formidable trio.

I've added a second recording of "Ev'rything I Love" to the playlist because it includes the verse, which I hadn't heard before, and because the disc is by Buddy Clark, who makes frequent appearances around here.

Cole Porter

A contrast with the previous number is "Ace in the Hole," one of Porter's best and a song long beloved by cabaret performers. On stage, Mary Jane Walsh was joined by the other two girlfriends of the soldiers, but she does a solo on record. Her flinty performance of this cynical anthem is a great contrast to the romantic "Ev'rything I Love," as are Porter's clever lyrics:

     Maybe, as often it goes

     Your Abie may tire of his rose.

     So baby, this rule I propose:

     Always have an ace in the hole!

The next song, "You Irritate Me So," is the antithesis of Porter's famous "You're the Top." I've assigned it to the appropriately acerbic Nancy Walker, who recorded it in 1959. On the stage it was a duet between Nanette Fabray and Jack Williams. I imagine the song worked better with two singers flinging Porter's lyrics at one another, but Walker is pretty good, if you can handle Sid Bass' Space Age pop arrangement. When Let's Face It! opened, Walker was appearing a few blocks uptown in Best Foot Forward, her first Broadway role.

Kaye and Arden up the creek with a paddle

In the show, Danny Kaye and Eve Arden sang "Let's Not Talk About Love," but only Danny appears on the Columbia record. (Kaye and Arden had a long affair, according to Kaye biographer David Koenig, but I'm not sure when that transpired.) The song is a specialty both for Porter's clever, topical lyrics, and for Kaye, who indulges his trick of singing complex words as fast as possible. The song was an attempt to replicate his show-stopper "Tchaikowsky" in Lady in the Dark. It works fairly well.

At the time, r(h)umbas set the fashion in dance rhythms, so Porter produced one of his own - "A Little Rumba Numba." Marguerite Benton, who appeared in several Broadway musicals of the time, was the primary vocalist on stage, but did not record the piece. So I've included the contemporary disc by cabaret's Hildegarde, who handles this attractive and unfamiliar song very well. Harry Sosnik's band makes a brave attempt at the rhumba rhythms.

The final Mary Jane Walsh song is "I Hate You, Darling," which presents a typical Porter conceit - "I hate you, darling, and yet I love you so." In the show, she was joined by Kaye, Vivian Vance and James Todd, but she is solo here.

"Melody in 4F" still from Up in Arms

Perhaps surprisingly, the show included two Kaye specialty songs not written by Cole Porter. "A Fairy Tale" and "Melody in 4F" were contributed by Danny's wife Sylvia Fine working with Max Liebman. 

"Melody in 4F" is largely an auctioneer's rapid-fire spiel punctuated by words sketching the travails of the draftee - "Oh the mailman!", "Hiya, doc!" and so on, ending in "1A!" (that is, draft eligible). Much of the effect depended on Kaye's verbal acrobatics and his visual punctuations, so you may want to watch the version he did for the 1944 film Up in Arms (available here). The download includes what was probably a radio aircheck that seems to have been captured shortly after Kaye left the show, to be replaced by José Ferrer, a much different personality to be sure. Danny took Sylvia's songs with him when he decamped. The show closed a month later.

The Pierre Hotel

To complete the set, we have two instrumental medleys from William Scotty and His Cotillion Room Orchestra. The Cotillion Room is presumably the swank venue in the Pierre Hotel on Central Park East. I haven't been able to find any information on Scotty. The actual Cotillion Room bandleader at that time was probably the well-known Emil Coleman. I don't think the name on the label was a pseudonym for Coleman; as far as I can tell, that maestro did not have a recording contract at the time. It may have been the pianist or another member of the ensemble. 

The recorded selections are "Ev'rything I Love," "You Irritate Me So," "I Hate You, Darling," "Ace in the Hole" and "Farming." The polished performances are in the overripe society-band style that the Liberty Music Shop favored. (This is the musical mode that was parodied by the Glenn Miller band in "You Say the Sweetest Things, Baby," recently featured here in the Orchestra Wives recordings.)

Let's Face It! was made into a film in 1943, sans the exclamation point and most of Porter's songs. Danny Kaye became Bob Hope and Mary Jane Walsh turned into Betty Hutton, but Eve Arden remained Eve Arden. From the songs above, only "Farming" and "Let's Not Talk About Love" were retained, along with "Milk, Milk, Milk" and the title song. I don't believe that Hope or Hutton recorded anything from the score; the recording ban was still in effect for most of the year - all of it for a few of the big labels. 

Some of these same recordings were reissued by the Smithsonian in 1979, but the transfers in my set are not from that LP. The Mary Jane Walsh numbers come from my collection and most of the rest from Internet Archive. The sound from the 78s is generally quite good. 

The Smithsonian LP included detailed notes on the Let's Face It! production by Richard C. Norton, which I've included in the download. The package also includes a substantially complete souvenir program, which dates from relatively late in the show's run, after Carol Goodner had replaced Eve Arden. Finally, there are three articles from the New York Times - a story on the opening, Brooks Atkinson's rave review, and a follow-up on the production's history. The latter reads as if it was ghost-written by producer Vinton Freedley's publicist.

Let's Face It! may not be one of Porter's best known scores, but the songs are splendid - characteristic of the composer, varied and worth remembering. The performances by the leads are all you could desire.

This post is the result of a request by old friend David Federman, who wanted to hear some records by Mary Jane Walsh. More to come, David.

Kaye toasts the ensemble

Tony Bennett

In his brief assessment of Tony Bennett's career for the New York Times today, critic Jon Pareles asks an interesting question: "Has there ever been a more purely likable pop figure than Tony Bennett?" My guess is that the answer is "Yes - but not many." And I can't think of one offhand.

Bennett's career lasted for seven or eight decades - he was singing in 1940, made his first record in 1949, had his first hit soon thereafter, and was famous to a greater or lesser degree ever since.

Bennett had a lovely voice, powerful but well under control. He could swing, and was an eloquent advocate of the so-called "great American songbook." Yet he also managed to work with everyone from Elvis Costello to Lady Gaga.

Tony recorded a vast number of records, most if not all of which have been reissued. That was not the case when this blog began, and in 2009 I devoted three posts to his early 1950s records - 10-inch LPs, EPs and a single.

Earlier this year, I posted Bennett's first record, made under the name of "Joe Bari" in 1949. It is a significant rarity, so I was excited to find a transfer of it on Internet Archive, which I cleaned up for the singles blog. I'll never find a physical copy - the 78 has auctioned for up to $3,900 - so the transfer will have to do. In researching this post, I was amused to read in the admirable Bennett discography on jazzdiscography.com that, "According to the 1968 profile of Tony Bennett in Billboard, the only known copy of this disc literally disintegrated at some point in the 1960s."

For this tribute, I've redone all my Bennett posts in ambient stereo, added recording information to each and cleaned up the graphics. There are 28 tracks in all. Here are links:

The Complete 'Because of You'. Columbia issued two LPs with the title "Because of You" in the 1950s, with overlapping contents. I combined them for my first Bennett post. This and all the posts below concentrate on the singer's first years as a recording artist.

Two EPs and a Single. Here, too, Columbia issued records with similar contents, and again I put them together in one package, adding a then-unre-released single for good measure. That isn't a particularly good photo of Tony on the cover, but it does capture his joie de vivre.

Alone at Last. One more 10-inch LP that reissued some of Bennett's early singles. I believe that all the posts above were inspired by my friend Scoredaddy, an early supporter of this blog and the greatest Tony Bennett enthusiast I know.

Joe Bari. Tony was not Tony when he first recorded; he was "Joe Bari" for a 1949 single on the tiny Leslie label. At that time, he wasn't the artist he was to become a year or two later, but still, he was recognizably Tony Bennett even under another name.

The links above take you to the original posts. The links will be at the end of the comment sections.

Dobrowen Conducts Haydn, Borodin and Wagner; Also, Six Ambient Stereo Remasters

Here is a second serving of music conducted by Issay Dobrowen (1891-1953). This is a follow-up to a recent post of works by Russian composers. Today we broaden the focus to include the music of Haydn and Wagner, along with Borodin. All recordings are with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Also new today - six more remasters of classical recordings in ambient stereo. But first, the Dobrowen discs.

Haydn - Symphony No. 104 (London)

Dobrowen's 1946 recording of Haydn's Symphony No. 104 may be the only symphony he recorded from the classical era that was released. He did set down Beethoven's fifth symphony the day before this Haydn work, but that performance remains unissued. He also accompanied Artur Schnabel in two Beethoven concertos.

The Haydn is well played by the then-new Philharmonia, which had just begin recording a year before. (Its first date was led by Walter Susskind, the second by Constant Lambert.) Dobrowen's performance is not particularly romanticized, as was common practice earlier in the century. He makes the minuet of the third movement rather like a peasant dance, in keeping with the theme of the finale, which is derived from a Croatian folk song, and the first movement, which has folk-like elements.

The sound (from Abbey Road Studio No. 1, as with all these recordings) is quite good, its impact enhanced by ambient stereo processing.

Borodin - Prince Igor, Overture and Polovtsi March

Haydn's symphony, his last, dates from 1794. Almost a century later we are in a different sound world with music from Borodin's opera Prince Igor, premiered after the composer's death in 1890. The excerpts here begin with the overture, which in actuality was composed by Glazunov making use of themes from the opera.

The Polovtsian music, too, required the assistance of another composer, in this case Rimsky-Korsakov, who orchestrated it. Here we have the March. It is often coupled with the Polovtsian Dances;  Dobrowen did record the Dances, but I don't have a transfer of that set. The conductor's other Prince Igor selections are vividly characterized, in keeping with the Russian romantic music contained in the first Dobrowen collection.

The Borodin recordings date from 1949 and again benefit from good sound. You can hear another take on the music via Walter Susskind's 1952 recording.

Wagner - Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg - Prelude to Act I

Wagner began working on Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in 1868, which is about when Borodin started on Prince Igor. It became Wagner's only comic opera; also the longest opera in the standard repertoire.

Perhaps recognizing the lighter nature of the proceedings, Dobrowen takes swift tempos throughout his 1947 recording of the Prelude to Act I. This music is often given a much more weighty performance (which it can well stand). The light treatment is accentuated by the recording, which in this RCA Victor LP transfer had very little bass. That aspect of the recording is not helpful in this music, which has important lower brass lines. I rebalanced the sound to alleviate this problem, with some success.

Quite a few posts featuring the vintage Philharmonia Orchestra have appeared here lately. It's natural and perhaps unfortunate to write about symphonic performances as if they were the work of one person, the conductor, instead of 100 professionals. So let me just mention that the recordings of this period are graced by the presence of the Philharmonia's then-famous wind principals, depicted below. (The photo is circa 1950.)

Sidney Sutcliffe, oboe, Gareth Morris, flute, Dennis Brain, horn, Cecil James, bassoon, Harold Jackson, trumpet, Frederick Thurston, clarinet

The catalog of Dobrowen's recordings is relatively slim. EMI had pegged him as an accompanist, and he was adept at handing those assignments. He assisted such artists as Ginette Neveu, Bronislaw Huberman, Solomon, Boris Christoff, Kirsten Flagstad as well as Schnabel. Otherwise, he may have been seen as a specialist in Russian music. That said, his earliest recordings, dating from 1929, were of Grieg, Dvořák and Sinding.

The recordings in this post were sourced from my collection and needle-drops on Internet Archive. Coming up is Dobrowen's recording of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, in a splendid performance, again with Solomon, with whom the conductor had an evident rapport.

Ambient Stereo Remasters

As before, the links below take you to the original posts. Download links are near or at the end of the comments. We start off with three M-G-M classics from the 1950s, by request.

Lenore Engdahl Plays Griffes. The late pianist Lenore Engdahl did not make many records, but this one is a gem, consisting entirely of piano music by the American impressionist Charles Tomlinson Griffes. This excellent recording dates from 1955.

Music by Paul Bowles and Peggy Glanville-Hicks. Paul Bowles was equally well known as a writer and composer. Here we have two of his best works, along with Peggy Glanville-Hicks' Letters from Morocco, based on Bowles' correspondence to her.

Copland and Weill Suites; Contemporary American Piano Music. Arthur Winograd conducts Copland's Music for Movies and a Weill suite of his own devising. Also, pianist Andor Foldes turns up with contemporary (c1940s) music by American composers.

Swanson - Short Symphony, Diamond - Rounds. Two of the best and best-regarded works by their composers on this vintage American Recording Society release - Howard Swanson's Short Symphony and David Diamond's Rounds. Dean Dixon and Walter Hendl conduct.

Solomon Plays Bliss and Liszt. Another in the series devoted to pianist Solomon. The first recording of Arthur Bliss' bravura Piano Concerto, along with Liszt's Hungarian Fantasia. Sir Adrian Boult and Walter Susskind lead the orchestras.

Boult Conducts Vaughan Williams' A Pastoral Symphony. This Vaughan Williams symphony may be his greatest, and there is no better recording than this one, led by Sir Adrian Boult in 1953. Excellent sound.

The Almost Complete 'Orchestra Wives'

About eight years ago I prepared what I described as the "almost complete Sun Valley Serenade," which involved wrangling the soundtrack recordings to the Glenn Miller band's first movie. They had appeared piecemeal across a few different releases over the years.

Today I am doing the same for Miller's second and final film, Orchestra Wives, an uneasy amalgam of musical and melodrama, with a score just as glorious as the first Miller film. And again, the recordings have been cobbled together from several sources.

Meanwhile I've revamped and added to the Sun Valley Serenade post, which you can find here. The music from both films is available in sterling ambient stereo.

The primary sources for both films are the RCA Victor albums that came out in 1954, timed to the release of Hollywood's Glenn Miller Story, and the 20th Century Fox LPs that were issued about five years later. Each set contains materials that can't be found on the other. For this go-round, I've added an alternate take for each film, derived from a long-ago bootleg.

Here are the details of the Orchestra Wives recordings. This second Miller film comes from 1942, just a year after Sun Valley Serenade. The bandleader was to enter the Army soon after its completion. Two years later his plane disappeared over the English Channel.

The Orchestra Wives score opens with a brief version of Miller's theme, his own composition "Moonlight Serenade," heard over the titles. This is an alternate version that adds a swirling harp opening.

Tex Beneke, Marion Hutton, Ray Eberle and the Modernaires tighten their belts

Respecting its wartime setting, the next song, "People Like You and Me," is half sentiment and half patriotism, concluding with a "let's pitch in" stanza:

We'll have to roll up our sleeves, 

Tighten our belts,

But through the dark we'll see
The lady with the liberty light for
People like you and you and you,
And people like me,
People like you and me!

As with many Miller performances, what makes the song work so well is the brilliant arrangement (by Jerry Gray or George Williams) and the meticulous execution by the band and the vocalists - Marion Hutton, Ray Eberle, Tex Beneke and the Modernaires. The song itself is a highly professional effort by the stellar Hollywood team of composer Harry Warren and lyricist Mack Gordon. They also wrote most of the Sun Valley Serenade songs.

The next number is an instrumental, "Boom Shot," which the band plays at a dance in Iowa and which kicks off the plot. (Per a blog post by Miller expert Dave Weiner, the title relates to the overhead camera technique used during the sequence.) This is a Billy May original with a George Williams arrangement.

Pat Friday

"At Last" is one of the most enduringly popular songs in the Miller canon, not least because of Etta James' 1960 cover version. But the performance in the film is perfect in its own right. The song is one of Harry Warren's best, with a fine Mack Gordon lyric, and a powerful vocal by Pat Friday dubbing for Lynn Bari's viperish band singer. Friday's excellence is matched by Ray Eberle, in fine voice, the Modernaires, and a crack chart by Jerry Gray and Bill Finegan. (Miller at the time employed several famous arrangers - Gray, Finegan, George Williams and Billy May).

"At Last" was actually written for (and cut from) Sun Valley Serenade (available here), where Friday also dubbed for Lynn Bari. Her partner that time was male lead John Payne, who sang for himself but was no match for Eberle. The Orchestra Wives version is more romantic; it also has a slightly revised melody line.

"American Patrol" is a joyous swing march, an arrangement by Jerry Gray of F.W. Meacham's "American Patrol March" of 1885. As with all these songs, the playing is flawless.

Moe Purtill

"Bugle Call Rag," which dates from 1922, is from the New Orleans Rhythm Kings band book. This spirited version, arranged by Miller himself, has a feature for the band's flashy drummer, Moe Purtill.

"Serenade in Blue" is one of the Miller band's best known songs. Written for the film by Warren and Gordon, it receives an almost impossibly romantic treatment by Billy May and Bill Finegan, vocalists Pat Friday and Ray Eberle, the Modernaires, cornetist Bobby Hackett and tenor saxophonist Tex Beneke. This version from the RCA release is much longer than what is heard in the film; notably it has a moody instrumental opening that is a marked contrast with the balance of the song.

Following this swooning number is the jaunty specialty (also by Warren and Gordon) "(I've Got a Gal in) Kalamazoo." It was an entirely successful attempt to replicate the popularity of Sun Valley Serenade's "Chattanooga Choo-Choo." Once again, Beneke is on the move to see a girl in another town, and again he is interrogated by the Modernaires in the process. Instead of "Hi there, Tex, what you say?" we get "Hi there, Tex, how's your new romance?" The performance is polished and the Jerry Gray arrangement is most effective.

The amazing Nicholas Brothers

As with "Chattanooga Choo-Choo," "Kalamazoo" was the basis of an extended dance sequence featuring the astonishing Nicholas Brothers. The extended version of the song, with the brothers' contribution, only appeared on the RCA Victor release.

Marion Hutton

Now for three songs that were cut from the film, but appeared on the later 20th Century Fox LPs. The first is a feature for Marion Hutton, a personable singer who was not quite as explosive as her sister Betty. "That's Sabotage" makes use of a wartime concern to admonish a wayward suitor - "If you've been untrue, that sabotage!" Hutton insists.

Glenn Miller and Chummy MacGregor

"Moonlight Sonata" is a Bill Finegan arrangement of Beethoven featuring pianist Chummy MacGregor and Beneke on tenor sax. It is better than the usual run of such things. Miller expert Dave Weiner says that it probably was meant as a feature for Cesar Romero, who played a pianist in the film. Miller had recorded a commercial version of the song in 1941.

George Montgomery, Cesar Romero, Tex Beneke, Marion Hutton, Lynn Bari

The final unused song was "You Say the Sweetest Things, Baby," a song that Warren wrote for the Alice Faye film Tin Pan Alley. Here, a subset of the Miller troupe parodies the overripe sound of a society band until it is interrupted by a raucous trumpet solo. Dave Weiner says this was apparently supposed to be the soundtrack of a scene in which trumpeter George Montgomery, the film's lead, interrupts a square ensemble with his hip playing. The trumpet you hear is Billy May.

To close the set we have an alternate take of "Serenade in Blue." This one has a different moody intro to the main melody, a modified arrangement and no vocals. Please excuse the noise and pitch wobble on this decades-old bootleg.

Why do I call this the "almost complete" Orchestra Wives? I believe there may be a snippet or two I don't have that can be found on a limited edition of the soundtrack.

Several of the musicians mentioned above have appeared elsewhere on this blog: arrangers Jerry Gray, Bill Finegan and George Williams, vocalists Pat Friday (here and here) and the Modernaires, cornetist Bobby Hackett and tenor saxophonist/vocalist Tex Beneke.

The photo below of the band on set shows three actors in place of the real musicians: Cesar Romero is at the piano for Chummy MacGregor, Jackie Gleason is on bass instead of Doc Goldberg, and George Montgomery is at the left in the trumpet section, replacing Johnny Best - who is in the photo as well.

Sir Adrian Boult Conducts Mozart

The English conductor Sir Adrian Boult (1889-1983) was typecast as a specialist in the works of his home country, but he had vast experience in all kinds of music. After all, he had been conductor of the BBC Symphony and London Philharmonic for long periods.

In actuality, Boult did record quite a bit of non-English music, much of it in his early years with the BBC. And later on, he added to those recordings through his association with smaller recording companies such as Nixa/Westminster, Everest and Miller International.

Sir Adrian Boult

As he moved into the twilight of his career, EMI engaged him for a number of discs of non-English music. I am fond of his series of Wagner overtures, among other performances - and this particular record of Mozart symphonies is worth hearing as well.

In recording the 35th and 41st symphonies for HMV in 1974-75, Boult was returning to two works he had taken to the recording studio before - the Haffner for Concert Hall in 1959, and the Jupiter for HMV as far back as 1933. These later efforts are with the London Philharmonic, and come from Abbey Road Studio No. 1.

Writing in The Gramophone, Trevor Harvey contrasted Boult's handling on Symphony No. 41 with No. 35: "Sir Adrian takes a very big view of the Jupiter, even of its length, for he observes every single repeat - yes, even that in the slow movement" and "If Sir Adrian takes a big view of the Jupiter he seems intent on pointing the difference between it and the Haffner, which gets a swift and lightweight performance (even the slow movement) and in this Symphony he makes no repeats except, obviously, in the Minuet movement."

Harvey takes issue with the orchestral balances and recording, both of which strike me as perfectly fine. This is a good record, little noticed at the time, and not even released here in the US, to my knowledge. My transfer is from the English pressing.

Sir Adrian was 85 and 86 when he led these performances, and was not nearly done in the studio. In addition to English music, yet to come would be recordings of works by Wagner, Strauss, Beethoven and Brahms. He devoted his concluding session in 1978 to Sir Hubert Parry's fifth symphony, a favorite of the conductor.

This transfer is by request.

Issay Dobrowen Conducts Russian Music

The Russian conductor Issay Dobrowen (1891-1953) was active in the recording studios for the EMI labels in the postwar years until his relatively early death at age 62. He had been the chief conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, the Oslo Philharmonic and the Gothenburg Symphony, which he led from 1941 until his death.

On this blog, he has led the accompaniment to Solomon in their recording of Brahms' second piano concerto.

Although Dobrowen made his career primarily outside Russia, he was perhaps inevitably considered a specialist in Russian music, and it is in that repertoire that we find the materials for today's post - primarily the music of Rimsky-Korsakov, but also short works by Glinka and Tchaikovsky. The program begins with the latter selections.

Glinka and Tchaikovsky

Any conductor wanting to open a concert with a bang surely considers programming the overture to Mikhail Glinka's 1842 opera Ruslan and Ludmilla. It provides an orchestra the perfect opportunity to play catchy themes at breakneck speed. In the right hands, it is exhilarating - and that is certainly the case as Dobrowen leads the Statsradiofoniens Symfoniorkester (Danish State Radio Symphony Orchestra) in a blazing reading.

The Glinka is the earliest recording in the set, dating from 1950.

Dobrowen in action

Next, the scene shifts to London and Kingsway Hall for a July 1951 date with the Philharmonia Orchestra, yielding two famous excerpts from Tchaikovsky's 1879 opera Eugene Onegin - the Waltz from Act II and Polonaise from Act III. Again, these are beautifully played and well recorded - and delightful music.

The Glinka and Tchaikovsky works were originally issued on 78; EMI did not begin to produce LPs until 1952. These transfers were cleaned up from the original issues as found on Internet Archive. 

The balance of the post is devoted to two LPs from my own collection. I've processed all works in ambient stereo, and the sound throughout is strikingly good.

Rimsky-Korsakov - Le Coq d'Or and Tsar Saltan Suites

Dobrowen returned to the Kingsway Hall in December 1952 to conduct orchestral suites extracted from two of Rimsky-Korsakov's operas - Le Coq d'Or and The Tale of Tsar Saltan, both based on Pushkin poems.

Le Coq d'Or was Rimsky's final opera. He did not live to see its 1909 premiere.

Tamara Karsavina as the Tsaritsa of Shemakha in Diaghilev's 1914 Coq d'Or production

Dobrowen conducts the musical suite that Glazunov and Steinberg produced after Rimsky's death.

The Tale of Tsar Saltan also is a late opera, dating from 1900. The suite from the opera comes from three years later, and was devised by the composer.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

In his notes, Gerald Abraham writes that Rimsky-Korsakov "possessed the power of creating a world, or (more accurately) creating music that evokes a world. Like Pushkin's, it is a world in which the matter-of-fact is fused with the fantastic, the naïve with the sophisticated, the romantic with the humorous, the beautiful with the absurd." These are well captured in the Dobrowen recordings with the Philharmonia.

From an ad in The Gramophone, October 1953

Rimsky-Korsakov - Schéhérazade 

Like the suites above, Rimsky's Schéhérazade, which dates from 1888, is an example of "orientalism." Leaving aside the term's colonialist implications, in art it manifested itself as an escape to the exotic. And what could be more exotic than the story of the ruler Shahryar, convinced that women were faithless and habitually having his wives put to death, being captivated by the nightly tales told by his latest wife, Schéhérazade, and eventually sparing her life after 1001 such stories.

The legend of Schéhérazade forms a framing device for a collection of folk-derived tales and literature from the Middle East collected over centuries. It became known as One Thousand and One Nights and eventually in English as the Arabian Nights.

Rimsky adopted the framing device and its exotic setting, and initially titled the four movements of his suite after several such tales - "The Sea and Sinbad's Ship," "The Story of the Kalendar Prince," "The Young Prince and the Young Princess," and "Festival at Baghdad. The Sea. The Ship Breaks against a Cliff Surmounted by a Bronze Horseman." Paradoxically, he did not want the work to be seen as programmatic beyond the sense of being an "Oriental" adventure, and later eliminated the titles.

Well, the music is programmatic to the extent that there is an unmistakable sea-voyage quality to some of the music, and there certainly is a theme that represents Schéhérazade relating her tales. Beyond that, no program is stated nor needed for enjoyment.

Mikhail Fokine and Vera Fokina in the Schéhérazade ballet

That does not mean that others have not added such a program to the work, notably via the 1910 Mikhail Fokine-Léon Bakst production staged by the Ballets Russes, which featured such fare as a "Golden Slave" seducing one of the Shah's wives.

Rimsky's inspiration is well conveyed by the December 1952-January 1953 recording by Dobrowen and the Philharmonia, made in Abbey Road. That said, Andrew Porter in The Gramophone was unimpressed: "Dobrowen has here achieved what I should have thought to be impossible: he makes Schéhérazade, a masterpiece of vivid colour and excitement, thoroughly dull and tedious."

It's true that Dobrowen's tempi can be slow - I checked timings of the first movement, and he takes about a minute longer than some other recordings. The slower tempi don't bother me, but it does dim the excitement.

My LP transfers come from the original US Angel releases, which have English pressings. The sound, as mentioned, is excellent.