Songs from the Dick Haymes Show, Vol. 3

Dick Haymes and Gordon Jenkins

Here's a third volume of songs from Dick Haymes' 1940s radio program. This again comes from an ancient bootleg with dodgy sound that I've worked to improve. The performances were mostly on pitch, a welcome change from the previous collections. The result is quite listenable.

These selections are taken from two different programs, both (I believe) named The Dick Haymes Show. Most are from the mid-40s and feature Gordon Jenkins as the music director. Dick's frequent singing partner Helen Forrest makes one appearance. There's also a second and shorter set of songs from late in the 40s with Carmen Dragon as the conductor. 

Here's a rundown of the 18 selections - most of which Haymes did not record commercially at the time.

Songs with Gordon Jenkins

First up is one of Dick's big popular successes - "The More I See You," which Mack Gordon and Harry Warren wrote for Haymes to sing in 1944's Diamond Horseshoe.

The second number is also from that year, but from a different film - Ziegfeld Follies, where Fred Astaire sang it. The song is "This Heart of Mine" with music again by Harry Warren. The words are by Arthur Freed.

"These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You)" dates from 1936. Eric Maschwitz and Jack Strachey wrote it for the West End revue Spread It Abroad. Bing Crosby recorded the tune in 1946, which may have prompted this performance.

The next number is a little mysterious - I can't find anything about it. The bootleg identified it as Ralph Blane and Hugh Martin's "Ev'rytime," but it's not that song. It's apparently named "Everytime I Fall in Love."

"Dancing in the Dark" is of course much more familiar. The Dietz and Schwartz favorite is drawn from the 1931 revue The Band Wagon.

One of Irving Berlin's most familiar waltzes is next - "Always," from 1926. It was used in the 1946 Crosby-Astaire musical Blue Skies, which had a Berlin score.

"Stars Fell on Alabama" is a Frank Perkins-Mitchell Parrish song from 1934. Supposedly it was inspired by a meteor shower that hit that state in 1833. It's a great story perhaps invented by a publicist.

Next Dick takes a surprising side trip into one of Western swing's greatest hits - "San Antonio Rose" by Bob Wills. Not to be pedantic (as I often am), but the song is actually the "New San Antonio Rose." The first version was an instrumental. It became popular, so Wills added words. The "new" version was even more popular. Dick does it well, but he doesn't really match Wills' vocalist Tommy Duncan. You can hear both of the original "Rose" recordings here.

Helen Forrest and Dick Haymes

Dick sang the next number, "Isn't It Kinda Fun," in the film State Fair, which is exhaustively covered in this post. At that time, he recorded it solo with Victor Young for Decca, although in the film it had been a duet with Vivian Blane. Here it's restored to duet status, with Helen Forrest's participation. 

Hal Hopper and Tom Adair wrote "There's No You" for Jo Stafford in 1944, and she made it a hit. Sinatra recorded it twice; both are superb. It's also well suited to Haymes' voice; he did it both for Decca and his radio show.

Irving Berlin's "How Deep Is the Ocean?" dates to 1932. Bing recorded it then, and revived it, beautifully, for Blue Skies. This presumably prompted Dick's early 1947 recording for Decca and this radio performance.

Songs about longing for the South and "dear old Mammy" were plentiful in the early 20th century. One of the most popular - and George Gershwin's first big hit - was "Swanee," which he wrote in 1919 with Irving Caesar. Jolson was identified with it, and revived it for the 1946 Jolson Story.

Songs with Carmen Dragon

Carmen Dragon

We now turn to a different Dick Haymes Show. These songs come from what was reputedly an audition record for a new Haymes show with Carmen Dragon as the conductor. At about the same time, Haymes and Dragon were making a large number of recordings for World Transcriptions, but these do not seem to be from those sessions. This second Haymes Show apparently did not move into production, and Dick soon began appearing on the Club 15 radio show with the Andrews Sisters.

The first number in this set is the prospective show's theme, which was to be "Let the Rest of the World Go By," an oldie by Ernest Ball and J. Keirn Brennan. Haymes had sung it in the 1944 film When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, and recorded it for Decca.

Allan Flynn and Frank Madden wrote "Maybe" in 1936, but it didn't become popular until 1940, when many bands and singers took it into the studio - including the Harry James band with vocalist Dick Haymes.

The great "All the Things You Are" comes from the 1939 Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein musical Very Warm for May. It's been recorded well over a thousand times, but apparently not by Haymes, except for this version.

"So in Love" was one of the hits from Cole Porter's 1948 smash Kiss Me, Kate. Dinah Shore had a pop hit with it.

The next song dates back to 1927 - Walter Donaldson was the author, the title was "At Sundown."

Another Kern song follows - "Lovely to Look At," with lyrics by Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh. It comes from the 1935 film version of the musical Roberta, where it was sung by Irene Dunne, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

Finally, a song by the Gershwins - "Of Thee I Sing" from the 1931 show of that name. Perhaps my least favorite Gershwin song, it brings this playlist to a close, save for an outro with theme song reprise.

LINK

A Requiem for Martina Arroyo

The distinguished soprano Martina Arroyo has died at age 90 in her lifelong home city of New York, also the site of her many triumphs at the Metropolitan Opera.

Arroyo was famed for her portrayals of Verdi heroines (above she is seen as Elvira in his Ernani), but this memorial post focuses not on the Italian repertory but on the much different and very French Requiem by Gabriel Fauré. She is heard in the touching "Pie Jesu."

Matt Schudel's obituary in the Washington Post [gift link] describes Arroyo's debut - in Verdi, of course: "Her breakthrough came at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 1965, when she took on the lead role in Aida at the last minute after an ailing soprano [Birgit Nilsson] dropped out. She received a standing ovation and was praised by New York Times music critic Raymond Ericson for having 'one of the most gorgeous voices before the public today.'"

Schudel outlines her career: "Arroyo first rose to prominence in Europe, performing in the world premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Momente in 1962 and as a regular leading soprano at the Zurich Opera between 1963 and 1965. She was then one of the Metropolitan Opera's leading sopranos between 1965 and 1978. During those years at the Metropolitan Opera, she was also a regular presence at the world's opera houses, performing on the stages of La Scala, Covent Garden, the Opéra National de Paris, the Teatro Colón, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Vienna State Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the San Francisco Opera. She is best known for her performances of the Italian spinto repertoire, and in particular, her portrayals of Verdi and Puccini heroines, but she also appeared in world premieres in concert and opera throughout her career."

The recording of Fauré's Requiem was early in her career, made just four years after her Met debut. We hear the Musica Aeterna Orchestra and Chorus directed by Frederic Waldman. Fittingly, it was a New York ensemble directed by Waldman, the former director of the Juilliard Opera Theater. Musica Aeterna made a large number of recordings for American Decca, this one included.

Frederic Waldman

Philip Hart reviewed the recording in High Fidelity as follows: "Fauré's Requiem, one of the gentlest musical settings of the Mass for the Dead, here receives a recording that is lucid in texture and devotional in mood. Its atmosphere is less that of a concert performance than of a private service in a church, the organ being prominently audible wherever the score calls for it.

"Martina Arroyo is splendid in the 'Pie Jesu,' singing with a vocal clarity and stylistic sensitivity."

Hermann Prey

David Hall in Stereo Review also was impressed by the performances: "Martina Arroyo is in lovely vocal form in the famous soprano solo 'Pie Jesu,' and Hermann Prey sings with warmth and manliness in the Offertory and 'Libera me.' The organ part is effectively balanced and contrasted against the dark-hued orchestral timbre, and the recording itself is endowed with a warm concert-hall ambiance."

The recording and performances are indeed quite good, and a fitting remembrance of Martina Arroyo and all involved.

LINK

Victor Young at the Movies, Part 2

As I mentioned in the first installment of this series, in the 1950s Victor Young recorded several LPs that collected theme music from films, including his own work. In general, these short pieces came out first as singles, then were gathered into album form.

The first post featured Young's Hollywood Rhapsodies LP, along with several albums of his film music in newly refurbished editions. Today we add his Cinema Rhapsodies, which features films that are better known than the obscurities covered in the first volume. 

As a bonus, I've remastered Paul Weston's superb LP of themes from Jennifer Jones films, and augmented it with four additional songs.

Finally, my long-neglected singles blog has a new collection of 13 vocal versions of themes that appear instrumentally on either the Young or Weston LPs.

Cinema Rhapsodies

Cinema Rhapsodies contains 12 songs that Young and orchestra recorded in sessions from February to May 1953, all themes from recent films.

Zsa Zsa as Toulouse-Lautrec
never painted her

The first is one of the best known melodies of the group - "The Theme from Moulin Rouge (Where Is Your Heart)." This is a sweeping theme by  Georges Auric (whose music for Bonjour Tristesse is also well worth hearing). The single by Percy Faith, with its impassioned vocal by Felicia Sanders, was a big hit. (It's in the singles collection on my other blog).

The next song also was a huge hit - "Ruby" from 1952's Ruby Gentry. The film is an elaborate Southern potboiler with Jennifer Jones' Ruby at the center. The theme, by the veteran composer Heinz Roemheld, was a success for Les Baxter and for Young himself. Unusually, it featured the harmonica, played by George Fields both on the soundtrack and Young's version. (Baxter's recording can be found here.) If you're like me and have heard the mouth organ warble on this number once too often, Ray Charles' vocal version can be found in the collection on the singles blog.

A third popular success was "Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo," Bronisław Kaper's simple but memorable tune from 1953's Lili, with Leslie Caron (and Zsa-Zsa too). Her (Caron's) charming version can be found here. The singles blog has the Dinah Shore hit single.

Forever Female was an aging-actress comedy, this time with Ginger Rogers as the subject. Young wrote the music for it, and here provides us with the theme melody, "Change of Heart."

One of the most interesting songs on the LP is "Anna" from the film of the same name, whose title character was played by Silvana Magnano. The song is an example of Brazilian baião music, which had become popular there. The music is by by Armando Trovajoli (credited as Roman Vatro). The new collection on my other blog has the soundtrack vocal, credited to Magnano but actually sung by Flo Sandon's, a Brazilian singer who spelled her name in the possessive for some reason. It's a terrific and influential recording.

"The Call of the Far-Away Hills" is from the famous 1953 Western Shane with Alan Ladd. Young was the credited composer for the film, although he (or director George Stevens) employed quite a bit of source material. "The Call of the Far-Away Hills" is Young's work.

Limelight was in some ways a typical Charles Chaplin project, in that he wrote, directed and starred in the film, and wrote the music as well. "Terry's Theme" (Terry was played by Claire Bloom), is one of his most noted compositions.

David Raksin wrote two of my personal favorite film themes - the haunting "Laura" and the gorgeous "Theme from The Bad and the Beautiful," which is sometimes called "Love Is for the Very Young." Dory Langdon Previn wrote words for the tune for June Christy to sing in her 1960 album Off Beat. That vocal can be found on my singles blog.

Young's "Wintertime of Love" is from the war film Thunderbirds with John Derek and such favorites as Ward Bond, Barton MacLane and Slim Pickens.

Mischa Spoliansky wrote the lovely "Melba Waltz" for the film Melba, a biopic with Patrice Munsel as Dame Nellie. I posted the soundtrack LP ages ago, and revisited the sound a few years back. (Here's a link to the original post.)

The Young LP concludes with two of this own compositions. First is "Alone at Last" from Something to Live For, a melodrama about an ad man and an actress struggling with alcoholism.

The final number is "Moonlight Serenade" from The Star, another tale of an aging actress, this one played by Bette Davis. Young seemed to make a sub-specialty of these films; not sure how he lost out on Sunset Boulevard to Franz Waxman.

LINK to Cinema Rhapsodies

Paul Weston - Music for Jennifer

Paul Weston's 1954 Music for Jennifer is a beautiful collection of eight songs from the films of Jennifer Jones. "Love Letters" from the film of that name, "Ruby" (from Ruby Gentry), and "Autumn in Rome" from Indiscretion of an American Wife all appear in vocal versions in the new collection on my other blog. Also, the fine soundtrack recording of Alessandro Cicognini's music for Indiscretion is now available in newly redone and much improved sound here.

The Music for Jennifer LP was later reissued as a 12-inch album, Sound Stage - Hi-Fi Music from Hollywood, with four additional tracks - "Tara's Theme" from Gone with the Wind, and the themes from A Streetcar Named Desire, Quo Vadis and For Whom the Bell Tolls. Those recordings had been previously issued as singles and as the EP depicted at right. The four songs are newly included as a bonus with the Music for Jennifer collection.

LINK to Music for Jennifer - Tara's Theme EP

Stephen Kovacevich Plays Mozart

Stephen Kovacevich, one of the finest pianists of the recent past, died a few days ago at the age of 86.

A native of Los Angeles, he spent most of his career in England. As you will note from the cover above, Kovacevich was known as Stephen Bishop in the early part of his career, Bishop being the name of his mother's second husband. But people began confusing him with a pop musician of the same name, so he added his birth name and became billed as Stephen Bishop-Kovacevich. Later, he shortened it to Stephen Kovacevich.

Stephen Kovacevich

The pianist did not record a great deal of Mozart in his career, but among the discs he did complete is today's coupling of the Piano Concerto No. 21, K. 467, and the Concerto No. 25, K. 503, two of the composer's greatest works. The Mozart sessions were in 1972, when the soloist was 31. The conductor was Colin Davis (pre-knighthood), with whom Kovacevich also recorded sets of the Beethoven, Brahms and Bartók concertos. The orchestra was the London Symphony, which Davis would later lead for many years. At the time of the Mozart sessions, he was the principal conductor of the Royal Opera.

Colin Davis and Stephen Kovacevich

This disc was well received by at least some reviewers. Richard Freed wrote in Stereo Review, "Stephen Bishop has not, I believe, been represented on discs in any previous Mozart performances, although, of course, Colin Davis, his conductor in Nos. 21 and 25, is justly renowned for his. They make an ideal team, combining a strength, brilliance, effervescent wit, stylistic understanding, and give-and-take that make this particular recording one of the most enjoyable Mozart concerto interpretations I have heard in many years."

That's a good summation of the performances' strengths, although other reviewers felt something was lacking. Here's Paul Henry Lang in High Fidelity: "Both [concertos] are large-scale works, festive, proud. and virtuosic, and both have exceptionally pensive, affecting, and profound slow movements ... In the heavenly slow movement of K. 467, clearly echoing southern Italian church music with its garlands of bittersweet suspensions, every measure seems to carry the superscription 'cantabile,' but Bishop does not sing ..."

There is something to what Lang writes. In 1967, the Andante of K. 467 was used in the film Elvira Madigan, leading to the music becoming very popular for the reasons Lang cited. But Kovacevich does not see the music that way, being more interested in the qualities that Freed cited in his review.

On balance, this is quite a good record. Kovacevich was a fluid pianist with a lovely tone, well caught in this recording from London's Watford Town Hall. Freed summed up: "I consider the present disc something quite special. The orchestral contribution is marvelously precise and tonally clear, one of the best balanced performances to be heard; the recorded sound is exceptionally good."

Actually, the recording is a little light in the bass and close to the strings, but is otherwise pleasing. Kovacevich's piano is well caught.

I typically link to the New York Times obituary for prominent musicians, but it has not yet commemorated Kovacevich's death. Earlier this week, however, it did find space for a long obituary for the inventor of a wah-wah pedal.

LINK

A Late Addition to Buster's Haunted Playlist

My friend Mel sent me a new (well ... 67 years old) addition to the Haunted Playlist I posted a few days ago. It's in the form of "The Witch Song," as performed on a 1959 LP by the John La Salle Quartet, a vocal group who made a few records and whose most notable member was Marlene Ver Planck, who went on to record many good LPs. The La Salle group have a lot of fun with "The Witch Song."

The tune is by the venerable songwriter J. Fred Coots, who otherwise confined himself to another holiday as the author of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town." 

Here a link to the song itself, for those who downloaded the original playlist. I've updated the original post to include the tune as well.

LINK to "The Witch Song"

Buster's Haunted Playlist

I am not a fan of Halloween. I haven't been in a costume since I was 10 and there are no animatronic skeletons on my front lawn. I don't try to scare the neighborhood children (other than with my looks).

Accordingly, my record collection does not include any Halloween records, except for a copy of "The Monster Mash," and I don't even know where that is.

So when I decided to do a Halloween post, I had to turn to another source for records - and the collection of the Internet Archive, depleted though it may be, was the likeliest place to look. And it did come through with a varied group of 18 items, which I am introducing in this post.

There is nothing here as popular as Bobby (Boris) Pickett and His Crypt-Kicker Five, but we do have Orville Newby and His Saddle Serenaders plus Ina Rae Hutton and Her Melodears (not on the same record). Also Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, someone called Freddie Wolf - "Popular Swing Organist," several production music records from England that are supposed to be scary but are mostly bland, and "Witch Doctor" not by Ross Bagdasarian but by the Four Freshmen (well, one of them anyway).

As usual with these collections, the items are presented in chronological order.

The New Mayfair Dance Orchestra, with Ray Noble in the suit

We start off in Old Blighty with a characteristically goofy record called "The Haunted House" by the New Mayfair Dance Orchestra, which I believe was under the direction of Ray Noble at this time (1931). The record begins with a bonkers and nearly incomprehensible scene between an Oblivious Englishman type (probably Noble) playing the host of the haunted house warning a squeaky-voiced guest that his room has a ghost. It then proceeds to the lively tune.

We move ahead to 1934 and another big band of the time, Ina Rae Hutton and Her Melodears, who give us "Witch Doctor." I probably don't need to add that this is not the same song as the Ross Bagdasarian item of the 50s.

Ten years later, clarinetist Hank D'Amico assembled a starry sextet to record "Shy Little Witch from Greenwich." In the band were luminaries Frankie Newton (who wrote the tune), Don Byas and Cozy Cole.

Neither of these instrumentals have much to do with Halloween, but in the great tradition of my friend Ernie and his Christmas records, I cast a big net.

In 1946, the Majestic label came out with a children's album that presented familiar classical themes as kiddie songs. From this set we have Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from Peer Gynt transformed into "On October 31," helpfully subtitled "Halloween Song" so there is no confusion. Bob Hannon is the vocalist.

In 1947 bassist Chubby Jackson assembled a band to record "The Happy Monster" for M-G-M. This particular monster must have developed an affinity for bop, 'cause that's what Chubby and crew offer us. The star soloists are Conte Candoli and Billy Bauer. 

Luis Russell

Veteran big band leader Luis Russell issued "Luke the Spook" that same year. The label notes that this one is "Dedicated to Luke the Spook" with no indication of who that might be. No one in the band was named Luke.

"Eerie Night" from about 1948 is the first of our production music selections, and it is appropriately eerie without overdoing it. This is from the "London Promenade Orchestra," a recording unit.

Wayne Raney

Country singer/harmonica player/bandleader Wayne Raney made many recordings for the King label. His splendid "Jole Blon's Ghost" was a 1948 issue. It's a play on "Jole Blon" ("Pretty Blonde" in Cajun), a traditional tune that had been a hit for fiddler Harry Choates in 1946.

Freddie Wolf - "Popular Swing Organist" is next. I have no information on him, although there are three "Freddie Wolfs" in Discogs - a Danish drummer, another drummer (probably the same cat, er, wolf), and a heavy metal artist, if there is such a thing. No "Popular Swing Organists," so Freddie could not have been that popular. He is pretty good, though, and his "Witch Doctors Swing" (is there an apostrophe missing?) is fun. It's from 1950.

From about the same time, we have "Atomic Monster" from Major, an American production label. It's well recorded, but the monster sounds more anemic than atomic.

Orville Newby

Another fun item is "Ghost Town Boogie," which Orville Newby and His Saddle Serenaders put out in 1950. It's a obscure Western Swing gem.

Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey recorded "My Friend the Ghost" for Bell Records in 1954, but it also was issued on the kiddie label Golden Records. This is the Bell version - the kiddie pressing left out the bridge where vocalist Gordon Polk sings about drinking with the ghost. He (Gordon, not the ghost) was the brother of the better-known Lucy Ann Polk.

"Hallowe'en Hop" (I like the archaic spelling of the holiday) comes to us from the publishers Boosey & Hawkes and their production music label. The New Concert Orchestra and conductor Paul Hamilton are the listed artists, but those were probably pseudonyms. 

The prolific writer/comic/TV host/actor/musician Steve Allen worked with Ira Lee to come up with "The Rockin' Ghost" in 1956. The title picks up on the new fad of rock 'n' roll, but with Archie Bleyer, his chorus and orchestra responsible for the recording, there is no rockin' to be heard on this Cadence release. It is nicely done, however.

The Four Freshmen: Ken Albers, Ross Barbour,
Bob Flanigan, Don Barbour

I was surprised to come across Ross Barbour of the Four Freshmen moonlighting for the budget Tops label. He does quite a good job with "Witch Doctor," the Ross Bagdasarian opus issued under the name of David Seville in 1958. Discogs has this as the only title Barbour did for Tops.

We end with three numbers from another English production house: the Theme Music label from publishers Josef Weinberger Ltd. The 1960 selections are "Footsteps in the Night," "The Terror Strikes" and "The Creatures."

This may not be the best collection ever offered here, but it is fun. Hope you enjoy it.

Addendum: My friend Mel sent me a new (well ... 67 years old) addition to the Haunted Playlist I posted a few days ago. It's in the form of "The Witch Song," as performed on a 1959 LP by the John La Salle Quartet, a vocal group who made a few records and whose most notable member was Marlene Ver Planck, who went on to record many good LPs. The La Salle group have a lot of fun with "The Witch Song."

The tune is by the venerable songwriter J. Fred Coots, who otherwise confined himself to another holiday, writing "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town."

The link below takes you to a new file that includes "The Witch Song."

NEW LINK

The Music of 'Picnic'

William Holden and his torn shirt were the image by which Columbia Pictures promoted its 1955 drama Picnic, its adaptation of a William Inge play. Our interest today is less with ripped apparel and more with the music that accompanied this tale of a drifter (Holden) who manages to disrupt a small Kansas town in the space of a day.

The stranger who comes to town and changes things is a common plot device that in 1950s musicals alone can be found in The Pajama Game, which was on Broadway when this film came out, and in The Music Man, a few years in the future.

The ads seem to associate Kim Novak with the torn shirt but it actually was a jealous Rosalind Russell who did the deed. She was the second woman instantly besotted with Holden; the third was Novak's sister Susan Strasberg, who is peeking around the picnic basket in the poster above.

It must have been moonglow ...

This action took place at a town picnic and dance, which is where the film's most famous music cue is heard. The band plays "Moonglow," the beautiful Hudson-DeLange song from the 1930s, and as Holden and Novak dance, the soundtrack segues into George Duning's memorable theme from the film.

It's a bit of genius that was a chart hit in three different versions in 1956. First is the soundtrack version conducted by Morris Stoloff, which of course is on the LP. I actually prefer the George Cates record that came out on Decca's sister label Coral, because I enjoy Stan Wrightsman's piano playing and his interplay with the group's superb guitarist, who I suspect is George Van Eps. This version is included as a bonus track.

A second bonus is a vocal version of the theme, with words by Steve Allen. Performing are the McGuire Sisters, who are quite good. (Oddly, Allen himself issued a version of the song with wordless vocals.)

Addendum: reader Stephen mentioned the excellent Gisele MacKenzie record of "Moonglow - Theme from Picnic". It turns out that I posted that version years ago, on her RCA Victor LP Giselle. I've now refreshed the sound and reposted the album here.

George Duning

George Duning doesn't get the attention of contemporary innovators like Alex North or Elmer Bernstein, or such masters as Bernard Herrmann or Dimitri Tiomkin. But he produced good scores and has been featured on this blog many times.

Rosalind Russell and Arthur O'Connell

As for the story, Holden ends up with Novak, and Rosalind Russell ends up with Arthur O'Connell, a talented actor who made a career out of these supporting roles. He also was in the Broadway production.

The soundtrack's early stereo sound was dry and harsh, which I've adjusted.

LINK

Hanson's Romantic Symphony

I never do this, but my recent post of Howard Hanson's Columbia recordings has, as they say in the movie business, failed to find an audience.

So let me draw attention to the fact that the post includes Hanson's little-known 1952 recording of his popular Romantic Symphony (the Symphony No. 2). It's a thrilling performance in very good sound that I'm sure many of you would enjoy. It comes with Edward MacDowell's Piano Concerto No. 2, with soloist Jesús María Sanromá.

Here's the download:

LINK

Howard Hanson's Columbia Recordings

The American composer-conductor Howard Hanson is strongly associated with the Mercury recordings he made in the 1950s and 60s, but they were not his first.

For those acquainted with his Mercury discs, it will not surprise you to learn that the records he made for Victor in 1939-42 and for Columbia in 1950-52 were almost exclusively of American composers, including his own works. This is except for a fantasie from Oscar Straus's operetta Mariette and Grieg's Holberg Suite, the latter of which is included in this post.

Hanson made only two and a half LPs for Columbia - the two we discuss today, and a recording of Wallingford Riegger's Third Symphony, coupled by the label with Mitropoulos' reading of Peter Mennin's Third. That disc can be found here in a transfer by my friend the Shellackophile.

For us, we have a pairing of Hanson's Piano Concerto in G with the Grieg Holberg Suite, and of his Symphony No. 2 with Edward MacDowell's Piano Concerto No. 2. The two discs date from 1950 and 1952 respectively. All recordings are with the Eastman-Rochester Symphony.

Hanson Concerto in G, Grieg Holberg Suite

This first recording appeared on the blog many years ago, but has been redone with much better sound and complete scans this time around.

For the concerto, Hanson had the good fortune of collaborating with the superb Czech pianist Rudolf Firkušný, then 38 years old, who had the demands of the work well in hand.

Rudolf Firkušný

The critic Irving Kolodin was an admirer of composer and pianist, writing this in Saturday Review:

Were Howard Hanson a Welshman, an Australian, or a Rooshian (to borrow W. S. Gilbert's spelling), one imagines he would have a wider vogue and a higher standing than is presently his in America. For his kind of frankly personal, unvarnished emotionalism is a little out of fashion in contemporary musical circles, where to be contemporary is often more highly valued than to be musical. However, in following without deviation his own inclination Hanson has shown a consistent artistic growth not at all common among native writers.

This concerto, for example, is what few creations in that genre (at any time) are - a piece of honestly felt, truly meant music, which conveys a mood and states a point of view as well as filling a form. The form, in fact, is decidedly amorphous; but the mood and the point of view are crystal clear. With the gifted Firkušný as his whole-hearted collaborator, Hanson has put into circulation a testament of his artistic faith which will be widely heard and, I think, as widely admired.

In truth, the concerto does reflect the artistic currents of the time - the scherzo is motoric, for example. And it also displays Hanson's penchant for belaboring a simple motif beyond the bounds of patience - in the slow movement, for example.

But here's another critic who was an admirer - Donald Ritchie of the American Record Guide: "Written for the Koussevitzky Music Foundation in 1948, this piano concerto contains some of the most interesting Hanson I've heard. There are not too many atmospherics, no programmatic allusions and a minimum of Sibelius' effects. He uses jazz very well and constructs some highly interesting interplay between soloist and massed orchestra. The concerto is tightly written and is both spare and clean. Firkušný, who first performed the work, is completely competent and lends it an excitement all of his own."

The familiar Grieg suite is well done, but even back then it hardly needed another recording.

Rudolf Firkušný has been heard here before in Samuel Barber's Four Excursions, which is coupled with Eleanor Steber's first recording of Knoxville: Summer of 1915. I renovated the sound of the LP a few years ago.

LINK to Hanson concerto and Grieg Holberg Suite

MacDowell - Piano Concerto No. 2; Hanson - Symphony No. 2

This 1952 disc represents the second recording of both works - MacDowell's Piano Concerto No. 2 of 1890, and Hanson's Symphony No. 2 of 1930.

The concerto soloist here is Jesús María Sanromá, who also was the pianist in the first recording, with Fiedler and the Boston Pops - which has appeared on the blog here.

Jesús María Sanromá

The popularity of the concerto has waxed and waned over the years. It is a Lisztian exercise that also more or less quotes the Grieg piano concerto in the first movement.

However, others see much more merit in the work that I. Irving Kolodin had this to say (while admitting that the work is derivative): "The manifest quality in the music, its power and musicality, would certainly seem to merit more consideration from pianists (especially those of his own land) than has been the case. Indeed, if it were labeled a 'Concerto No. 2 by Edward Grieg,' I suspect it would be regular occurrence on our symphony programs."

Edward MacDowell

Ray Ericson in the American Record Guide was similarly enthusiastic: "MacDowell's two piano concertos, produced toward the end of the nineteenth century, were instrumental in gaining status for American music both here and abroad at a time when it had practically none. In them MacDowell succeeded in combining European style with individualistic, flavorsome harmonic and melodic devices thought to be authentically American."

Hanson's symphony is undoubtedly his most popular, and for good reason - it is quite beautiful and has many memorable passages. Some of its themes have been widely used by musical institutions and classical radio stations. Some critics do hone in on its weaknesses, however. Ericson: "The symphony, written in 1930 for the Boston Symphony's 50th anniversary, has pretty, somewhat banal, tunes, formal simplicity; and lush orchestration. The performance, presumably authentic, and the recordings are unexceptionable."

Kolodin was an admirer: "Hanson's second recorded version of his 'Romantic' Symphony is even better than his first (for RCA in the late Thirties), and, without the problem of balance with a piano to fret over, the engineers have done very handsomely by him - as Hanson has by himself."

Jesús María Sanromá has also appeared on the blog in Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F, which can be found here. Howard Hanson has been featured many times, most recently in works by Piston, Riegger, Hovhaness and Cowell.

LINK to MacDowell concerto and Hanson symphony

On Holiday with Kermit Leslie

Back in 2017, good friend and fellow blogger Ernie sent along a 10-inch LP I had never seen - "Middlebrow" Music for the Hi-Fi Fan by the Kermit Leslie Orchestra.

It turned out to be a delightful collection of light music, consisting of songs written by Leslie and his brother Walt, presented in Kermit's imaginative arrangements.

The 10-inch LP cover

Now Ernie has come up with an expanded, 12-inch version of the same material, and sent it along for us to enjoy. The title (A Holiday in Hi-Fi) and the cover are new, and the LP has four additional songs - "Night Flight to Madrid," "Jungle Flower," "Montana Round-Up" and "Bermuda Holiday."

Now let me liberally quote from my earlier post, since it provided a good introduction to Kermit and his music. 

As many musicians of the era did, Leslie had big band experience. The earliest mention of him (at least as found by me) was as an alto saxophonist in Alvino Rey's big band in 1940, under his birth name of Kermit Levinsky. The 20-year-old was already a composer, having produced Rey's opening theme "Blue Rey."

The liner notes for the LP say he stayed with Rey until joining the Army in 1941, spending the war arranging and conducting for broadcasts and shows. Postwar, he studied music formally and became a free-lance arranger, then joined the Tommy Dorsey staff in 1952.

Anne Phillips and Kermit Leslie

Apparently Leslie was often an uncredited "ghost" arranger, similar to other musicians who have appeared on this blog, such as George Siravo and Heinie Beau. In 1959 Leslie did the charts for a fine LP by singer Anne Phillips, who tells the story: "At the end of the song's first run-through, a beautiful thing happened. Every musician in the room put his instrument down and applauded - not for me but for Kermit. Some years later I learned that Kermit had been 'ghosting' for many arrangers for some time. I think this was his first session with his name on the work, and the musicians were overjoyed for him."

In the early 1960s, Time Records engaged Leslie for three LPs. He also did arrangements for albums by both Les and Larry Elgart, and for two of the once-ubiquitous Christmas records sponsored by Firestone. He also did much commercial work, and arranged Marvin Hamlisch's score for Woody Allen's second film, 1969's Take the Money and Run. Leslie's brother Walt, who generally used the family name Levinsky, himself worked on several of Woody's films, in addition to becoming a well-known reed player in big bands and studio orchestras. Kermit died in 1973, Walt in 1999.

Once again thanks to Ernie for bringing this enjoyable record to our attention for a second time and in expanded form. Please enjoy his excellent transfer!

LINK

Two Views of Chopin's First Concerto

Frédéric Chopin

A while back I observed that Frédéric Chopin wrote his two piano concertos 200 years ago and ever since critics have been complaining about the orchestrations - too thick, too dull, etc. And other composers and many conductors have gone about revising them. 

Today we'll listen to two versions of the composer's first concerto, one with the orchestrations as Chopin wrote them, and one with revised scoring by another notable composer, Mili Balakirev.

These performances are notable for other reasons as well, as will be explained in what follows.

The Pollini-Kletzki Recording

First up is a performance that makes use of the orchestrations as the composer wrote them, although I'm not smart enough to know whether conductor Paul Kletzki did or did not revise them a bit.

It is one of the great recordings of all time, in my estimation. The pianist is the 18-year-old Maurizio Pollini, fresh from his triumph at the 1960 International Chopin Competition. That's the one where Artur Rubinstein is said to have told the other judges that Pollini was better than any of them.

Maurizio Pollini at the Chopin Competition

Listening to this performance, it's easy to understand why. Pollini's skill and musicianship are astonishing. Here are a few comments from The Gramophone's Roger Fiske, all of which I agree with:

[Pollini] gives a spine-tingling performance of this magnificent music, and if you have not in the past thought it magnificent, listen to this performance and be converted.

Orchestral accompaniment and balance are worthy of the solo playing. I have never heard the opening given with such fire. The orchestra stays on its toes throughout, and Kletzki makes a splendid job of following every variation of tempo.

Thus the triumphant success of this record is a team effort, but the last word must be for the soloist. Directions like agitato, espressivo, and perhaps above all leggierissimo extract an instinctive response from him of a kind which very few pianists can parallel and which Chopin would surely have loved. I do not ever expect to hear the concerto played better.

Paul Kletzki

Pollini is so commanding that it might be ȧ surprise to learn that he was not secure about his playing. At the time, Charles Reid reported in High Fidelity the following drama in the recording studio:

Came the first playback. After a few bars Pollini put his head in his hands. "What's wrong ?" asked Kletzki. "Nothing much," said Pollini. "My playing is very bad, that's all." 

Kletzki clapped him on the back. "You've nothing to worry about," he tried to reassure him. "If that's bad playing, all I can say is that I've heard playing five times worse on many a successful first record."

Pollini refused to be persuaded. When the others went out for a meal he stayed on in the studio, sat down at the keyboard, and, frowning doggedly, began to play scales and arpeggios. The recording was finished in two and a half sessions. The master tape differed little from the playback which had provoked Pollini's despair. The young man's attitude at the end was one of stoical resignation. His EMI mentors were jubilant.

 There's more. In another report a few years later, Reid wrote:

In the autumn of the same year, Pollini came back to the Abbey Road studios here and recorded the Chopin études, which were scheduled for issue on two discs. Again he buried his head when he heard the tapes; again everybody else was congratulatory. But this time the young man was adamant as well as irreconcilable. He refused to approve the tapes, went home to Milan, and that was that.

The story goes on, which you can read in clippings in the download. Suffice to say that Pollini was always an idiosyncratic character. Also a brilliant pianist, which you can hear in a recording of Beethoven's Fourth Concerto from years later, which I shared following the pianist's death.

LINK to the Pollini-Kletzki recording

The Gulda-Boult Recording

This record is the one that started me thinking about this post. Until I came across it not long ago, I was unaware that a recording with a revised orchestration had ever been issued. In fact, on the record's packaging it's hard to even find any evidence that this is the Balakirev edition. A careful reading of the notes yields this statement, after the obligatory slam of the composer's "clumsy" orchestration: "This recording features the attractive, stylish arrangement penned by Balakirev." Rather like Chopin in a new frock.

Actually, this is a very fine record in its own right, with the fascinating Friedrich Gulda and the reliable Adrian Boult. And Balakirev's orchestrations are not as block-like as Chopin's, not that it makes a hell of a lot of difference. The interest is in the remarkable solo part.

Friedrich Gulda

In reviewing the 1954 performance in The Gramophone, Trevor Harvey, himself a conductor, did not seem aware that the orchestrations had been changed - or at least he did not mention the fact.

He did opine that, "It is a very sound performance, with a good deal of brilliance to it and some nicely sensitive singing tone too ... I think I can safely say, the best yet - and, indeed, most commendable."

Gulda was an exceptional character in his right. He had a side career as a jazz pianist, and an accomplished one at that. In that guise, he appeared on this blog many years ago via the 1956 LP Friedrich Gulda at Birdland, in the company of some noted jazz musicians - Phil Woods, Seldon Powell, Idrees Sulieman and Jimmy Cleveland. The pianist sounds as home in "A Night in Tunisia" as he does in Chopin. The Birdland LP has been newly remastered for this occasion.

LINK to the Gulda-Boult recording

Ad in High Fidelity, September 1956