Constant Lambert and Brian Easdale

I'm planning to present a series of posts devoted to the 20th century English composer-conductor Constant Lambert, starting with this 10-inch LP that couples scenes from his Horoscope ballet with music from The Red Shoes composed by Brian Easdale.

Lambert was a talented man, skilled at both writing and performing music. He wrote the music for Horoscope in 1937 for a production at the Vic-Wells Ballet choreographed by Frederick Ashton. It is thought that the scenario in some ways paralleled his relationship with dancer Margot Fonteyn, who assumed one of the leading roles.

Michael Somes and Margot
Fonteyn in Horoscope

Lambert was then only 32, but he had already written most of the music he would finish in his brief life, which ended in 1951, two years after these recording sessions.

This LP contains just two of the nine surviving sections of the ballet music: the gorgeous, Ravelian "Saraband for the Followers of Virgo" and a Bacchanale slightly reminiscent of another astrological work, Holst's The Planets.

Lambert actually recorded five of the ballet's scenes - three with the Liverpool Philharmonic in 1945 and these two with the Philharmonia in 1949. The Liverpool sessions are not represented on this LP, but I have included them in the download as a bonus. (Not my transfer, although I did clean up the sound.)

Constant Lambert

Lambert was also a witty critic, notably in his 1934 book Music, Ho!, which contains the oft-cited assessment, "The whole trouble with a folk song is that once you have played it through there is nothing much you can do except play it over again and play it rather louder." I've included the book in the download, courtesy of Project Gutenberg Canada.

Brian Easdale

I don't mean to slight the other work on this record, which combines Brian Easdale's prelude and ballet music from the remarkable 1948 Powell-Pressburger film, The Red Shoes. This is far and away the composer's best known work, although it does not match the quality of Lambert's score. Easdale had a long and fruitful working arrangement with Powell and Pressburger, scoring seven of their films. He won an Academy Award for this music.

This record is not the original soundtrack, which was conducted by Easdale and, in the ballet, Sir Thomas Beecham. It is a version done in 1949 by film music specialist Muir Mathieson and the Philharmonia.

Both recording sessions were held in Abbey Road Studio No. 1, and both resulted in superb sound. The English Columbia ad below suggests that the company thought that both the Lambert and Easdale 78 sets would make dandy Christmas presents in 1949, and I might have liked to receive them myself, had I not been nine months old and more inclined to the likes of "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo."

Click to enlarge