The conductor Efrem Kurtz had a productive relationship with the New York Philharmonic throughout the 1940s, leading pops concerts at Lewisohn Stadium and recording principally light material with the ensemble.
Today we have two LPs worth of the studio results - enjoyable readings of Kabalevsky's The Comedians and of the ballet suite Mlle. Angot, based on a Lecocq opera, plus a new transfer of the ballet suite Les Sylphides from Chopin's music along with Villa-Lobos' tone poem Uirapurú. (The latter album appeared here several years ago.)
Kabalevsky's The Comedians
It's helpful to remember that context, for the score is often castigated for being simplistic.Here, for example, is The Gramophone's verdict:
[I]t is bright, extrovert, rather crude music, with plenty of obvious rhythmic foundation ... I can only shake my head sadly at the results of making composers write according to the presumed taste of the masses. From his other works we know Kabalevsky to be a highly talented composer, with something worthwhile to say and an attractive way of saying it; this Suite, for all its superficial attraction, does nothing more than tickle the ears of the groundlings.
The writer did allow that it isn't as vulgar as Khatchaturian's Gayane - if you want to see for yourself, Kurtz also recorded that suite, and it has appeared here along with renditions from Fabien Sevitzky, Nikolai Golovanov and Artur Rodziński. There's also a separate post where Gayane's "Sabre Dance" is taken on by everyone from the Andrews Sisters to Mickey Katz.
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| Dmitry Kabalevsky |
Kabalevsky himself had a similar "hit" in the "Galop" from The Comedians. This first entered my consciousness as a youngster watching the Ed Sullivan variety show on television. Ed had a penchant for jugglers and similar vaudeville acts, who would often be accompanied by the Galop. It also was used as theme music by some programs.
Lecocq - Mlle. Angot Suite
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| Charles Lecocq |
The Comedians recording dates from 1947; the same recording date in Carnegie Hall produced a ballet suite called Mlle. Angot, taken from music from an comic opera by the 19th century French composer Charles Lecocq (1832-1918).
Lecocq is little remembered this days, but back then he was a composer who rivalled Jacques Offenbach in popularity. His La Fille de Madame Angot was quite a success after its 1872 debut. In the early 1940s, Léonide Massine decided to base a ballet on the piece. Mlle. Angot premiered in New York in 1943, with the music chosen by Kurtz and arranged by Richard Mohaupt. A suite from that music is what is on this LP.
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| Margot Fonteyn as Mam'zelle Angot in the 1947 production |
Massine decided to redo the ballet for a 1947 production in London. That version was called Mam'zelle Angot and had new arrangements by Gordon Jacob. (That second version is available on the blog in a 1956 recording led by Robert Irving. There, it is coupled with music from Glazunov that Irving arranged for the ballet Birthday Offering. This good early stereo disc is newly remastered.)
LINK to The Comedians and Mlle. Angot
Chopin - Les Sylphides
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Frédéric Chopin wrote very little orchestral music, confining himself to a handful of concerted works for piano in his relative youth. Since then, we have had 200 years of critics deriding his orchestrations. I for one love those works and much prefer them to latter-day orchestrations of his piano works - which of course is what we have here with the ballet score for Les Sylphides.
The ballet was the inspiration of Michel Fokine, who himself had been inspired by Alexander Glazunov's orchestral suite Chopiniana, based on Chopin's piano works. A ballet with that title appeared in 1909. For his ballet, Fokine convinced Glazunov to add a Waltz to his selections; the choreographer then decided to include more numbers that were orchestrated by Maurice Keller.
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| From the first London performance, 1911 |
In 1909, Diaghilev produced a new version called Les Sylphides in Paris, throwing out all the 1907 charts with the exception of Glazunov's waltz arrangement, adding new arrangements by Anatoly Lyadov, Sergei Taneyev, Nikolai Tcherepnin and Igor Stravinsky.
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| Alexander Gretchaninov |
The New Records liked this Kurtz LP: "A really fine recording with modern reproduction of Les Sylphides is a welcome item, and should enjoy a healthy sale... The ballet is an enchanting bit of romantic fluff danced to some of Chopin's most familiar music, lushly orchestrated."
Villa-Lobos - Uirapurú
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| Heitor Villa-Lobos |
If you search long and hard on the Les Sylphides cover above, you will see that the LP also includes the tone poem Uirapurú by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. It was recorded on the same day in 1949 as the Chopin ballet. Kurtz must have thought intensively about what music would be least likely to be companionable with the Chopin. He apparently dismissed the idea of Ives or Varèse and hit upon the notion of switching locales from the Parisian salons to the Brazilian jungles.
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| An uirapurú - the "king of love"? |
I much enjoy Uirapurú - it's like early Stravinsky in Brazil. But let me give you the overheated view of The New Records:
Uirapurú, composed in 1917, tells the story of the legendary enchanted bird, Uirapurú, whom the Indians of Brazil considered the "King of Love." A beautiful Indian maiden shoots him through the heart with a bow and arrow, transforming him into a handsome youth. Later an ugly old Indian, playing a nose flute, who had previously been beaten by the natives, returns and shoots the youth, who turns again into the beautiful bird which flies away singing its haunting song. This symphonic poem employs a number of native percussion instruments. It marvelously recreates the feeling of a magical Brazilian jungle with its bizarre colors, its impenetrable mystery and its savage poetry.
In other words, this was considered to be prime exotica 75 years ago - "bizarre," "impenetrable" and "savage." Leaving this nonsense aside, it is hugely enjoyable and I recommend it to you as an elixir after the weak tea of Chopin orchestrations.
LINK to Les Sylphides and Uirapurú
