American Music with Foldes and Winograd

Today's subject - as it often is around here - is mid-century American music. The sources are two albums that are not often seen. The first is an anthology of piano works by eight composers performed by an artist whom I did not associate with this repertoire - Andor Foldes. The second is the first recording of Aaron Copland's Music for Movies, coupled with a suite derived from three of Kurt Weill's American musicals, as conducted by Arthur Winograd on one of his many M-G-M LPs.

Andor Foldes Plays Contemporary American Music

I was surprised to discover this 1947 album of Andor Foldes (1913-92) playing American piano music. I associate his name with the music of his teacher Bartók and other stalwarts of the European canon. He was, however, a naturalized American citizen, having emigrated here in the 1930s, remaining until he returned to Europe in 1960 for professional reasons.

Foldes' 1941 debut in New York was devoted to Bach-Busoni, Beethoven, Schumann, Liszt, Bartók and Kodaly, but by the time of his 1947 Town Hall program, he had added works by the Roy Harris, Virgil Thomson and Paul Bowles to the mix, likely the items on this Vox album.

In addition to the three Americans, the Vox collection includes short works by Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Roger Sessions, Walter Piston and William Schuman. These were among the first recordings of these compositions.

The album was also among the first from the now-venerable American Vox label. (There had been a German Vox earlier in the century.) The US company started up in 1945, and made this recording the following year, per A Classical Discography. The resulting set apparently did not come out until 1947, when it was reviewed late in the year both in the New York Times and Saturday Review. Both brief notices are in the download, along with reviews of Foldes' 1941 and 1947 recitals.

Andor Foldes

The album reviews were good; the recital notices were mixed. Foldes was praised for his accuracy, but at least in 1941, the recital reviewer found his sound hard and his playing loud. By 1947, this had moderated into the notion that his secco tone was well suited to the contemporary repertoire, borne out by these recordings.

Copland - Music for Movies; Weill - Music for the Stage

Conductor Arthur Winograd (1920-2010), once the cellist of the Juilliard String Quartet, made any number of recordings for the M-G-M label in the 1950s, when it was active in the classical realm. Quite a good conductor, Winograd these days is remembered primarily for his long tenure as the head of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra.

This particular recording dates from 1956 and was made with the "M-G-M Chamber Orchestra," probably a New York studio group. The LP combines two appealing scores, one prepared by the composer, the second by other hands following the composer's death.

Aaron Copland's Music for Movies, which comes from 1942, assembles themes he wrote for The City, Of Mice and Men and Our Town. The best - and best known - are "New England Countryside" from The City and "Grovers Corners" from Our Town. I believe this was the first recording of this suite in orchestral form, although "Grovers Corners" had been recorded on piano twice - including by Andor Foldes in the album above, under the name "Story of Our Town." The other recording, by Leo Smit, is available on this blog in a remastered version. It is from a 1946-47 Concert Hall Society album Smit shared with Copland himself.

Arthur Winograd at work

Kurt Weill's Music for the Stage was arranged for this recording by M-G-M recording director Edward Cole and composer Marga Richter, whose own music has appeared here. The arrangers followed Weill's own procedure, utilized in Kleine Dreigroschenmusik, of employing the theater arrangements while substituting a solo instrument for any vocal lines. It works seamlessly for this suite assembled from lesser-known (to me, anyway) items from Johnny Johnson (three pieces), Lost in the Stars and Lady in the Dark (one each).

Contemporary reviewer Alfred Frankenstein pronounced the Copland suite to be effective and the Weill "trash," strange considering that the latter composer influenced the former. Reviewers were more to the point back then, and held (or at least expressed) stronger opinions.

Frankenstein also opined that the "recording and performance are of the best." I can agree with the latter judgment, but the recording is another matter. It was close and harsh, so I have added a small amount of reverberation to moderate those qualities. [Note (July 2023): these files have now been remastered in ambient stereo.]

By the way, Winograd had almost no conducting experience when he began recording for M-G-M. Edward Cole had turned up at a Juilliard concert that Winograd conducted, was impressed, and offered him a recording session. This anecdote is contained in an interview with the conductor included in the download. Also on this blog, Winograd can be heard conducting music by Paul Bowles.

Both these recordings were cleaned up from lossless needle drops found on Internet Archive.

LINK

The Two 'Down in the Valley' Recordings

One of the first posts on this site was the Decca recording of one of Kurt Weill's last compositions, the 1948 folk opera Down in the Valley. But that was only one of two recordings of the work made in 1950. RCA Victor came out with a competing version that year.

Today's post includes the music from both 10-inch LPs: the Decca in a remastered version taken from the original album, and the RCA in a new transfer from a 1964 reissue. The latter combined Down in the Valley with another Weill work, the musical Lady in the Dark, which I featured several weeks ago.

The genesis of Down in the Valley 

Down in the Valley is a brief (45-minute) work built on several folk songs and designed for college and community forces. Weill and librettist Arnold Sundgaard had developed it in 1945 as a radio opera, but that production was shelved. In 1948, Hans Busch of the the Indiana University music school asked Weill if he could supply a work for his opera workshop. Weill was happy to comply - Busch was the son of his old friend and colleague, the conductor Fritz Busch - so he and Sundgaard reworked and expanded Down in the Valley for Indiana's use.

The opera was an immediate success with the public. The July 1948 production on the Bloomington, Indiana campus led to another a few weeks later in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan. The latter was broadcast, leading to dozens of college and amateur productions in the next few years.

The producers of television's nascent NBC Opera Theatre took notice. The NBC troupe had begun its 15-year history in 1949 with a staging of Menotti's The Old Maid and the Thief, commissioned by NBC radio in 1939. The Weill work became the TV Opera Theatre's second production, and was telecast on January 14, 1950. As far as I can tell, a kinescope does not survive.

Kurt Weill and Marion Bell in Bloomington

Conducting the televised opera was Peter Herman Adler, who was artistic director of the NBC Opera Theatre throughout its existence. The leading role of Jennie was taken by Marion Bell, who had been in the Bloomington production and previously was one of the leads in the original cast of Brigadoon. The male leads were William McGraw as Brack and Ray Jacquemot as the villain Bouché. Neither performer had illustrious careers, but both are excellent in the recording.

The competing LPs

Jane Wilson in 1946

RCA Victor was quick to capitalize on the interest Down in the Valley had excited, taking the television cast into the recording studio 11 days after the broadcast

Meanwhile, Decca took notice of the opera's popularity, and thought it might be a match for its newly acquired vocal star, Alfred Drake, who had appeared on Broadway several years before in the folk-based revue, Swing Out, Sweet Land. Decca had him record the work in April 1950. Taking the role of Jennie was Jane Wilson, who had risen to prominence on the radio with Fred Waring's troupe. The conductor was Maurice Levine, whom Weill had engaged to conduct Lost in the Stars on Broadway the year before.

Curiously, Weill stamped his imprimatur on the studio version rather than RCA's recording of the television production. He had supervised the Decca production until his death just three weeks before the recording session.

The two 1950 recordings of Down in the Valley were issued simultaneously, with both reviewed in the July 22 issue of Billboard. The critic there preferred the Decca version, but I vote for the RCA, which seems more settled, probably because it was based on an actual production. The sound on both is just fine.

The opera

As a work of theatre, Down in the Valley was more popular with audiences than certain critics, who disliked both the book and the music. They complained that Weill stitched the folk songs together with music better suited to Puccini than small-town Americans, and they felt that Sundgaard's story was pat and unrealistic. But neither Sundgaard nor Weill were aiming for verisimilitude.

Arnold Sundgaard

The story is a simple good guy vs. bad guy one, with a girl as the object of their dispute. Sundgaard, a veteran of the Federal Theatre Project, put an anti-capitalist spin on the plot by having the villain Bouché hold a lien on the family home. So the girl's father is eager to match her with him rather than her preferred suitor, Brack, even though the plot makes it clear that Bouché is no good. Poor Brack kills Bouché in self-defense, is sentenced to death, then escapes and spends his final moments of freedom with the girl, Jennie.

If that seems like a stock story line, it was meant to be. Sundgaard wrote, "Its unfolding as a tragic romance was intended to follow in extended form the shape and progression of a traditional ballad." A talented librettist and lyricist, Sundgaard worked with Douglas Moore, Alec Wilder and John Latouche in addition to Weill.

Score with Grandma Moses cover

The composer was proud of the opera, and just as proud of its success. He wrote his parents, "The critic from the [New York] Times is comparing my opera with the original Beggar's Opera, which was the source of English opera, and says that Down in the Valley will go down in history as the 'fountain head' of American opera."

Weill died thinking that he had reached a new peak in his career. Today we remember him much more for his German works and his American musicals than for Down in the Valley, which is considered a period piece - Weill's contribution to the then-popular strain of Americana.

I imagine the work is still performed today occasionally, but its popularity certainly has dimmed since these recordings were made. After the two competing LPs, to my knowledge only one recording has followed - a 1991 version from the German label Capriccio, which has issued all Weill's operas.

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'Lady in the Dark' - the 1941 Recordings and More

The 1941 Broadway musical Lady in the Dark is almost never revived today (although it had a short run at New York City Center last month). The show deserves to be much better remembered for its innovations and its remarkable score by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin.

Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin

Why isn't it revived? First, Moss Hart's book is very dated. Its protagonist, Liza Elliott, is the unhappy editor of a fashion magazine, a hard-edged character that is a cliche even today (cf., The Devil Wears Prada). She needs the love of a man (and some quick psychoanalysis) to reveal her inner femininity and make her happy.

"Zolotaryov, Kvoschinsky,
Sokolov, Kopylov ..."

Second, it requires two virtuoso performers. Hart tailored the Liza Elliott part for the magnetic Gertrude Lawrence, and not many actors can measure up to her. And he gave the equally gifted Danny Kaye his big break by casting him as photographer Russell Paxton, whose rapid-fire delineation of Russian composers, "Tschaikowsky (and Other Russians)," stopped the show.

Finally, the show contains what amounts to three mini-operas in its dream scenes, all requiring elaborate staging that must have stunned Broadway patrons.

The original production was very successful on Broadway, running for 467 performances, then another 83 in a 1943 revival. Those were the years before Broadway cast recordings were common, though, so the recorded legacy of the original production is spotty. What exists are 10 solo recordings by the two leads for two different companies. Today's post brings them together in one place, with a few bonus items.

Recordings by Lawrence and Kaye

Four days before the February 27, 1941 opening, Victor invited Lawrence into its studios to record six numbers, which it issued in an album (cover shown at top). She sang all six songs in the stage production: "Glamour Music," "One Life to Live," "This Is New," "The Princess of Pure Delight," "The Saga of Jenny" and "My Ship."

From Vogue magazine

The record company tossed out the Weill orchestrations, substituting new ones by Sydney Green, who worked regularly with the conductor it chose, Leonard Joy. The arrangements do retain some semblance of the dramatic setting; for example, "This Is New" is introduced by a snatch of dialogue involving the character of Randy Curtis.

Shortly after the opening, one of Victor's competitors, Columbia, engaged Danny Kaye to record four songs - his showpiece "Tschaikowsky" along with "Jenny," "The Princess of Pure Delight" and "My Ship," which he did not sing in the show. Again, some element of the staging is retained, at least in "Tschaikowsky."

Bonus singles

The young Cy Walter

To these 10 singles I've added a medley of "My Ship," "This Is New" and "Jenny" recorded by pianist Cy Walter for the Liberty Music Shop label at the time of the production. The young Walter even then was a fixture in the best nightspots, and it is certainly possible that he regaled Lawrence or Kaye with the medley if they happened to stop in after the show. He surely played it for many theatergoers fresh from the Alvin Theatre.

The final item in the package is Lawrence's 1950 re-recording of "Jenny," made for Decca. At that time, she was at a high point in her career, starring in The King and I on Broadway. She died in 1952 at age 54.

Two versions that are more complete

As may be apparent from what I've written above, the historical recordings do not provide a complete picture of Lady in the Dark. Nor does the 1944 film version - for one thing, it tosses out most of the score and is missing Lawrence and Kaye. (To hear two pieces of music that were written for the film, please see a companion post on Buster's Swinging Singles.)

Fortunately, two friends of the blog have contributed additional material that should be helpful to those of you with an interest in the show. First, Alan Gomberg has provided a complete recording of the score (if not all the dialogue) as presented by the BBC in 1988. Conducted by John Mauceri, it has the excellent Patricia Hodge as Liza Elliott. This radio production demonstrates the scope and stature of the music composed by Weill and Gershwin. The download includes Alan's notes on the recording.

Also, reader David has provided a one-hour radio version of the play as presented by the Theatre Guild on the Air in 1947. It presents a much fuller portrait of Lawrence in the part than do the 1941 records - and frankly she is in better voice than she was six years earlier.

Both of these recordings are from lossy originals, but I have remastered them and they sound just fine. They are presented in separate links in the comment section for a limited time. My thanks to Alan and David for their help!

Documenting the staging

From the Glamour Dream

The Wedding Dream

Finally, the download of the 1941 recordings also includes dozens of photos from the original production, which will help demonstrate the elaborate staging by Hassard Short during the dream sequences and the costumes by Irene Sharaff. (The Glamour and Wedding Dreams are above; the Circus Dream is below.)

I transferred the Kaye and Lawrence records from a 1963 RCA LP reissue, but in the end decided to use my remastering of the 78s found on Internet Archive. The resulting sound is as good as the LP, and I like to use the originals where possible.

The Circus Dream

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Felicia Sanders Sings Kurt Weill

I am belatedly filling a request from some time ago with this fine recording from Felicia Sanders, performing the songs of Kurt Weill.

This is an exceptionally good record, with Sanders is excellent voice and in total sympathy with the material. The opposite of the cool singers then in vogue (although she may have picked up a trick or two from Chris Connor), her intense approach is much more along the lines of Judy Garland.

Felicia Sanders

The repertoire is drawn from Weill's American works, starting with 1935's Johnny Johnson. (Side note: the jacket doesn't mention it, but the lyrics for that play were by Paul Green.) "Mon Ami, My Friend" from Johnny Johnson is the closest in its sound world to Weill's German works. The liner notes aver that Sanders is evoking the music hall singers of Weimar Germany in her approach, but I also think she may be paying homage to her idol, Edith Piaf, and perhaps Lotte Lenya, who had recorded the song for the musical's 1955 studio cast.

Sanders' husband, Irving Joseph, authored the excellent arrangements, which stay away from the Die Dreigroschenoper sound for the most part, except for "Mon Ami, My Friend."

Original cover

The Time label marketed this LP in 1960 with a cover mimicking the minimalist style that Josef Albers had developed for Command records. My copy is from the Mainstream reissue of a few years later, which had a more appropriate cover. Unfortunately my pressing is mono, although the sound is well balanced and pleasing.

Felicia Sanders first came to public notice in 1953, with her vocal on Percy Faith's hit recording of "The Song from Moulin Rouge." She went on to be a popular cabaret singer at The Blue Angel and other New York boîtes. She died of cancer at a relatively early age.

Weill's Down in the Valley with Alfred Drake

Here is one of Kurt Weill's less well-known efforts. It was one of his last compositions, and he was preparing to supervise this 1950 recording when he died.

Despite this being a 10-inch record, it contains the complete "ballad opera," which lasted only about 45 minutes. Weill intended it for performance by amateurs. Nonetheless, the lead in this version is Alfred Drake, hardly an beginner. It's a superb performance. All the more odd, then, that this version is not in print and may never have been reissued since its initial publication. However, a rival recording from RCA Victor has been out at least twice. It too is in my collection, but although I haven't heard it for some years, I don't think it is better than this one.

The story involves an evil, rapacious capitalist who is killed in self-defense by Drake's man of the people, who then is sent off to meet his fate at the hands of the state. A period piece that makes liberal use of familiar tunes like "Down in the Valley."

The basic sound here is pretty good, but my pressing must have been owned by either a Weill lover or a stalwart of the Old Left. It was beaten down as Drake's proletariat character. But my remastering has it sounding pretty good.

Note: I have now combined both the Decca and RCA recordings in one updated post.