Leroy Anderson - The Complete 1950-54 Recordings, Part 2

This is the second part of a two-part series devoted to Leroy Anderson (1908-75), America's leading composer of light orchestral music. The first entry covered the 17 songs set down in 1950-51. This post encompasses an additional 18 sides dating from 1952-54.

Together they comprise all Anderson's own mono recordings for the American Decca label, up to but not including his Christmas Carols LP of 1955. These all have been remastered from discs from my collection with a few from Internet Archive. The sound is generally excellent.

A Christmas Festival

Today's program starts off with a belated but hopefully not unwelcome Christmas arrangement that Anderson made for the Boston Pops and Arthur Fiedler in 1950, and which they did for RCA Victor that year. Anderson then recorded A Christmas Festival himself in October 1952. 

The cover above may look like an LP, but it was a picture sleeve for the two-sided 78 edition of the recording, which lasts for nine minutes. It includes arrangements of eight popular carols, plus "Jingle Bells" For publication, Anderson also prepared a shorter version of the suite, leaving out "The First Noel."

As with the first set of recordings, these all were made with a New York studio orchestra. The records are attributed to "Leroy Anderson and His 'Pops' Concert Orchestra."

Irish Suite

Anderson's delightful Irish Suite was commissioned by the Eire Society of Boston for a 1947 performance by the Boston Pops. The suite originally had four movements: "The Irish Washerwoman," "The Minstrel Boy," "The Last Rose of Summer" and "The Rakes of Mallow." At that point it was called the Eire Suite.

Two years later Anderson arranged a few more tunes - which the Pops also premiered - and changed the title to the Irish Suite. The new items were "The Wearing of the Green" and "The Girl I Left Behind Me."

Anderson recorded the suite during the same October 1952 session that yielded A Christmas Festival. Decca issued it on a 10-inch LP that has appeared before on this blog. I've included a newly remastered version herein to make this set complete.

Unlike most of his works that were originally recorded in mono, the Irish Suite was never re-recorded in stereo. 

A Leroy Anderson "Pops" Concert

The balance of the songs in this set were taken from the 1954 12-inch LP A Leroy Anderson "Pops" Concert, although most if not all of them also appeared on singles. The album repeats two items from the Irish Suite, but otherwise represents new material for purposes of this collection.

First is "The Girl in Satin," a tango like "Blue Tango," but unlike it in that it did not achieve such renown. Anderson himself was puzzled: "I do not have any clue why the audience likes it ('Blue Tango') so much better than my other tango, 'The Girl in Satin,' which in my opinion is as beautiful."

Leroy Anderson conducts

"Song of the Bells" is a waltz with - you guessed it - an important part for bells, actually orchestral chimes. As with most Anderson compositions, this piece has a delightful contrasting B section, with much engaging orchestral detail.

Anderson completed the same September 1953 session with one of his greatest hits, "The Typewriter," which remains popular although the typewriter itself  has disappeared into the mists of technological history. The piece is amazingly clever, with the typewriter itself used as a percussion instrument - not just the clacking of the keys but the end-of-line bell and the sound of the carriage return. The composer also finds a place for his favored pizzicato effects.

Steef van Oosterhout solos on the Remington typewriter
with the Iceland Symphony

The composer's Scottish Suite had four movements, two of which he recorded and which are in this album: "Turn Ye to Me" and "The Bluebells of Scotland." Anderson was dissatisfied with the other two movements and never recorded or published them. He also withdrew "Turn Ye to Me" in 1956 and the score and parts were lost. However, his estate allowed the movement to be reconstructed and the entire suite published. Leonard Slatkin and the BBC Concert Orchestra recorded it in 2007.

It's difficult to understand his reservations about "Turn Ye to Me," which is perfectly lovely. Perhaps he was not satisfied with the orchestration or thought the piece too lugubrious. "Bluebells" is spritely, and makes a good contrast.

Recorded on the same June day in 1954 as "Turn Ye to Me," "Bugler's Holiday" could not be much more of a contrast. It is brilliant, witty and still very popular. Unusually, the three soloists are credited: Robert Cusomano, Carl Poole and Melvin Solomon. All had big band experience - Cusomano with Tommy Dorsey, Poole with Goodman and Solomon with Tommy's brother Jimmy.

"Bugler's Holiday" - Jennifer Marotta, Jeffrey Strong and Thomas Hooten
solo with the US Marine Band

After the workout of "Bugler's Holiday," Anderson reverted to a reflective style with "Summer Skies," an appealing instrumental that is very much in the easy listening mode.

Also in that June session was "Forgotten Dreams," one of the composer's most successful ballads, with a simple but haunting theme presented first by piano and then taken up by the strings. Anderson himself commented: "'Forgotten Dreams' is a nostalgic piece whose title leaves the listener free to summon up his own recollections from the past." It lent itself to one of Mitchell Parish's best (although almost unknown) lyrics, sensitively done by Ed Ames on his 1965 album My Kind of Songs, a performance you can hear on my other blog.

Anderson's "Sandpaper Ballet" was another work that he wrote on deadline for a second June 1954 recording session. Again, it's memorable for a number of reasons. First, the piece is very much an homage to the simple tunes that would accompany soft-shoe dancers on the vaudeville stage, who would sprinkle sand on the stage so their "soft shoe" routines could be heard. Anderson's arrangement is complete with stop-time effects that accentuated the sandpaper effects.

Mark Morris' "Sandpaper Ballet" -
the Dutch National Ballet

The piece is also unique for using three percussionists with different grades of sandpaper as the soloists. As with "The Typewriter" and other Anderson works, this provided a visual element that was highly effective in concert. Despite the title Anderson did not write the "Sandpaper Ballet" as a ballet score - but it was adapted as such by Mark Morris much later.

Our Anderson program concludes with one of his most evocative compositions, "The First Day of Spring," which conveys the joy and hope the renewal of the seasons brings.

LINK to Complete 1950-54 Recordings, Part 2

More Leroy Anderson

Throughout this two-part series I've mentioned Anderson's collaborations with lyricist Mitchell Parish and conductor Arthur Fiedler of the Boston Pops. I've documented these associations in the following posts:

Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Play Leroy Anderson Favorites. This 10-inch LP includes eight Anderson selections, to which I've newly added six more, including two items that do not feature in the collections I've just posted - "Chicken Reel" and "Classical Jukebox," the latter of which is a favorite of mine. In ambient stereo.

Musical Comedy Medleys. Medleys from Broadway hits as arranged by Anderson and performed by the Boston Pops: Richard Rodgers' South Pacific, Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun, Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate, and Frederick Loewe's Brigadoon. Newly remastered in ambient stereo.

Curtain Going Up. This 1957 LP repeats two of the Anderson arrangements from the Musical Comedy Medleys album above, and adds an Anderson medley from Richard Rodgers' Carousel, along with a few more by other composers. Now remastered in ambient stereo.

The Vocal Side of Leroy Anderson. In connection with this series, I corralled examples of six of the seven Anderson songs with Mitchell Parish lyrics. The resulting post on my other blog includes "The Syncopated Clock" (Eileen Barton), "Serenata" (Mary Mayo), "The Waltzing Cat" (Florian ZaBach), "Blue Tango" (Vico Torriani) and "Forgotten Dreams" (Ed Ames, as noted above). Also a link to Johnny Desmond's "Sleigh Ride," which I posted during the Christmas season.

Leroy Anderson - The Complete 1950-54 Recordings, Part 1

Leroy Anderson's career as a composer began almost by chance. He was studying at Harvard for a Ph.D. while conducting the Harvard Band. Impressed by Anderson's arrangements, the manager of the Boston Symphony asked him to arrange a selection of school songs for Harvard night at the Boston Pops. Conductor Arthur Fiedler then invited Anderson to contribute pieces for the Pops repertoire.

Anderson (1908-75) was happy to oblige and the Pops duly premiered his "Jazz Pizzicato" in 1938. The next year, Fiedler recorded that piece in company with another short work, "Jazz Legato," that Anderson wrote to fill out the 78 side. Both showed his considerable gifts for melody and orchestration, along with an interest in novel sounds that would serve him well later on.

Thus began the long association of composer, conductor and orchestra. In this post and its successor, however, we will present not the Boston Pops records, but Anderson's own recordings for American Decca from 1950-54. Today's entry will cover the 17 songs set down in 1950-51. The second post will encompass an additional 18 sides dating from 1952-54.

In toto, we'll examine all his mono recordings, up to but not including his Christmas Carols LP of 1955, all remastered from discs from my collection and Internet Archive, with generally excellent sound. Together, I hope these two posts are a fitting tribute to America's leading exponent of light orchestral music.

Leroy Anderson Conducts His Own Compositions

Anderson's recording career began on September 11, 1950 in a New York studio with a free-lance recording group called "His 'Pops' Concert Orchestra." Anderson programmed eight of his works for this album, with its slightly redundant title Leroy Anderson Conducts His Own Compositions.

Perhaps inevitably, the first selection was "Sleigh Ride," at the time the composer's greatest success, and even today his most recognized work. The first recording of "Sleigh Ride" had been by the Boston Pops in 1949. By the time Anderson gave the downbeat in the Decca studio, lyricist Mitchell Parish had composed the familiar lyrics we often hear today, and the Andrews Sisters had recorded them for Decca. but the composer's effort - and all the recordings we will hear - are instrumentals. (Johnny Desmond's vocal version of "Sleigh Ride" is here.)

Anderson's reading of his work is similar to Fiedler's energetic outing, although the whip effects are less pronounced, and, if anything, the concluding whinny is even more horsey.

Anderson brandishes the bells and orchestral whip heard in 'Sleigh Ride'

The flip side of "Sleigh Ride" was "Promenade," which features a staccato muted trumpet, but nonetheless is a depiction of a stroll in the park, per the publisher. Written in 1945, it was another Boston Pops premiere.

Next up was another famous work, "The Syncopated Clock." Here, Anderson was racing Fiedler to market, the Boston maestro having recorded it in June of 1950, a few months before the composer.

Anderson had written the work while he was in the Army, conducting it in uniform with the Boston Pops in 1945. It shows his genius for wittily incorporating mundane sounds that everyone (at least then) would recognize. Here, too, Parish came up with some lyrics, and the result was recorded by Rosemary Clooney and Eileen Barton. The latter can be heard on my other blog, along with all of the Parish's vocal versions save "Belle of the Ball," which has never been recorded, to my knowledge. (Correction: my knowledge was incomplete. JAC tells me that William Dazeley and Kim Criswell recorded it for the Anderson collection conducted by Leonard Slatkin for Naxos.)

The obverse of "The Syncopated Clock" was another famous item, "The Waltzing Cat," which has the violins providing the unmistakable "meows." Even if you don't know the title, you may recognize the music. Parish wrote lyrics for the piece, and a vocal version unexpectedly came from violinist Florian ZaBach.

Next up was "Serenata," which has no programmatic content, in common with most of Anderson's output. He explained, "[M]ost of the pieces I've written have been melodic, because I happen to like melodic music, and I'm very glad that Arthur Fiedler's favorite piece, he told me, happens to be 'Serenata,' which is a serenade." The B section of this composition is simply gorgeous, and was often heard in the 1950s. Parish wrote lyrics for "Serenata" that have been recorded by Sarah Vaughan, Nat Cole and Mary Mayo.

The discmate for "Serenata" was in another dance form, the ancient "Saraband." Here, Anderson explains, "I have kept the slow triple rhythm of the classical saraband in the melody but the underlying rhythm has been doubled in tempo to produce the effect of the modern foxtrot. In the middle section, however, the slow triple rhythm is heard alone for a while, like an echo of the past."

Anderson wrote "A Trumpeter's Lullaby" for Roger Voisin of the Boston Symphony. "The melody is based on bugle call notes and rhythmical figures which are idiomatic to the trumpet," Anderson said, "but the mood is nevertheless one of a lullaby due to the relaxed playing of the soloist and the quiet background in the orchestra." The military bugle call associations may have had emotional overtones for Anderson and many members of the audience. The first recording was in Boston, followed a few months later by the composer and his New York crew.

Completing the album were the two brief "jazz" pieces - "Jazz Pizzicato" and "Jazz Legato" - that had begun the composer's career.

Leroy Anderson Conducts His Own Compositions, Vol. 2

Decca invited Anderson and the New York musicians back for a session on June 29, 1951 to produce Vol. 2 of the composer conducting his works. The lead-off track was another blockbuster, and another pizzicato specialty, onomatopoeically called "Plink, Plank, Plunk!" Older readers may recall "Plink, Plank, Plunk!" as the theme for the long-running TV game show, I've Got a Secret.

Anderson had finished the piece only a short time before the recording session. "I was going to record the second album, I had two or three weeks to go and there was an eighth side yet to be done," he recalled. But the final composition came to him easily, which was not true of another piece on the album, "Fiddle-Faddle," for which he had discarded three earlier versions.

The exhilarating waltz "Belle of the Ball" is another personal favorite. In his book Harvard Composers, Howard Pollack writes that Anderson's music had taken a turn from the "sly irreverence" of his earliest works to a period that was "more romantic and nostalgic with its 'Belle of the Ball,' 'Horse and Buggy,' 'Summer Skies' and 'Forgotten Dreams'."

We'll get to "Horse and Buggy" in a moment, and the other two items in Part 2 of this series. First, let's discuss what was perhaps Anderson's biggest chart success, "Blue Tango." As a single, it was coupled with "Belle of the Ball," which the composer thought would be the bigger hit. But it was "Blue Tango" that reached the top of the charts. Hugo Winterhalter and Les Baxter also had popular versions, and Mitchell Parish penned lyrics for the piece and "Belle of the Ball." (Vico Torriani's "Blue Tango" vocal version is here - in German.)

Instrumental maestros of the day:
Hugo Winterhalter, Leroy Anderson, Percy Faith

In "Horse and Buggy," the composer returned to the equine theme that had been so popular with "Sleigh Ride." This new piece is highly attractive, with the usual memorable Anderson melody line and the "clip-clop" sound effects provided by temple blocks.

Anderson's thoughts on the next selection, "The Phantom Regiment": "[T]he main idea was to depict a group approaching from the distance and then receding. This is an effective musical device; the best known example is probably the 'March of the Pilgrims' from Berlioz' Harold in Italy. I also used this device in "The Minstrel Boy," one of the numbers in the Irish Suite." The Irish Suite will be included in Part 2 of this series.

"China Doll" has a mild amount of chinoiserie in the musical mix, but the weeping effects at the end of the piece suggest that the composer primarily wanted to depict a doll made of china. Either way, it's a beguiling piece of music.

In his workshop

As you might expect, in "The Penny-Whistle Song," Anderson uses the flutes to suggest the the humble tin whistle, also called the "penny whistle" because that's what one cost in the 19th century. The work is an example of the composer penchant for nostalgia.

"Fiddle-Faddle," based on "Three Blind Mice," is one of the composer's most popular works. It features the violins, of course, again making use of pizzicato effects. Anderson's arrangement has some big-band overtones, with the brass and strings facing off against one another. Fiedler and the Boston Pops premiered the work in 1947.

The composer's music of this period is consistent in its high quality, clever construction and melodic memorability. Critic Richard Ginell has written, "Leroy Anderson is one of the great bridges of American music, a musician who tore down the wall between the so-called 'serious' music and so-called 'popular' music. He introduced millions of people to the sounds a symphony orchestra can make painlessly, with consummate taste and an ear for whimsy."

In Part 2 of this series, we'll cover his first Christmas recordings and such well-remembered items as "The Typewriter" and "Bugler's Holiday."

LINK to Part 1

Musical Comedy Medleys from Arthur Fiedler and Leroy Anderson

Arthur Fiedler and Leroy Anderson had a symbiotic relationship. Anderson would produce arrangements for the Boston Pops, and Fiedler would introduce the composer's brilliant pop compositions.

This particular 10-inch record of Musical Comedy Medleys comes from 1950, relatively early in their association. Only five years before, Anderson, still in the US Army, had written his first notable composition, "The Syncopated Clock," and conducted it with the Pops at Fiedler's invitation.

Anderson's first big popular success was with "Sleigh Ride," in the Fielder recording of 1949. You have probably heard its concluding instrumental whinny one too many times in the past month.

Meanwhile, Anderson was producing arrangements for use by the Pops. The Musical Comedy Medleys LP is a good example of his work. In it, Anderson explores top tunes from the massive hit musicals of the time - Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun (1946), Frederic Loewe's Brigadoon (1947), Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate (1948) and Richard Rodgers' South Pacific (1949).

Leroy Anderson and Arthur Fiedler

Anderson's arrangements were perfectly suited to Fiedler's approach. In a previous post, I described his recordings this way: "All feature the typical Fiedler élan that stops just this side of seeming rushed . . . If there is little depth in this approach - well, it is the Pops, after all."

That earlier post was devoted to a later LP called Curtain Going Up, also consisting of medleys. South Pacific and Brigadoon appear on the that album as well as on Musical Comedy Medleys.

The sound on Musical Comedy Medleys is reasonably good, although RCA had trouble delivering detail and presence from the resonant Symphony Hall acoustic. Nor was the LP especially well produced - most of it was considerably under pitch. Note (January 2024): this has now been remastered in ambient stereo.

Also on the blog: a post from 2010 has Fiedler conducting Anderson's own compositions for RCA, as well as Anderson leading his "Irish Suite" for Decca.

LINK to Musical Comedy Medleys

Two Leroy Anderson Collections

Leroy Anderson and Arthur Fiedler

If I were to identify the soundtrack to my early life (I was born in 1949), the music of Leroy Anderson would be prominent. His insistently memorable melodies were ubiquitous on both radio and television then, and so are ingrained in my memory.

Perhaps the biggest pop hit among Anderson's compositions was "Blue Tango," a big seller for the composer and Les Baxter in 1952 (the latter is available on this blog here). But the greatest factor in the popularity of Anderson and his work was undoubtedly Arthur Fiedler, conductor of the Boston Pops. Fiedler commissioned arrangements and compositions from Anderson, then programmed and recorded them.

The Boston Pops Plays Leroy Anderson 

This two-part post begins with the LP above, which presents Fiedler's classic first recordings of some of Anderson's most popular compositions. These sides display (and certainly were designed to display) the orchestral wizardry of the Boston orchestra. And of course they show off the composer's gift for melody, his remarkable craftsmanship and his ability to capture the popular imagination (assuming you like animal effects and the like) - all reasons why he is one of the most successful pops composer of all time.

The Fiedler recordings were made from 1947 to 1953. I suspect this particular collection from the latter year was issued to capitalize on the popularity of "Blue Tango."

Note (December 2023): I have added several additional Pops recordings to the LP above. First, their version of "The Syncopated Clock," from an EP that in other respects contains the same performances as the LP. Also, from 78s I've included "Jazz Legato - Jazz Pizzicato," "Promenade," "The Classical Jukebox" and "Saraband." The "Classical Jukebox" uses the then-popular hit "Music, Music, Music" (also called "Put Another Nickel In") as a framing device for Anderson's clever and amusing arrangements of popular classics.

The sound on the Boston recordings is excellent, and is now in ambient stereo. These all come from my collection, except for the 78s, remastered from Internet Archive holdings.

LINK to Fiedler recordings

Leroy Anderson Conducts His Irish Suite

The second part of this post is the album above, which presents the composer's own recording of his Irish Suite, which was dedicated to and first recorded by Fiedler. The irresistible suite consists of six traditional (and well-known) tunes in Anderson's glittering arrangements.

The Irish Suite was set down in October 1952 with a New York studio orchestra. Oscar Shumsky was the violin soloist in "The Last Rose of Summer."

The composer's recordings have now (December 2023) been newly remastered in ambient stereo from the original 78 issues, which have excellent sound - more vivid than the LP offered.

LINK to Irish Suite