Ballet Music from Meyerbeer-Lambert and Bliss

Here are two souvenirs from the Sadler's Wells Ballet's 1950 season, directed by its staff conductors John Hollingsworth and Robert Irving - Les Patineurs, a pastiche of Giocomo Meyerbeer's music, and Checkmate, with a score by Arthur Bliss. 

Both works were premiered in 1937 and conducted then by Constant Lambert, the Vic-Wells music director at the time.

Massenet-Lambert - Les Patineurs

The Royal Ballet's 2009 production of Les Patineurs 

Les Patineurs has no connection with Émile Waldteufel's famous waltz of the same name. Lambert arranged Les Patineurs from melodies found in Meyerbeer's operas Le Prophète and L'Etoile du Nord, principally the former. Although seldom heard today, Meyerbeer's works were very popular in the 19th century, and this immensely tuneful and pleasing score shows why.

Margot Fonteyn and Robert Helpmann - Les Patineurs 1937

Lambert conceived the idea of the ballet and using Meyerbeer's music; Frederick Ashton was the choreographer. As the title implies, the complete ballet depicts skaters, with the setting a Victorian skating party. Ashton's biographer Julie Kavanaugh notes that such productions were not a novelty: "Skating ballets themselves were a genre of sorts... but only Ashton's work has endured... [I]t is the paradigm of an Ashton ballet, perfectly crafted, with a complex structure beneath the effervescent surface."

Les Patineurs was something of a recorded specialty for Sadler's Wells/Royal Ballet conductors - Lambert recorded it in 1939, Robert Irving in 1952 and Hugo Rignold in 1958. John Hollingsworth conducted this recording, although he and Irving shared 1950's live performances, as also was the case with the Bliss ballet.

Bliss - Checkmate

The 1947 Sadler's Wells staging of Checkmate

Bliss's Checkmate ballet music could not be more of a contrast to Les Patineurs. The composer himself conceived the idea of the ballet, with Ninette de Valois executing it. The concept is simple, taking place on a chess board with the pieces coming to life and eventually battling until a tragic checkmate.

Gillian Lynne as the Black Queen, Checkmate 1937

The music is dramatic and Robert Irving's performance with the Covent Garden orchestra is a good one. However, the reviews of the music as heard on this LP were not kind. "Meretricious melodies" sneered one. "Noisy, overscored and without anything musical to say" asserted another. Nor was Irving spared - Hollingsworth was deemed a "far superior leader." I think both positions were overstated.

Harold Turner as First Red Knight, Checkmate 1947

Regardless of the disdainful notices for the music, Checkmate has been a staple in the Sadler's Wells/Royal Ballet repertoire for many years.

Both these recordings are somewhat abridged from the complete scores. To my knowledge this was the first recording of music from Checkmate. The sound is excellent in both works. The download includes additional production photos and reviews.

Hollingsworth has appeared here several times recently. Irving was heard in music by Arnold and Britten. Constant Lambert has been a frequent guest on the blog. Bliss' music for the ballet Miracle in the Gorbals, as conducted by Lambert, can be found here.

1947 poster

Malcolm Arnold First Recordings

Malcolm Arnold came to the public's attention in 1943 via his overture Beckus the Dandipratt, written while he was the principal trumpet of the London Philharmonic. The first recording of the work was led by Edward van Beinum in 1947, when that fine musician was the LPO's principal conductor. (I believe Arnold was still in the LPO at the time.) There would be no further recordings of Arnold's compositions until 1953. Then there would be several within a few years' time, many of which I've gathered for this post.

During this period, Arnold's music became known for its instrumental color, great contrasts and melody. Some critics even complained that he was not serious enough. That side of his personality would soon show itself, but today we are concerned with the brilliant works that made his reputation in the concert hall, most of them in their first recordings.

The post encompasses two LPs - one devoted to Arnold's music; the other split between Arnold and Benjamin Britten.

Symphony No. 2, Tam O'Shanter Overture

As with Beckus the Dandipratt, Arnold's Tam O'Shanter Overture quickly became popular after the composer conducted its premiere during the 1955 Proms season.

Two recordings quickly followed, one with the composer and the Philharmonia, the other with John Hollingsworth and the Royal Philharmonic. As far as I can tell, these sessions took place on the same day, September 19.

What makes it more unusual is that Arnold had devoted September 17 and 18 to recording Beckus and the Symphony No. 2 with the RPO for Philips. He then left the conducting of Tam O'Shanter to Hollingsworth while he motored across town to record the same work for UK Columbia.

Philips licensed the resulting recordings to US Epic, whose LP is the source of the current transfer. The wonderfully colorful cover illustration above depicts the legend of Tam O'Shanter, as set down by Robert Burns. After a night of revelry, Tam and his horse lose their way and encounter the ghouls depicted on the cover.

John Hollingsworth

This was just the sort of thing to spark Arnold's imagination (and empathy - he was a notorious carouser), and the overture is completely successful, especially in this beautifully recorded interpretation from the RPO and Hollingsworth, a fine conductor who was too little recorded.

But the most notable recording on the album was the first of any of Arnold symphonies - the Symphony No. 2, again a colorful and melodious work, well presented here by the composer and the RPO.

Arnold's conducting of Beckus the Dandipratt is everything one might wish; and again the performance and conducting are excellent.

Some critics were not fully satisfied, however. Writing in The Gramophone, critic and composer Malcolm MacDonald complained that "this constantly faultless presentation of an undeviatingly cheerful mood is perhaps becoming too much the exclusive province of Arnold's music." That would soon change, however; Arnold was to develop a pronounced dark side as a result of alcoholism and mental illness. One biography of him is subtitled "The Brilliant and the Dark," another "Rogue Genius."

Gramophone ad, December 1955

English Dances, Scottish Dances - Plus Britten-Rossini

Previously on this site, I've shared Adrian Boult's 1954 recording of Arnold's justly famous English Dances. Boult conducted the first performance of the first set of dances (there are two) in 1951, but did not record them until 1954.

Robert Irving

In the meantime, Robert Irving, music director of the Sadler's Wells Ballet, had recorded both sets for HMV in 1953 with the Philharmonia. These were released with the incongruous backing of the Les Sylphides ballet music, which made use of Chopin piano works in orchestrations by Roy Douglas.

In 1956, Kenneth MacMillan adapted the English Dances for his ballet Solitaire. Probably spurred by this, HMV reissued the Irving recordings in 1957 (mentioning the Solitaire connection on the cover), adding a new recording of Arnold's Scottish Dances, which the composer had just written for the BBC.

HMV's cover

The discmate for the Arnold works was more compatible this time: Britten's reworking of Rossini into the two suites, Matinées Musicales and Soirées Musicales. George Balanchine had used the music in his 1941 ballet Divertimento.

In the US, the HMV recordings were issued by Capitol, which trumpeted the Britten works on the cover, presumably because he was better known in America than Arnold.

Irving's conducting of the excellent Philharmonia is just fine, and the LP is very successful.

Throughout this period, Arnold was making a name in film music, as well. His scores for The Key, Trapeze and The Inn of the Sixth Happiness are available here.

As usual, the downloads include scans, photos and reviews. The Epic LP is from my collection. The Capitol album has been cleaned up from a lossless needle drop on Internet Archive.

Robert Irving Conducts 'The Sleeping Beauty'

I have had it in mind for some time to transfer this recording, and was reminded of it by the recent request for Robert Irving's LP of Lecocq and Glazunov ballet scores. This double-LP set finds that conductor leading the orchestra of the Royal Opera House in Tchaikovsky's score to "The Sleeping Beauty" ballet.

This was based on the Sadler's Wells Ballet's 1955 production. Irving was at that time the troupe's music director. The recordings were made in June, and originally issued on HMV. My transfer comes from the RCA Victor set produced under license in the US.

Irving provides a lithe reading, keeping things moving along, which is to my taste, and hopefully was to the liking of the dancers. The Covent Garden orchestra is responsive but sounds a trifle underpowered in the strings.

The sound is well-balanced mono. It's possible that this was recorded in stereo, but I have not seen evidence of such a release myself. The download includes scans of the four-page insert.

Lecocq and Glazunov Ballet Scores from Robert Irving

For some time, I have wanted to feature some of the recordings of ballet conductor Robert Irving on this blog, but have never pulled the trigger (or more appropriately, dropped the stylus).

Robert Irving

The impetus for my finally doing so was a request for this particular LP on another site. It contains two ballet suites in 1956 stereo recordings conducted by Irving. They are the music from "Mam'zelle Angot," as arranged from Charles Lecocq's music by Gordon Jacob, and the "Birthday Offering" suite from music by Alexander Glazunov, as arranged (and in one sequence, orchestrated) by the conductor, who leads the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Irving was at the time the music director of Sadler's Wells Ballet in London. He moved to the US in 1958 to become the music director of the New York City Ballet, staying in that post until just a few years before his 1991 death.

1956 UK cover

The conductor recorded fairly extensively in the 1950s, notably in the ballet repertoire, in which he excelled. This present record provides a very good example of his skills.

EMI issued this coupling in mono in 1956. The stereo issue was as late as 1959 - that is the publication date on the back cover of my pressing, which is an HMV Greensleeve reissue. Michael Gray's discography has the sessions taking place in August 1956 in Abbey Road Studio One. The sound is excellent.