Walter Schumann's Two Christmas LPs and More

Walter Schumann (1913-58) was a talented arranger-conductor who unfortunately died young, but not before he contributed many well-regarded LPs, film scores and even the Dragnet theme.

His recorded specialty was choral music with the Voices of Walter Schumann, who issued two Christmas LPs and a few singles, which are gathered together for this post. There also is a substantial bonus at the end of the discussion. And please see the link to a Tony Martin Christmas collection that is new on the singles blog.

Christmas in the Air

By mid-century, the US was becoming increasingly urbanized and diverse, but its self-image was of a homogenous small town, as depicted on the covers of the 1951 LP Christmas in the Air. A church steeple was often found in the commercial art of the day. It appears on both the front and back of this 10-inch Capitol LP.

The song "Christmas in the Air," written by Schumann and Sheldon Allman, leads off the LP and appears briefly several times thereafter as a connecting thread.

After "Jingle Bells" and "Silent Night," Schumann included a brief recording of "The Carol of the Bells," a Ukrainian melody with English words by Peter Wilhousky. This is followed by "White Christmas" and the Burgundian carol "Patapan."

Side 2 contains a lively version of the spiritual "Wonderful Counselor," which has a solo by the magnetic Jester Hairston. Next is Britten's setting of the Welsh Carol "Wolcum Yule," followed by Hairston's "Mary, Mary." "Winter Wonderland" and "Adeste Fideles" complete the LP program.

As a bonus, I've included the choir's 1951 single of David Rose's "Holiday for Strings," which shows off their vocal virtuosity.

LINK to Christmas in the Air

The Voices of Christmas

By 1955, Schumann had joined RCA Victor records, which that year released a fine 12-inch LP called The Voices of Christmas.

Side 1 contains "Sleigh Ride," "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen," "The Christmas Song," "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," "What Child Is This?", "Rise Up Shepherd and Follow," "The First Snowfall," "Fum, Fum, Fum" and "Christmas Tree."

"Fum, Fum, Fum" is a Catalan carol that exists in many versions. It's not clear which is heard here, although Schumann is credited as the arranger.

"The First Snowfall," a favorite of mine, was written by Sonny Burke and Paul Francis Webster. This was among its first recordings.

"Christmas Tree," with an highly effective solo by Bill Lee, is not "O Tannenbaum," but a version of "Ja, das ist ein Schnitzelbank." The same tune would appear again in Christmas garments for "Must Be Santa," which can be found on Holiday Sing Along with Mitch, although not on this blog.

Side 2 includes "Christmas in Killarney," "The First Noël," "Frosty the Snowman," "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," "The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers," "Lully, Lully, Lu," "Christmas Gift," "C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S," "Go Tell It on the Mountain" and "Christmas Chopsticks (It Was the Night Before Christmas)."

"Lully, Lully, Lu" is not "Lully, Lullay," the Coventry Carol, but another tune of unknown (to me) origin.

Jester Hairston

Jester Hairston solos on his own, charming, R&B-flavored "Christmas Gift." 

"C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S" is a country tune by Jenny Lou Carson and Eddy Arnold that is best heard in Arnold's version, which is conveniently included in the bonus LP below.

"Christmas Chopsticks (It Was the Night Before Christmas)" is just as it portends, "The Night Before Christmas" set to chopsticks. It works better than you might expect.

There is a bonus cut as well - "The Sound of Christmas," which is an optimistic, declamatory piece somewhat reminiscent of "Christmas in the Air." The label says Schumann wrote it with Wells and Millar. Wells is possibly the songwriter Robert Wells. Victor issued it as a single in 1953, then included it on the LP below.

LINK to The Voices of Christmas

To Wish You a Merry Christmas

I transferred this 1954 RCA Victor LP many years ago, and have refurbished it for this occasion.

The artists are all well known. As mentioned above, the LP includes Eddy Arnold's "C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S" along with Walter Schumann's "The Sound of Christmas."

From Life Magazine

The one unusual item is Dinah Shore's recording of "Happy Christmas Little Friend," which Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein wrote at the behest of Life Magazine. With such a distinguished lineage, expectations had to be high, but this was not the famed duo's best work and the song has been forgotten.

The biggest hit on the LP, particularly in retrospect, was Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby," written by Phil Springer and Joan Javits.

Otherwise, the LP includes:

• Perry Como - "White Christmas"

• The Three Suns - "Silver Skates"

• Vaughn Monroe - "Frosty the Snowman"

• Hugo Winterhalter - "Blue Christmas"

• Eddie Fisher - "O Come, All Ye Faithful"

• Tony Martin - "Silent Night"

• Henri René - "The Christmas Song"

• Ralph Flanagan - "Winter Wonderland"

LINK to To Wish You a Merry Christmas

The Tony Martin Christmas Collection

The Tony Martin version of "Silent Night" on the RCA Victor LP above is one of the seven titles in a Christmas collection by that singer newly available on Buster's Swinging Singles.

Although Tony didn't record much holiday material, what he did record is very worthwhile. The material goes back to almost the beginning of his career and continues to 1956.

A Budget-Line Christmas

It's rare that I would feature budget recordings, but they are often interesting, giving you a chance to hear name-brand artists who were past their peak and others who were mainly professional studio singers.

Today we have two LPs on the Tops label that are good examples. The names on the two covers are Martha Tilton, famed from her work with Benny Goodman, and the Pied Pipers, who first became popular with the Tommy Dorsey band.

In true budget-label fashion, the name artists present a minority of the songs on these LPs. Most of the singing is by artists with lesser pedigrees - folks who made a living in vocal groups and in the studio setting; little-known but undeniably talented.

Before I give the details about the songs and singers, let me mention that this post is made possible through the generosity of frequent collaborator Ernie Haynes, whose Ernie (Not Bert) site is well into his annual foray into the wide world of holiday music. I told him I was looking for the Pied Pipers LP, and he not only came up with a transfer, it was the stereo version - and he sent along a stereo version of Christmas at Our House, the album that touts Martha Tilton on the cover. I had only the mono version of the latter.

Both The Pied Pipers Sing Christmas Carols and Christmas at Our House came out in 1958, at first in mono and a bit later in stereo.

The songs on these LPs are what you might expect - well-worn holiday classics, most of them in the public domain, and most repeated on both LPs, although not by the same vocalists. 

What follows are some notes about the artists involved, who were barely mentioned by Tops, except for Martha Tilton and the Pipers. The rest are only named on the labels - and even then not always accurately.

The Pied Pipers - Lee Gotch, Sue Allen, Allan Davies, Clark Yocum

Let's start off with the Pied Pipers, who as I mentioned became known with Tommy Dorsey's band - that is until one of the members made the bandleader mad and was fired. The entire group then quit the band in solidarity. The object of Tommy's ire was Clark Yocum, still in the group when this record was made.

The leading light of the Pipers back in the Dorsey era was Jo Stafford. By the time this record was made, the female lead was Sue Allen, a studio singer who had been in several well-known groups. The other members were Lee Gotch and Allan Davies. Their performances here are pleasing, and amusing when appropriate, such as their version of "Jingle Bells."

The Pipers sang on six of the 12 numbers on the LP named for them, but not at all on the other record.

Martha Tilton

The artist mentioned - in relatively small print - on the Christmas at Our House LP cover, Martha Tilton, was with Goodman's band in the 1930s, then had some hits as a recording artist for Capitol in the 1940s.

Although Martha is touted on the sleeve, she is heard only on two songs - but they are the high points of the LP. Like the Pied Pipers, she makes "Jingle Bells" fun again, even including the seldom-sung second verse. And she has a good time with "Rudolph" and his red nose as well. Tilton does not appear on the other album.

Marni Nixon

The singer with the most numbers on Our House LP is the well-regarded vocal double Marni Nixon, with three - "Silent Night," "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and "Away in a Manger." Her perfect technique is well in evidence throughout. She also does not show up on the other disc.

John Gustafson

Just as impressive is tenor John Gustafson, who was allotted two songs on Our House - "The First Noël" and "Deck the Hall." Gustafson recorded gospel music and was a choir director in the Los Angeles area. He too was not selected for the other album.

Thurl Ravenscroft

Thurl Ravenscroft's mighty bass was celebrated here recently, so it's good to hear him in holiday mode with "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen," even though he is uncharacteristically subdued on that number. On the other disc - at least the stereo version - the label claims that he sings "Joy to the World," but the pleasant fellow who spreads holiday cheer is not Thurl, but a lighter-voiced singer who may be Bill Reeve, discussed below.

Thurl's version of "Joy to the World" actually does appear on the mono edition of Christmas at Our House, so I've added that track to the end of the transfer.

Doris Drew

Doris Drew had been a band singer, then recorded several singles followed by a well-regarded LP for the Mode label in 1957. She later became a voice artist. For these records she contributes charming versions of "White Christmas" and "The Christmas Song."

John Gabriel

Singer-actor John Gabriel, then in his 20s, was appearing as a guest star on television shows when he recorded "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" and "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" for these LPs. He later would have a long-running part on a TV soap opera, appear on Broadway in The Happy Time and become a producer.

Norma Zimmer

Norma Zimmer was a well-regarded studio singer when she recorded of "Joy to the World," "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" and "The First Noël" for Tops. She would later become famous as the "Champagne Lady" on Lawrence Welk's television show.

Bill Reeve is the most obscure member of this cast. His credits include a vocal in Disney's Westward Ho The Wagons! and the pre-recordings for the Ice Follies of 1953 - where he worked with Norma Zimmer. He sings on both LPs - "Silent Night," "O Come! All Ye Faithful" and (I think) the stereo "Joy to the World."

Tops kept the musical background simple for these records - just "George Mather at the console," presumably handling the both electronic organ and chimes. (The latter do tend to get in the way, if truth be told.) The recording is typical of early stereo - mostly the vocalist and the chimes on the left and George and his organ on the right. It is otherwise pleasing, although too much reverb was added to the stereo vocals. Sorry, I haven't been able to find any information about the organist.

The mono artwork

Tops named its stereo line "Mayfair" and at least in these early days pressed the discs on yellow vinyl. The stereo LPs also had different covers. For record nerds like me (and Ernie), the much different mono covers are shown above.

LINK to Christmas at Our House

LINK to The Pied Pipers Sing Christmas Carols

Songs from the 'Junior Miss' Soundtrack

Soon after re-posting the EP of songs from the 1957 TV musical Junior Miss, my friend George from New York sent me a note letting me know that the elusive bootleg I mentioned is available on Internet Archive.

I immediately downloaded the file and started to work on fixing up its sonic limitations, which were considerable but not insurmountable. This involved removing high frequency noise, a heavy low-frequency rumble, addressing the wandering pitch of the various songs, raising the level of the vocals, and so on. The result sounds reasonably good.

Before I go into detail on the songs, let me first mention that the Internet Archive post also has a link to the complete TV production from the DuPont Archives at the Hagley Museum of Wilmington, Delaware.

The titles reveal that the show was broadcast in color, but that is of course lost. At the time, the only way to archive such programs was to point a film camera at a monitor and record it that way, with the result being a "kinescope," which is all that is available nowadays. Video tape recording was yet to come.

Returning to the songs, let me first mention that the show included two numbers not found on the Columbia EP - "A Man Is an Animal" and "Have Feet, Will Dance." Here are all the numbers and the original cast performers.

• "A Man Is an Animal" - Carol Lynley (the title character) and her best friend, played by Suzanne Sidney

• "Have Feet, Will Dance" - the chorus led by Norman Luboff

• "Let's Make It Christmas All Year 'Round" - Lynley, her parents (Don Ameche and Joan Bennett) and her sister, Jill St. John

• "I'll Buy It" - Diana Lynn and David Wayne (Lynley's uncle)

• "Happy Heart" - the chorus

• "Junior Miss" - Ameche

Thanks again to George!

[Note: I've now done some more processing on the files to ameliorate the heavy tape hiss, remove stage noises, minimize tape burbles, etc.]

LINK to Junior Miss soundtrack v2

A Musical Version of 'Junior Miss'

Fellow blogger Ernie Haynes inspired me to bring back this post from 16 years ago with songs from a Christmas production that has been forgotten. What follows is an updated version of my commentary from back then with a link to a newly remastered version of the original four-song EP.

The musical programming that was presented on US commercial television in the late 1950s was remarkable. It  included an original Cole Porter musical, Aladdin, that was sponsored by DuPont, which only a few months earlier had mounted yet another original musical from a famous composer, Burton Lane, and lyricist, Dorothy Fields.

Unlike the score for Aladdin, which is still remembered today, Lane's music for Junior Miss is largely forgotten, as is the program that evoked it. Perhaps even more surprising, the Junior Miss stories themselves are no longer remembered.

Those once-popular Sally Benson stories, originally published in the New Yorker, were collected into book form in 1941, and then became a play, film and radio show - and finally this televised musical. Set at Christmas in New York, the superb 1945 film once made occasional appearances on television but hasn't been seen lately (at least by me). Its disappearance is very strange - the film is both delightful and touching, with wonderful performances by Peggy Ann Garner in the title role and Allyn Joslyn as her father.

Don Ameche and Joan Bennett

The TV musical featured 15-year-old Carol Lynley as Judy Graves (our protagonist), Don Ameche and Joan Bennett as her father and mother, and the 17-year-old Jill St. John as her sister. Also in the cast were Paul Ford, an unrecognizable (to me) Diana Lynn, and David Wayne. You can see the first part of the program via a kinescope on YouTube.

Carol Lynley and Suzanne Sydney

Unlike other more famous TV musicals, such as Aladdin and Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, there was no soundtrack recording to keep Junior Miss' memory alive - only this EP of performances by Columbia artists Vic Damone, Jo Stafford and Norman Luboff. I would have to assume this was issued in advance of the program, which aired on December 20, 1957. (This site says there is a poor quality bootleg of the performances by the TV cast, but I have never encountered it.)

The performances on the EP are as good as you would expect, and the recording as reverberant as you might expect if you are familiar with Columbia's 50s pop output. The songs themselves are quite enjoyable, even if the lyrics of "Junior Miss" are reminiscent of "Gigi" and if "I'll Buy It" brings to mind "I'll Buy That Dream." Also, "Let's Make It Christmas All Year 'Round" is not the most original concept.

It's fascinating to look through the listings for the DuPont Show of the Month in 1957-58. As I mentioned, Junior Miss came just two months before Aladdin. And two months after the latter show, DuPont and CBS mounted a version of The Red Mill with the following cast: Shirley Jones, Harpo Marx, Elaine May, Mike Nichols, Donald O'Connor, Elaine Stritch and Edward Andrews. It was a different time.

LINK to December 2025 remaster

Bach Chorale Preludes for Christmas

This fascinating record brings together the various chorale preludes written by Johann Sebastian Bach that are appropriate to the Christmas season.

These are excerpted from a set of the composer's organ works that Walter Kraft (1905-77) recorded for the Vox label from 1961-67. He selected North German organs that dated from Bach's time or soon thereafter, as described on the back cover of this LP. Kraft was the organist of the Marienkirche at Lübeck, in succession to the composer Dieterich Buxtehude among others.

Walter Kraft

Bach's chorale preludes were based on Lutheran hymns. It is thought that some were used to introduce the chorales themselves; others may have been free-standing, perhaps used to accompany Communion.

Bach wrote preludes appropriate to the Christmas season for 16 chorales, using some of the chorales repeatedly. Bach's Orgelbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach contains preludes for each of the chorales.

The titles of the chorales will give you some indication of why these are appropriate to the season. Here they are with translations and the source of the hymn:

• "Nun komm' der Heiden Heiland" ("Savior of the Nations, Come") [Martin Luther]

• "Gottes Sohn ist kommen" ("God's Son Has Come") [Johann Horn]

• "Herr Christ, der ein'ge Gottes-Sohn" ("Lord Christ, the Only Son of God') [Elisabeth Cruciger]

• "Lob sei dem allmächtigen Gott" ("Praise Be to the Almighty God") [Gregorian hymn]

• "Puer natus in Bethlehem" ("A Child Is Born in Bethlehem") [medieval hymn]

• "Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ" ("Praise Be to You, Jesus Christ') [Martin Luther]

• "Der Tag, der ist so freudenreich" ("This Day, the One So Full of Joy") [15th century hymn]

• "Vom Himmel hoch, da komm' ich her" ("From Heaven Above to Earth I Come") [Martin Luther]

• "Vom Himmel kam der Engel Schar" ("From Heaven Came the Angel Choir") [Martin Luther]

• "In dulci Jubilo" ("In Sweet Rejoicing") [medieval carol]

• "Lobt Gott, ihr Christen, allzugleich" ("Praise God, All Christians Equally") [Nikolaus Herman]

• "Jesu, meine Freude" ("Jesus, My Joy") [Johann Franck]

• "Christum, wir sollen loben schon" ("We Should Praise Christ Beautifully") [Martin Luther]

• "Wir Christenleut" ("We Christian People") [Kaspar Füger]

• "Helft mir Gottes Güte preisen" ("Help Me to Praise God's Goodness") [Paul Eber]

• "Das alte Jahr vergangen ist" ("The Old Year Now Hath Passed Away") [Johann Steuerlein]

As for the performances, Kraft was considered to be a workmanlike organist, but not inspired, although generally thought to be at his best in the chorale preludes. Clifford Gilmore wrote in High Fidelity: "Aided partly by the interesting and beautiful instruments and by less demanding technical challenges, Kraft does manage quite lovely readings of the chorale settings. For the most part, the various organs have been well recorded; the listener can almost imagine himself perched on the organ bench with all the exposed pipe work spread out before him."

To me, the recordings tended to be a bit too close; the worshiper does not normally "perch on the organ bench." I have tried to make the sound slightly more spacious.

LINK

An 'Army of Stars' at Christmas, 1949

This program comes from the long-ago time - 1949 - when the greatest stars of opera gathered to raise funds and awareness of the Salvation Army at Christmastime.

On this one-hour special, taken from a mint copy of the 16-inch transcription disc, some of the greatest voices of the 20th century are heard in both seasonal fare and operatic material - Lawrence Tibbett, Kirsten Flagstad, Set Svanholm, Licia Albanese and Jussi Björling among them.

This special program was a gift to the blog from Ernie Haynes, the Christmas music maestro, who as usual is making merry on his blog Ernie, Not Bert. Today he is featuring a great number of other records in the Salvation Army Christmas series, but he sent this one to me to transfer because my equipment can handle the old, oversize transcription discs.

Thanks, Ernie! It's a fascinating show in remarkably good sound that gathered the stars in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco for the occasion. Here is a rundown of the proceedings.

Lawrence Tibbett

After an introduction by the busy radio announcer Jimmy Wallington, the popular baritone Lawrence Tibbett (1896-1960) is heard in "Adeste Fideles." At the time, Tibbett had been with the Metropolitan Opera for 26 years, along with making appearances on radio and in films. Tibbett's grandmother was a Major in the Salvation Army, and his first public performance was as a youngster at a Army meeting in Bakersfield, CA.

Kirsten Flagstad

The supreme Wagnerian soprano Kirsten Flagstad (1895-1962) presents "Elsa's Dream" from Lohengrin. She is accompanied by the San Francisco Opera Orchestra under the company's director, Gaetano Merola. In 1949 the Norwegian singer appeared both at the Met and in San Francisco.

Jean Hersholt as Dr. Christian

In 1949, the Danish-American actor Jean Hersholt (1886-1956) was completing his twelfth year in the title role of the radio drama Dr. Christian, which would continue for five more years. He presents the story of the Nativity as related in the Gospel of St. Luke.

Winifred Heidt

Contralto Winifred Heidt (1906-90) had a varied career that took her from the Met to Broadway. That season she was appearing with the new NBC Television Opera Company. She presents a lovely version of "Silent Night" with organ.

Set Svanholm

Another eminent Wagnerian was the Swedish tenor Set Svanholm (1904-64), who at the time was in demand at the Met, the Vienna State Opera and Covent Garden. He presents the "Song to the Evening Star" from Tannhäuser. Gaetano Merola again conducts his San Francisco forces.

Licia Albanese and Jussi Björling

Following a message from Commissioner Ernest I. Pugmire of the Salvation Army, the program concludes with "O soave fanciulla" from Puccini's La bohème, a scene which is of course set on Christmas Eve. The operatic lovers are two great stars who often appeared together - Italian-American soprano Licia Albanese (1909-2014) as Mimi and Swedish tenor Jussi Björling (1911-60) as Rodolfo. The San Francisco Opera Orchestra is led by Karl Kritz, director of the Fort Worth Opera Company and staff conductor in San Francisco.

The "Army of Stars" series of programs lasted from the 1930s through the 1990s, bringing together some of entertainment’s brightest stars in support of the Salvation Army’s mission. The copy of the 1949 program that I transferred was broadcast in December of that year by WDHL in Bradenton, FL and WSPB in Sarasota, FL, as noted on the label.

Thanks again to Ernie for his generous contribution!

LINK

Ansermet Conducts Honegger's 'Christmas Cantata'

It's surprising that I have maintained this blog for 17 years and never featured the Christmas Cantata (Une cantate de Noël) by the Swiss composer Arthur Honegger (1892-1955). It's a beautiful, ingenious, even profound work that was the composer's last.

Today we have a fine 1961 recording led by the eminent Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet (1883-1969), who has not appeared on the blog before.

The cantata is backed by Honegger's Symphony No. 2, an apt companion because both works depict a journey from the darkness into the light.

FYI: also below are links to another performance of the Honegger Symphony, coupled with Menotti's Violin Concerto, and to the latter composer's Amahl and the Night Visitors, in the famed first recording.

Arthur Honegger

Honegger's Christmas Cantata

Honegger's cantata was actually sketched in some detail more than a decade before it appeared. He had meant it to be part of a Passion Play that he was writing for the Swiss town of Selzach, to a libretto by Cäsar von Arx. However, the war, the composer's own illnesses and the librettist's 1949 death meant the full passion was never completed.

Among the fully sketched parts was the birth of Christ. When Paul Sacher commissioned a work from Honegger for the 25th anniversary of the Basel Chamber Orchestra, the composer decided to edit and orchestrate those sketches into the work we know as the Christmas Cantata. The premiere was in 1954.

In his book on Honegger's music, Harry Halbreich has written: "The composition of Une Cantate de Noël provided his last moments of creative happiness and, although the work was based on much older material, it carries nonetheless a symbolic significance in bringing his life to an end on a note of hope - that hope 'which is the strongest.'"

The work starts in darkness with somber organ tones that gradually lead to choral passages taken both from the liturgy and from carols both in French and German. The latter perhaps signify both multilingual Switzerland and peace among nations following the war.

Honegger makes remarkable use of "Stille Nacht." As the critic Alfred Frankenstein noted in High Fidelity: "[U]ntil you have heard 'Stille Nacht' manipulated by a Honegger, you haven't heard it at all."

Ernest Ansermet

The work is scored for baritone (here, Pierre Mollet), organ (Pierre Segond), choirs (Choirs of Pro Arte, French Swiss Radio and Television and the College of Villamont, directed by André Charlet) and L'Orchestra de la Suisse Romande conducted by Ansermet.

The recording comes from the Victoria Hall in Geneva, famed as a recording location. Even so, the cantata is murkier than ideal, probably because of the organ. I've tried to clarify the sound.

Symphony No. 2

As mentioned, Honegger's Symphony No. 2 is another journey from darkness into light, remarkable in its optimism considering it was written during the Second World War. The symphony is famed for its peroration, with a trumpet breaking through the turbulence and strikingly changing the mood of the work.

As with the Christmas Cantata, the symphony was commissioned by Paul Sacher for an anniversary of his Basel Chamber Orchestra - its tenth, in 1937. The work was not premiered, however, until 1942, and that came with Sacher conducting the Collegium Musicum of Zurich, another organization he founded.

Sacher (1906-99), who was wealthy, also commissioned works by Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, Bohuslav Martinů, Frank Martin, Hans Werner Henze, Richard Strauss, Elliott Carter, Witold Lutosławski, Henri Dutilleux and Harrison Birtwistle, among others.

This is a very good performance in excellent sound.

LINK to Honegger's Christmas Cantata and Symphony No. 2

Another Honegger Performance with Menotti's Violin Concerto

Another strong reading of the Honegger second symphony, by the Boston Symphony and Charles Munch, is available here in newly remastered sound. Munch was a huge supporter of the composer

The coupling is Menotti's neglected but lovely Violin Concerto with soloist Tossy Spivakovsky.

The Honegger is from 1953, the Menotti from a year later.

The Classic Amahl and the Night Visitors

Appropriate to the season, I had a request for Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors, which I first uploaded a number of years ago. I've now remastered the files, which have always sounded great; now perhaps a bit better.

This is the brilliant premiere performance under the young Thomas Schippers. It was the first opera written for television, presented on Christmas Eve 1951. More information is here.