CD REVIEW – GAUTIER CAPUÇON
Destination PARIS
Erato 54197721146 [76:02], also LP & Digital
Readers who responded to my enthusiasm for his albums 'Emotions' at the end of 2020 and 'Sensations' two years later will know that the cellist extraordinaire, Gautier Capuçon, offers both quality and quantity. Here he gives us a further 22 varied tracks of popular film melodies, French chansons and classical pieces. It seems that its release now is not unconnected with the French capital hosting the Summer Olympics in 2024.
CD REVIEW – ANDRÉ RIEU
Jewels of Romance
CD [65:07] & DVD [approx. 65.00] 7444754886863
Hooray for André! Here is this year's injection of recorded joy to the nation's mood in these troubled times from the Dutch maestro and his wonderful 50-strong Johann Strauss Orchestra. He has chosen melodies for the CD album which touch his heart in the expectation that they will touch ours.
CD REVIEW – ORCHESTRAL MUSIC OF HOWARD BLAKE
Philharmonia Orchestra
SOMM SOMMCD 0678 [61.31]
I have to admit that this is a first for me, but those nice people at SOMM – rightly celebrating their first 25 years of excellence – thought it would be appreciated by our readers. While Howard David Blake OBE, FRAM (b 1938) wrote over 700 works, including concertos, oratorios, ballets, opera and instrumentals alongside his TV and film output, he is most famous for his soundtrack on Channel 4's 1982 animated film 'The Snowman', which includes the song Walking in the Air. He also wrote the words.
CD Review – RODGERS & Hammerstein’s
Oklahoma!
Soloists/Sinfonia Of London/John Wilson
Chandos CHSA 5322(2) [TT 99:43]
Composer Richard Rodgers' (1902-79) and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein ll's (1895-1960) first collaboration is described by the record company on their website as ground-breaking when the musical debuted on Broadway 80 years ago, and this is the world première complete recording with Robert Russell Bennett's orchestrations of the original score, which have been restored by the late Bruce Pomahac, who was the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization’s MD for more than 20 years.
CD Review – Enoch Light / Beatles Classics & Serendipity
Vocalion CDLK4646 [72:22]
This is the second album in Vocalion's new release of Easy Listening music. Enoch Light (1907-78) was an American conductor, arranger and entrepreneur. He started the Command label and, always interested in the technical side, he struck it rich with the advent of stereo. He went on to be one the first to record on 35mm movie film instead of tape, an advance at the time. With Command taken over and in trouble he started again with the Project 3 label, finally responsible for more than 30 chart LPs between 1957 and 1970. He came out of retirement in the 1980's to work with Frank Sinatra.
CD Review – Henry Mancini / The Best Of Mancini – Vols 1&2
The Concert Sound Of Mancini & Salutes Sousa
Vocalion 2CDLK4636 [68:09 & 75:01]
It is good to welcome back to these pages the Vocalion label, which has just released four reissues from the golden age of Easy Listening. The lead reissue is of two 2-on-1 CDs, originally RCA, from a master light music maker, Henry "Hank" Mancini (1924-94). In a career spanning 40 years as composer, arranger and conductor he won four Oscars, one Golden Globe and twenty Grammys – also a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award – setting an all-time record for a non-classical artist.
Calling All Workers
(Eric Coates)
Analysed by Robert Walton
Eric Coates wasn’t called the first English King of light music for nothing. He was a superb craftsman, brilliant orchestrator but more importantly his personal flare for melody put him in a class of his own.
Calling All Workers
(Eric Coates)
Analysed by Robert Walton
Eric Coates wasn’t called the first English King of light music for nothing. He was a superb craftsman, brilliant orchestrator but more importantly his personal flare for melody put him in a class of his own. His irresistible tunes were simple and direct and always passed the ultimate test - they could be whistled. In modern terms they were ‘commercial’. Like ‘The Waltz King’ Johann Strauss Junior, Coates made an art form out of light music by giving it the sort of credibility classical music enjoyed. How did he accomplish all this? By first immersing himself as a performer in serious music in the early part of the 20th century. During his time as principal violist with the Queen’s Hall Orchestra (from 1912) he was absorbing all styles of music as well as being in the unique position of learning about baton technique and interpretation from the great conductors and performers of the period. Effectively he attended continuous free lectures at the “university” of the orchestra, but always with an eye on, and indeed an ear for, writing lighter music. Like many young would-be composers he felt he could produce works as good, if not better, than some of those he was playing. And he was probably right. As early as 1915 he had written a suite From the Countryside. So the scene was set for what turned out to be one of the most remarkable careers in light music.
Fast-forward 25 years to 1940 when as an established composer, Coates penned Calling all Workers, the signature tune of “Music While You Work”. A short fanfare heralds one of his best known marches and indeed what is now regarded as one of the most famous orchestral marches of all time. Strangely it never quite worked when arranged for brass band. I don’t know whether he intended to have a lyric, but how about these words for openers? “Now the BBC is Calling all Workers today, to be part of the music and fun all the way!” I can’t think of a snappier march than this toe-tapping tune to keep up the morale of the wartime workforce.
But we have to wait for the second theme to discover the real Eric Coates. Cheerful, syncopated and positive though the opening was, this smooth joyous melody tugs at your heartstrings in a way that no other composer quite achieved and fits perfectly in the context of the march. Taking a leaf out of the Elgar songbook, Coates captures the indomitable spirit of the British people with a tearful tune the whole nation and the free world could relate to. But was it entirely his own? I have a theory he may have been influenced by Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, albeit indirectly. (I was once accused of copying the same bit for my Bells of Old London which up until then I had never heard. More likely my song was influenced by Coates!). Then the strings becoming decorators play second fiddle to the brass who blaze away with the melody in a more high profile presentation.
Back to the top for the final chorus of this Coates classic and on reaching the moving second theme he achieves a truly triumphant effect by slowing it right down, eventually bringing it to a complete stop. This is an excellent example of a “thinking” composer using his classical background to make the most of tempo changes. For the third time the fanfare is incorporated, announcing a spectacular finish.
Long after that sparkling finale has faded away, it’s that haunting melody with ballad-like overtones which lingers in the memory. And interestingly, Coates’ musical heir Robert Farnon made no apologies for being inspired by the older composer’s tender march themes, a tradition surprisingly started by Wagner.
Robert Walton
A quick guide to the four main periods of classical music are Baroque, Classical, Romantic and 20th century. However there is one I sense is at great risk of becoming extinct like many animals and birds. Now called “The Great American Songbook” it’s the first 60 years of the 20th century containing a true Golden Era never before achieved in music. You’d think the later bilge brigade with guitar obsession monotony would have insured it from disappearing, but for some reason our kind of music is currently in a truly fragile state. It simply doesn’t deserve such a final fate as falling out of favour.
Robert Walton
A quick guide to the four main periods of classical music are Baroque, Classical, Romantic and 20th century. However there is one I sense is at great risk of becoming extinct like many animals and birds. Now called “The Great American Songbook” it’s the first 60 years of the 20th century containing a true Golden Era never before achieved in music. You’d think the later bilge brigade with guitar obsession monotony would have insured it from disappearing, but for some reason our kind of music is currently in a truly fragile state. It simply doesn’t deserve such a final fate as falling out of favour.
Essentially a crooning age, it’s a multi-faceted melodic and harmonic journey featuring jazz, big bands and light orchestras. From that, many societies (including the Robert Farnon Society) came out of the woodwork, providing music with a huge coverage of popular styles. And as for song titles, many have become great standards like You Go To My Head with symphonic overtones. Classical purists refuse to recognize their place in history. They don’t know what they’re missing!
But I still fear the worst. Little by little those gems of the past are beginning to be heard less and less. Why? The media is largely at fault neglecting them. It’s got nothing to do with the next generation outdoing the previous one. Perhaps the songs became just too professional with experts covering every angle. The world got sick of the best of everything and fell for a world of amateurs - ghastly voices and awful ditties purporting to offer a more poetic reality.
I am almost pleased to think I won’t be around to hear what’s next on the pop agenda. Why can’t our music be considered as important as classical? After all it didn’t affect the world of serious music. Their epochs remained set in stone as it were. Maybe it’s a bit early in history to elevate them but one day I’m sure the crooners will win the day and receive the praise they deserve.
I know it’s been all said before, but with the style in the process of doing a “Titanic”, how would it end? I’m absolutely positive though in the final analysis our music will eventually find its rightful place and join that illustrious band of great composers and lyricists.
Without any doubt I go as far to say there will never be an era like it because the world itself has never been in such a state and out of control. It was inevitable that something had to save it - music!
