Four Decades of Light Music - Volume 1 1920s & 1930s

Four Decades of Light Music - Volume 1 1920s & 1930s

 The 1920s

1 Northwards (from "Four Ways" Suite) (Eric Coates)
REGAL CINEMA ORCHESTRA Conducted by EMANUEL STARKEY
2 Flapperette (Jesse Greer)
NAT SHILKRET AND HIS ORCHESTRA
3 Estudiantina – Waltz (Émile Waldteufel)
LONDON PALLADIUM ORCHESTRA Conducted by HORACE SHELDON
4 Pearl O’ Mine – Lyrical Melody (Percy Fletcher)
PLAZA THEATRE ORCHESTRA Conducted by FRANK TOURS
5 Laughing Marionette (Walter Collins)
DEBROY SOMERS BAND
6 Martial Moments
LONDON COLISEUM ORCHESTRA Conducted by ALFRED DOVE
7 In A Clock Store (Charles Orth)
NEW LIGHT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
8 The Selfish Giant (Eric Coates)
JULIAN FUHS’ SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
9 Lustspiel – Overture (Adabert von Keler-Béla, arr. Adolf Lotter)
ATHENAEUM LIGHT ORCHESTRA

The 1930s

10 Frog King’s Parade (Heini Kronberger, Mary Marriott)
WEST END CELEBRITY ORCHESTRA
11 Lullaby Of The Leaves (Bernice Petkere)
REGINALD KING’S ORCHESTRA
12 Parade Of The Tin Soldiers (Leon Jessel)
NEW LIGHT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
13 Blues (from "Dance Suite") (Eduard Künneke)
BERLIN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA Conducted by EDUARD KÜNNEKE
14 In A Merry Mood (Fritz Haringer)
BARNABAS VON GECZY AND HIS ORCHESTRA
15 Dancing Clock (Montague Ewing)
ORCHESTRE RAYMONDE
16 "Sunny Side Up" – film selection (Bud De Sylva, Lew Brown, Ray Henderson)
SCALA SALON ORCHESTRA
17 Raindrops – Pizzicati for Strings (T. de la Riviera)
BOURNEMOUTH MUNICIPAL ORCHESTRA Conducted by Sir DAN GODFREY
18 Teddy Bears’ Picnic (John W. Bratton)
COMMODORE GRAND ORCHESTRA Conducted by JOSEPH MUSCANT
19 Monckton Melodies (Lionel Monckton)
BBC THEATRE ORCHESTRA Conducted by STANFORD ROBINSON

Guild GLCD 5134

 Music has been called the international language, and in its many guises it is probably as diverse as all the spoken tongues around the world. Individual styles constantly develop and change in response to various influences, and there is no doubt that our ancestors who listened to what we might term ‘their’ light music in the 1800s would find the sounds of the 1950s too avant-garde for their ears. Light music is not alone in this; some of today’s best loved classical works were harshly criticised at their premieres. In this, and the companion volume (GLCD 5135), an attempt is being made to illustrate the many varied forms and ensembles that fall within the scope of what many people generally regard as ‘Light Music’ (sometimes called Concert Music or Easy Listening) during four decades of the 20^th century. This was touched upon in the first CD in this Guild series (GLCD 5101) and it is now possible to look in greater depth at the way in which Light Music has developed. From the somewhat sedate styles of earlier years, we progress through the influences of the jazz era until we finally arrive in the 1950s, when the advent of hi-fi often allowed composers, arrangers and conductors to express themselves in a spectacular fashion.

It took thirty years before sound recordings were made using microphones. Until then performers had to position themselves as close as possible to the giant horn that recorded them acoustically, and some instruments such as violins (known as "Stroh fiddles") even had small horns attached to them to amplify their sound. The results would have seemed amazing to record buyers at the time, and the technology managed to cope fairly well with solo performers accompanied by a piano. Sadly orchestras did not sound very good, which is why the temptation to include some very early recorded light music has been resisted as far as this collection is concerned. Our researches have therefore concentrated on the period from 1925 onwards, and the opening track from the end of the decade illustrates how quickly the sound engineers at the time were mastering the new techniques at their disposal.

In the 1920s Eric Coates absorbed the syncopation that was influencing popular music, and he turned his attention to nursery subjects which were sometimes called ‘tone poems’ but which he preferred to label ‘Phantasies’. The Selfish Giant was the first in 1924, and early in 1926 he conducted the augmented Jack Hylton Orchestra on an HMV 78. This was a different version from the usual orchestral score and, although interesting, the sound quality is rather disappointing. Rather better is the rare recording by Julian Fuhs’ Symphony Orchestra selected for this CD (although this was certainly not a full size symphony orchestra!). It was recorded in Berlin on 29 February 1928, and seems to have been released in Britain a year later by Parlophone (it appears that it was unissued in Germany). Julian Fuhs (1891-1975) was a German jazz pianist and conductor who, as a young man, emigrated to the USA and became an American citizen, but returned to his native Berlin in 1924. In 1926 the legendary trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke recorded with Fuhs’ band, and the following year he conducted the first German recording of Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue with Mischa Spoliansky on piano. Due to the political situation in his original homeland, Fuhs returned to the USA in 1936 but failed to repeat his earlier success as a musician.

Guild Light Music’s first 1930’s collection (GLCD 5106) included the Overture to the Tänzerische Suite (Dance Suite) by Eduard Künneke (1885-1953). This prompted several requests for more from this work, and the movement entitled Blues does sound good as a stand-alone piece. During 1925/26 Künneke visited America where he developed an interest in jazz styles through meeting Paul Whiteman, who did so much to popularise the works of the young George Gershwin. The influences are certainly apparent in his Dance Suite although Künneke was regarded more as a composer of operettas (a musical form that has virtually vanished today) with his works being performed in London – one such example was "Love’s Awakening" in 1922 at the Empire Theatre.

The choice of 1930s recordings attempts to illustrate the many varied styles of that troubled period in world history. The 1929 Wall Street stock market crash and the economic depression that followed created misery and hardship for millions, and as the decade progressed the world stumbled towards a second war which finally erupted in 1939. The record industry (and indeed the entertainment profession in general) saw its role as the provider of much-needed relief from the troubles of everyday life, and therefore much of the popular music expressed a cheery optimism which eventually proved to be tragically misplaced.