British Cinema And Theatre Orchestras – Volume Three
GUILD LIGHT MUSIC GLCD5168
British Cinema And Theatre Orchestras – Volume Three
1 Palladium Memories – Selection
LONDON PALLADIUM ORCHESTRA Conducted by CLIFFORD GREENWOOD
HMV C 3067 1939
2 Wedding Of The Rose (Leon Jessel)
COMMODORE GRAND ORCHESTRA Conducted by JOSEPH MUSCANT
Edison Bell Winner 5513 1932
3 The Grenadiers – Valse Militaire (Emile Charles Waldteufel)
ANTON AND THE PARAMOUNT THEATRE ORCHESTRA, LONDON featuring AL BOLLINGTON, Organ
HMV BD 729 1939
4 "Hit The Deck" – Selection (Vincent Youmans)
LONDON HIPPODROME ORCHESTRA Conducted by JOE TUNBRIDGE
Columbia 9284 1927
5 Moontime (Walter R. Collins)
LONDON PALLADIUM ORCHESTRA Conducted by RICHARD CREAN
HMV B 4283 1932
6 Perfection (J.H. White)
COMMODORE GRAND ORCHESTRA Conducted by JOSEPH MUSCANT featuring ALBERT COUPE, Trumpet
Edison Bell Winner 5582 1933
7 "Home And Beauty" – Selection (Nicholas Brodszky)
ADELPHI THEATRE ORCHESTRA Conducted by FRANCIS COLLINSON
Columbia DX 774 1937
8 The Busy Bee – Morceau Characteristique (Theo Bendix)
PLAZA THEATRE ORCHESTRA Conducted by FRANK TOURS
Columbia 5195 1929
9 Indian Love Lyrics (Amy Woodforde-Finden)
COMMODORE GRAND ORCHESTRA Conducted by JOSEPH MUSCANT
Edison Bell Winner 5534 1933
10 Les Sylphides (Oliver Cussans real name Alfred Pratt, arr. Adolf Lotter)
LONDON PALLADIUM ORCHESTRA Conducted by RICHARD CREAN
HMV B 4283 1932
11 "The Song Of The Sea" – Selection (Eduard Künneke)
HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE ORCHESTRA Conducted by EDUARD KÜNNEKE
Columbia 9543 1928
12 A La Gavotte (Herman Finck)
PLAZA THEATRE ORCHESTRA Conducted by FRANK TOURS
Columbia 5193 1929
13 What The Forest Whispers – Waltz (C. Zimmer)
COMMODORE GRAND ORCHESTRA Conducted by JOSEPH MUSCANT
Regal Zonophone MR 1307 1934
14 The Valley Of The Poppies (Charles Ancliffe)
LONDON PALLADIUM ORCHESTRA Conducted by RICHARD CREAN
HMV B 3566 1930
15 Serenade (Frantisek Drdla)
ANTON AND THE PARAMOUNT THEATRE ORCHESTRA, LONDON with AL BOLLINGTON, Organ
HMV BD 660 1939
16 Chanson (In Love) (Rudolf Friml)
PLAZA THEATRE ORCHESTRA Conducted by FRANK TOURS
Columbia 9157 1927
17 Beautiful Spring - Waltz (Paul Lincke)REGAL VIRTUOSI (Regal Cinema Orchestra) Conducted by EMANUEL STARKEY featuring SIDNEY TORCH, Organ
Columbia DB 1007 1933
18 "Countess Maritza" – Selection (Emmerich Kálmán)
COVENTRY NEW HIPPODROME ORCHESTRA Conducted by WILLIAM PETHERS
Regal Zonophone MR 2790 1938
All tracks: mono
Details of selections
Palladium Memories – Selection (composers and arranger unidentified on original disc)
There’s A New World, Free, Waltz Of The Gipsies, Round About Regent Street, The Fleet’s In Port Again, Hometown, O-Kay For Sound, Along The River With You, Life Begins At Oxford Circus.
Special note: this selection occupies two sides of an HMV 78 rpm record, with each identified as either ‘side one’ or ‘side two’. Listening carefully to the music there is reasonable doubt that the sides may have been labelled incorrectly at some stage between the original arrangement and the final pressing of the disc. The opening of ‘side two’ on the 78 is more impressive than the beginning of ‘side one’, and the final tune on ‘side one’ reaches a far more dramatic finale than its counterpart on ‘side two’. Therefore it has been decided to reverse the playing order of the sides on this CD which it is hoped will make the entire selection musically more enjoyable.
"Hit The Deck" – Selection (Vincent Youmans)
Join The Navy; Harbour Of My Heart; Nothing Could Be Sweeter; Sometimes I’m Happy; Shore Leave; Lucky Bird; Opening Act 2; Sometimes I’m Happy.
"Home And Beauty" – Selection (Nicholas Brodszky)
Sing Something In The Morning, Storm In My Heart, I’ve Done With Men, No More, Mulberry Men, A Nice Cup Of Tea, Love Me A Little Today, Everybody Must Keep Fit, Twilight Sonata, England Awake, Czardas.
Indian Love Lyrics (Amy Woodforde-Finden)
Temple Bells, Less Than Dust, Kashmiri Song, Till I Wake.
"The Song Of The Sea" – Selection (Eduard Künneke)
Introduction; True Eyes; The Tavern Maid; Finale Act 1; Someone; Song Of The Sea.
"Countess Maritza" – Selection (Emmerich Kálmán)
Titles not given on disc or in original record catalogue.
All titles mono
The two previous collections focussing upon this area of the music scene have prompted a steady flow of requests asking for more. It seems that a considerable number of music lovers retain a special affection for music mainly from the inter-war years of the 20th century, and this was a time when theatres and cinemas employed many musicians in their ‘house’ orchestras.
It should be emphasised that there was no intention that these compilations should focus exclusively upon British orchestras, but considerable research has revealed that, although such orchestras undoubtedly existed in various countries around the world, it was mainly in Britain that record companies seemed to consider them worthy of inclusion in their catalogues. These ensembles offered record buyers a wide choice of light music from leading composers in Europe and America, as well as nearer home.
In the early years of the last century, silent films were often shown to the accompaniment of music provided by a pianist or a small group of musicians. The larger cinemas gradually engaged bigger musical ensembles, until by the 1920s a decent-sized orchestra would often perform music specially composed to accompany the film being screened. However the arrival of talking pictures towards the end of the 1920s heralded the gradual demise of the orchestras, but the general public had become accustomed to an element of live musical entertainment on their frequent visits to the cinema. Partly as a cost-cutting exercise, most orchestras were replaced by theatre organs, but in some cases the change-over was gradual, and for a few years both organs and orchestras co-existed. Some of the tracks on this CD reflect this temporary transformation.
It is slightly surprising (given the technical problems that must have been involved) that many recordings from this period proudly state that the orchestra was actually recorded in the theatre or cinema where it usually performed. Of course, this was necessary if the organ was to be featured, but in other cases it would have been a simple matter to get the orchestra into a studio, and in fact there are instances where a studio-based orchestra and a cinema organ were recorded together via what used to be known as a land line.
Things were different in theatres (not to be confused with movie theatres, where films were screened): technology was not the enemy of musicians – the culprit was changing tastes in entertainment. The once ubiquitous variety theatres in provincial towns and cities have become just a memory, and today it is noteworthy when more than a handful of instrumentalists support a musical stage performance.
It may be of interest to mention a few of the cinemas and theatres where some of the orchestras featured in this collection were based. The stories of some are unfortunately typical of most: from being wonderful escapist venues for the masses in the 1930s, they eventually became too large to sustain financially, with very few exceptions. Many names are now just memories, although others are still very familiar.
In its heyday the London Palladium Orchestra was one of the major British light orchestras of the pre-war years, at least on gramophone records. HMV recorded over 140 sides during the 1930s and early 1940s and many of these are of a high technical standard, aided by the Palladium’s fine acoustics. The famous theatre stands on a site which was once the residence of the Duke of Argyll, in Argyll Street, London. It was opened on 26th December 1910, having taken two years to build. By 1930 it was firmly established as one of London’s premier entertainment venues, and the orchestra was in the capable hands of Richard Crean. He remained at the helm until 1937 when Clifford Greenwood took over. Crean’s assistant was William Pethers who conducted a few recordings (he later went on to the Coventry Hippodrome); Jack Frere provided a similar service for Greenwood.
Richard Crean (1879-1955) became a familiar name in the 1930s through his association with the London Palladium Orchestra. Prior to that, he had travelled widely as Chorus Master with the Thomas Quinlan Opera Company, before accepting a similar position at Covent Garden with Adrian Boult. Then a spell at Ilford Hippodrome in variety led to his appointment in 1930 as conductor of the London Palladium Orchestra which lasted for around five years until he formed his own orchestra which he conducted, on and off, for the rest of his life. For a short while in 1941-42 he conducted the newly-formed BBC Midland Light Orchestra, and he was also a contributor to the Boosey & Hawkes Recorded Music Library.
‘Paramount’ still crops up at the start of films, and the original Paramount Pictures opened their third London movie theatre (after the Plaza, Lower Regent Street, and the Carlton in the Haymarket) in Tottenham Court Road in 1936, with a capacity of 2,568 seats. The organ installed was a Compton with ten units of pipes, together with one of the recently developed Melotone units, which produced a variety of voices together with carillon, chimes and other effects produced by electrostatic tone generation. The first resident organist, Reginald Foort (heard on Guild’s 1930s CD with the BBC Variety Orchestra – GLCD5106) was keen to exploit this new feature, and it was used to even greater effect by his successor, Al Bollington (1904-1991). The cinema was taken over by Odeon in 1942, and eventually closed by the Rank Organisation in 1960 and largely demolished. Four years later the site was used as a ‘temporary’ car park, and the lower sections of the auditorium’s walls could be seen, still showing traces of the original peeling and crumbling plasterwork. Sadly the final remains of the Paramount were obliterated in 2004.
Many of the orchestra leaders and soloists in this collection were ‘household names’ in their day - notably the Paramount Orchestra’s Arthur Anton (who died in 1980). He conducted for many light music broadcasts over the years, and like Richard Crean he later made some recordings of library music for London publishers Boosey & Hawkes.
Paramount’s Plaza Theatre opened in March 1926, with a fine orchestra and a Wurlitzer organ to entertain the patrons and accompany the then silent films. The conductor was Frank E. Tours (1877-1963), who studied at the Royal College of Music and soon became involved in the musical theatre, although his most successful work was not a show number but his setting of Rudyard Kipling’s Mother o’ Mine. After co-writing several shows, in 1909 he wrote the entire music for "The Dashing Little Duke," conducting the orchestra and the selections recorded acoustically by HMV. In 1926 Tours was invited by Columbia to make a series of recordings with the recently formed Plaza Theatre Orchestra. His musical choice was in the light and light classical categories, rather than the novelties often favoured by some of his contemporaries, but the results were always very tasteful.
Russian-born Joseph Muscant (1899-1983) is credited with making the Commodore Grand Orchestra (also known as the Commodore Gold Medal Orchestra) into one of the finest ensembles playing light music at that time. It was formed when the Hammersmith cinema opened on 14 September 1929, and soon became popular throughout Britain thanks to its regular BBC radio broadcasts. The resident pianist was Louis Mordish (1908-1996), and long after World War 2 he was still broadcasting regularly on the BBC with his own ensemble in programmes such as ‘Music While You Work’.
The Regal Cinema Orchestra, under its conductor Emanuel Starkey, gained a fine reputation and is remembered today partly through its early recordings of Eric Coates’ music. That great light music composer Sidney Torch (1908-1990) was at one time a pianist in Starkey’s orchestra at this famous Marble Arch movie theatre, and for a while he served as assistant to the first resident organist, Quentin Maclean (1896-1962). The Regal Cinema opened in November 1928, and it was subsequently leased to a company which was to become Associated British Cinemas. Despite a stipulation that the orchestra must be retained, in June 1931 notice of termination was issued, leaving Reginald Foort (and later Sidney Torch) to provide the only live music on the cinema’s Christie organ, which was the largest in Britain, with 4 manuals and an amazing 37 ranks of pipes. But something must have been happening behind the scenes as, early in 1932, a new orchestra about half the size of the original and called "The Regal Virtuosi" arrived, again under the baton of Emanuel Starkey, with Torch as its pianist and arranger. It does not seem to have existed for long, but long enough to record five items for Columbia, one of which can be heard here.
The London Hippodrome was originally designed as a circus when it opened on 15 January 1900. In 1909 it was redeveloped as a theatre which could also screen films, and its location in Leicester Square, at the heart of London’s theatreland, meant that it would stage many top shows over the next fifty years. In 1958 it became a theatre restaurant as "The Talk Of The Town" which thrived for 25 years. In 1983 it was transformed into a nightclub, which brought its share of problems, eventually leading to its closure. There are plans to reopen it as a Casino in 2010.
The show "Hit The Deck" by Vincent Youmans and Clifford Grey opened at the London Hippodrome on 3 November 1927 and ran for 277 performances. It had previously opened at the Belasco Theater on Broadway on 25 April where it notched up 532 performances. RKO filmed the show in 1930, and in 1955 MGM used most of the original songs for its film version in stereo sound and CinemaScope starring many of its contract artists including Jane Powell, Tony Martin, Debbie Reynolds, Ann Miller, Russ Tamblyn and Vic Damone.
The Adelphi Theatre in The Strand was first known as The Sans Pareil when it opened on 27 November 1806 before changing its name to Adelphi in 1819. It was rebuilt in 1858, and further reconstructions took place in 1930. The original London production of Charles B. Cochran’s "Home And Beauty" opened at the Adelphi on 2 February 1937 and was billed as a ‘Coronation Revue’ in anticipation of the event planned for 12 May 1937, although the King eventually crowned was George VI, rather than his brother Edward VIII who had abdicated the previous December. Its star Binnie Hale had a hit with A Nice Cup Of Tea but it is the only song from the show that has endured. The music was composed by Nicholas Brodszky (lyrics by A.P. Herbert) and it is an attractive – if largely unfamiliar – score. Born in Odessa, Russia, Nicholas Brodszky (1905-1958) – spellings of his names differ - had a thriving career in German films until the developing political situation brought him to Britain in the mid-1930s. He contributed scores to several memorable films, notably "The Way To The Stars" (1945) where he collaborated with Charles Williams, who later claimed that he was responsible for the lion’s share of the work (Williams’ own recording is on GLCD 5102). Brodszky ended his career in Hollywood, receiving five Oscar nominations for movie songs (four of them with lyrics by Sammy Cahn) such as Be My Love and Because You’re Mine.
His (now ‘Her’) Majesty’s Theatre has undergone several changes of name since the first of four theatres constructed on the same site in Haymarket opened in April 1705. "The Song Of The Sea" is regarded by some musicologists as Eduard Künneke’s masterpiece. The 1928 British production at His Majesty’s Theatre was developed from his operetta called "Lady Hamilton" which premiered in Breslau on 25 September 1926. Künneke (1885-1953) was complimented for his use of saxophones (evident in this recording), then regarded as something of an innovation, and which he would develop further in his "Dance Suite" from the same period – three movements are already available on Guild GLCD5106, 5134 and 5163.
The operetta "Countess Maritza" was premiered as "Gräfin Mariza" in Vienna in 1924, before moving on to New York’s Schubert Theater in 1926 and eventually reaching London’s West End (as simply "Maritza") in 1938. The attractive music by the Hungarian Emmerich Kálmán (1882-1953 – known originally in his own country as Kálmán Imre) has been recorded many times, and in this collection it is the once famous Coventry New Hippodrome Orchestra that provides the finale. The ‘New’ in the orchestra’s name refers to the fact that the ‘old’ Coventry Hippodrome staged its final show on 31 October 1937, and the next day the New Hippodrome opened next door. It had the honour of being the first theatre to have a BBC radio studio specially built inside it, and this was used regularly for broadcasts by the orchestra on the BBC World Service. The original Hippodrome Orchestra had already performed over 450 broadcasts for home listeners even before it moved to the new theatre. As already mentioned in these notes, the conductor William E. Pethers had previously worked with Richard Crean at the London Palladium. He was still at Coventry in 1957 when the orchestra (by then known as The Coventry Theatre Orchestra) was engaged for a "Music While You Work" programme on 30 May.
David Ades