And
still they keep coming. Guild is proving
happily fecund when it comes to their
Light Music series and their cover painting
of Liz Wright’s Village Cricket
promises another welcome helping of
nostalgia. I seem to have reviewed all
the previous issues in the edition and,
like those, this one offers plenty of
entertainment and enjoyment.
We
open on a high with Farnon – that hardly
needs saying – and the Queen’s Hall
Light Orchestra (itself a name deliberately
stirring nostalgic memories in 1949).
The legendary Canadian’s harmonic sophistication
and ear for colouristic piquancy – here
percussive – earns a solid A. Ray Martin,
himself an erstwhile Viennese violinist,
digs into Raphael’s Gypsy Fiddler with
gusto (mining Monti’s Czardas as he
goes, it must be admitted). Frank Cordell,
arranger and bandleader, certainly does
something with the unlikely Oh Dear
What Can The Matter Be, a traditional
vehicle he submits to a sort of Delian-Vaughan
Williamsy rhapsodic freedom – with interlude
for solo violin. Eric Coates’ snappy
Television March (composer conducted
of course) is here next to Norrie Paramor
and his band espousing April in Portugal.
I know we didn’t get around as much
in Coronation Year, 1953, but blimey
the battery of clattering percussion
suggests Marrakesh or a North African
souk rather than the more sedate charms
of Britain’s oldest ally.
Apart from the pleasure
of lesser known record labels, Polygon,
Chappell, Boosey and Hawkes and Bosworth,
we have familiar and unfamiliar names
– or familiar ones (Walter Goehr) in
unfamiliar circumstances – though it’s
true that Goehr did his share of pseudonymous
work for recording companies. Arrangements
are full of vibrancy and colour – Ron
Goodwin does
good things with Edy Mers’ Rainbow Run
– though they can veer to the routine,
such as Peter Yorke’s Glenn Millerish
take on Dvořák. But admirers of
the genre will find much to admire,
from the cascading winds in Goodwin’s
The Jolly Brothers to the saucy Charles
Williams’ version of David Rose’s Parade
of the Clowns.
There are, as ever,
good potted biographies and recording
details and transfers are pretty fine
– though the 1951 Charles Williams Romantic
Interlude sounds to me rather cloudy
and subject to too much treble cut.
Jonathan Woolf
see also review
by Raymond Walker
GUILD GLCD5104
[78.04]