Victor YOUNG
(1900 – 1956) Stringin’ Along
[3:20]
Will JASON
& Val BURTON
Penthouse Serenade [2:51]
Trevor DUNCAN
(pseudonym for Leonard
Charles TREBILCO) (1924 – 2005)
Mam’selle Moderne [2:48]
Kermit LESLIE
& Walter
LESLIE (pseudonyms for Kermit
and Walter LEVINSKY)
Rainy Afternoon [3:22]
Reginald
KING (1904 – 1991) Heading
for Home [2:45]
GIRAUD
A New Born Love [2:17]
Ronald BINGE
(1910 – 1979) Man In A Hurry [2:41]
Leo LeFLEUR
Wedding of the Violins [3:16]
Paul LINCKE
(1866 – 1946) Whirl of the Waltz
[3:12]
FONTAINE
&
SPEGUEL Aperitif [3:11]
Vincent YOUMANS
(1898 – 1946) Carioca (1934)
[2:16]
Otto CESANA
Devotion [2:44]
Peter DENNIS
(pseudonym for Dennis
BERRY) Fresh Up [2:56]
Lewis Wolfe
GILBERT (1886
– 1970) & Henry
R STERN (b 1874) By Heck
[2:00]
Oscar HAMMERSTEIN
II (1895 – 1960) & Johann
STRAUSS II (1825 – 1899) I’m
In Love with Vienna [2:19]
Emile DELTOUR
& Fud CANDRIX
Polka for Strings [2:11]
George MELACHRINO
(1909 – 1965) Gay Romance [3:44]
Xavier CUGAT
(1900 – 1990), Fausto
CURBELO (b 1915) (arranged
by Laurie JOHNSON)
Tentacion de Amor [2 :46]
Ray MARTIN
(1918 – 1988) Six Proud Walkers
(Theme from the BBC TV serial) [2:49]
Vivian ELLIS
(1903 – 1996) Flight 101 [2:47]
Ray MARTIN
Ballet of the Bells [2:14]
Bernie WAYNE
(pseudonym for Bernard
WEITZNER) (1919 – 1993) Zsa-Zsa
[2:30]
Frank PERKINS
(1908 – 1998) The Frustrated Floorwalker
[2:58]
David ROSE
(1910 – 1990) Bordeaux [2:40]
Robert FARNON
(1917 – 2005) Moomin [2:30]
George FRENCH
Bobby Sox [2:05]
John Pi SCHEFFER
(1909 – 1988) Apple Flap [2:48]
Guy Pierre
LAFARGE The Little Ballerina
[2:38]
Alfonzo D’Artega (Lefleur); Jackie
Brown (Ballet of the Bells); David
Carroll (Lafarge); Otto Cesana (Cesana);
Emile Deltour (Aperitif); Richard
Hayman (Hayman); Andre Kostelanetz
(Youmans); Guy Luypaerts (Giraud);
Kermit Leslie (Leslie); Werner Muller
(Penthouse Serenade); David Rose (Rose);
Dolf Van Der Linden (Candrix, Dennis,
Scheffer); Bernie Wayne (Wayne); Victor
Young (Young) all with their "Own"
Orchestra; Ray Martin And his Concert
Orchestra (Six Proud Walkers); Frank
Perkins And his Pops Orchestra (Perkins);
Georges Tzipine and his Salon Orchestra
(Stern); Ambrose and his Orchestra
with Strings/Laurie Johnson (Cugat);
Danish State Radio Orchestra/Rovert
Farnon (Ellis, Farnon); London Promenade
Orchestra/Eric Rogers (Lincke); The
Melachrino Orchestra/George Melachrino
(Melachrino); L’orchestre Devereaux/Georges
Devereaux (French); Regent Classic
Orchestra (King); Stuttgart Radio
Orchestra/Kurt Rehfeld (Binge, Duncan)
Re-issues from 78 rpm discs and early
33 rpm LPs, recorded between 1949
and 1957 ADD
This is a super
disk. Don’t let the title mislead
you – this isn’t a collection of
music for strings, it’s a disk of
magnificent miniatures for concert
orchestra where the emphasis is
on the string section. There’s some
real winners here!
Victor Young’s
Stringin’ Along gets things
off to a fine start. It’s a scherzo
piece with a Rachmaninov–like central
section with a dreamy piano solo.
Lovely stuff. Penthouse Serenade
is one of those "Hi honey,
I’m home" pieces which we always
equate with 1950s filmic domestic
Americana.
It’s always a pleasure
to hear anything by Trevor Duncan
and Mam’selle Moderne is
a delightful piece of pizzicato
enchantment with a more sustained
middle section. Rainy Afternoon
brings us back to domesticity while
Heading For Home is a fun-packed
mini travelogue. A New Born Love
is a very graceful waltz which takes
its time whereas Binge’s Man
In A Hurry doesn’t have any
to spare. This is one of the joys
of this disk. Wedding of the
Violins is a toccata for the
fiddles, with a beautiful middle
section, which, at the end alludes
to Wagner’s Bridal March!
Paul Lincke, he
of Glow–Worm fame, offers
a suave Whirl of the Waltz
which is very Berlinerisch! Another
pizzicato piece, Aperitif,
lightens the textures and then we’ve
got a superb arrangement of Vincent
Youmans’s Academy Award nominated
Carioca from his score the
Astaire/Rogers film Flying Down
to Rio. This is one of the most
exciting tracks on this disk. More
domesticity with Devotion
whose spell is broken by the up-tempo
Fresh Up, where the music
is led, quite discreetly, by the
brass. Home-spin Americana in By
Heck and heavy Viennoiserie
in I’m In Love With Vienna.
Polka For Strings – but where’s
the Polka? – is one of those Holiday
for Strings–type pieces, and
none the worse for that, a brilliant
toccata for the strings. Waltz-time
returns with Melachrino’s Gay
Romance – surely a waltz too
fast for dancing – and once we reach
the middle it all changes and the
music fairly races away with itself.
South America is visited via Cugat’s
sultry and sexy Tentacion de
Amor in a fine, and slightly
restrained, Laurie Johnson arrangement.
Two Ray Martin
pieces follow. Six Proud Walkers
was a BBC TV serial and I wonder
what it was about for the whistling
at the start and reference to the
Westminster chimes are fascinating.
Ballet of the Bells seems
a bit heavy handed for the ballet
but as a piece of music it’s most
pleasing. Between these two pieces
comes Flight 101 – Vivian
Ellis having got off the Coronation
Scot almost immediately boards
an aeroplane! And this couldn’t
be more different from his famous
train work. No big tune, and sleek
contours as befits the new-fangled
jet travel.
Zsa-Zsa
is a fast and loose piece of high-speed
fiddling, with contrasting middle
section complete with women’s chorus,
and The Frustrated Floorwalker
is an hilarious piece of nonsense
for the flute and strings. It has
a most memorable, quirky, tune.
Bordeaux – the drink, the
place? A nice interlude by the great
David Rose. You’ll know Moomin,
written as a tribute to Tove Jansson’s
cartoon creation, it’s a delightfully
playful work.
We’re overseas
for the final three items. Bobby
Sox rushes away with infectious
humour, Apple Flap includes
some very infectious brass writing
and, to end, The Little Ballerina
includes reference to several famous
ballet moments.
There’s much to
enjoy in this sparkling collection.
The transfers are good, but, as
you’d expect, there is some variety
of sound because of the various
recording dates and venues. The
booklet, for some reason, doesn’t
discuss, or even bother to mention,
some of the pieces on this disk
but perhaps that is because, like
me, as I trawled the internet for
information, I discovered that there
simply wasn’t any!!
What a wonderful
series this is, full of surprises
and the disks are always well planned
with lots of variety and interest.
Bob Briggs