Leroy
Anderson’s name on a disc cover is pretty much a guarantee
of vitality, wit and enjoyment. The only proviso concerns
performances. And as with the first volume in Slatkin’s
Naxos series the performances are engaging, stylistically
apt and full of curvaceous allure. The fact that we have
five world premiere recordings – and no mere shavings from
the bench at that – is surely even more reason to look
favourably on this latest, peppy entrant.
A
Harvard Festival is one of
those premiere recordings. It was composed in 1969 and
weaves together student songs with the warmth of Brahmsian
undertow. Those sturdy lower strings surely evoke the
Academic Festival Overture and amidst the skirl the organ
peals with declamatory affirmation.
Forgotten Dreams is
a relaxed and relaxing morceau and acts in winsome juxtaposition.
That old favourite
Horse and Buggy is an example
of Anderson’s spruce, clean limbed Americana and to follow
it with
The Waltzing Cat is to invite superlative
on superlative. The lissom glissandi of this one acts
as an entrée to the further examination of animal life
in the racing drama,
Home Stretch, packed with
vim.
March
of the Two Left Feet is a
relatively late work, dating from 1970 and its captivating,
naughty percussion part would test the counting skills
of many a practitioner of the art. Whereas the brace
of pre-war jazz-tinged pieces takes us back to another
time altogether.
Jazz Legato has a carefree jauntiness – good
tight BBC trumpets – and
Jazz Pizzicato digs into
the symphonic jazz vogue with whimsical indulgence.
Song
of the Bells is a tuneful frolic, a ¾ waltz with
a touch of South of the Border about it. New to me -
but not a premiere recording – is the arrangement of
Where’er
You Walk from Handel’s
Semele where the protagonist
is not a tenor but a trumpeter. Here is Anderson wearing
his arranger’s hat – it’s a grand setting, too, with
more than a hint of Hamilton Harty about it. The
Suite
of Carols ends this enterprising, far ranging collection.
Here Anderson explores some lightly sprung neo-classicism
in his settings. The
Wassail Song is especially
potent.
The
disc is excellently played and conducted - and warmly recorded – so
Anderson devotees will find much to excite and entertain
them.
Jonathan
Woolf
see also reviews by Ian
Lace and John France
Alistair
Young (piano)*, David McCallum (trumpet)#
