The BBC Concert Orchestra has been around
for far longer than the last 25 years. The quarter century being
celebrated in fact goes back to the foundation in 1984 of the
BBC Concert Orchestra’s Supporters’ Club. The orchestra has always
catered to the BBC’s needs for a jack of light trades. Its realm
has been BBC Radio 2 or the Light Programme of distant yore. It
can be relied on to turn out to provide a reliable and sheeny
accompaniment to the celebrity popular singer or MOR star. It
can be pulled in film music spectaculars and has been a regular
for Radio 2’s Friday Night is Music Night. It has done service
as the orchestra for broadcast Broadway shows, for incidental
music for radio and TV, for stately home summer evening concerts
on the lawn, for the cross-over greats and a myriad other lighter
events. If it no longer has much to pick up in the way of serious
studio concerts taped for future broadcast as in the days of Matinee
Musicale on Radio 3 it finds itself in demand for revivals on
CD of rare British music. Mind you if you look back beyond say
1990 you will find the Radio Times regularly studded with their
programmes of Bax, Harty, Addinsell, Arnold, Alwyn, Bantock, Bennett,
Blezard and so many others.
This very varied anthology swims in light music waters. Quintessentially potpourri works such as
Les Petites Valses Parisiennes (Pigalle (Ulmer) – Mon Coeur est pour toi (Silesu) – La Ronde (Straus) – La Seine (Lafarge) – Domino (Ferrari) – Where is Your Heart (Auric) – Sous les Ponts de Paris (Scotto)) and the final and affectionate
Showtime Carousel (arr Gordon Langford) Showtime Carousel: Carousel Waltz (Rodgers; Hammerstein II) – Oliver (Bart) – Sunrise, Sunset (Bock; Harnick) – Hello, Dolly! (Herman) – Goodbye, Dolly Gray (Barnes; Cobb) – I’m a Brass Band (Coleman; Fields) – How Are Things in Glocca Morra? (Lane; Harburg) – Charlie Girl (Heneker; Taylor) – People (Styne; Merrill) – Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Sherman; Sherman) – Tonight (Bernstein; Sondheim)) take us into populist sentimental fun. Much the same can be said of the Alford
The Two Imps which with its two xylophone soloists has a touch of Parisian Edwardian absurd about it – not to mention reminding is the two musical char ladies in a famous Two Ronnies sketch. It also reminded me of thast startling little piece
Characteristic Piece - Nocturnal Amusement by of all people Nikos Skalkottas. Robert Farnon has been both conductor of the BBCCO and a provider of its repertoire over the years. His slow expansively singing A la Claire Fontaine has featured often in the Concert Orchestra’s concerts stretching back into the days of Stanford Robinson and especially of Ashley Lawrence. Its birdsong and Delian
Paradise Garden mien merges with the long curves of Shenandoah. Film music is also one of the BBCCO specialities as you will know from their work with visiting Hollywood composers and also with XXXXXX as series of four seminal British cinema music revival programmes conducted and introduced by Carl Davis. Ron Goodwin’s
Aces High is an almost too affectionate parody of the Nazi concert band with blazing polished brass and tinkling stahlspielen. Goodwin’s was the score that won out over Walton’s for
The Battle of Britain. Strangely enough there are aspects of this score that echo that blazing masterpiece of the cinema: Addison’s march for
A Bridge To Far. Cole Porter’s
I Love Paris is given a drippingly luxurious treatment by Stanley Black complete with dozen’s of Steiner-like national tune quotes so that the listener knows exactly which country we are in. Rozsa has featured often in the BBCCO concerts (
Hungarian Serenade, Piano Concerto,
Sinfonia Concertante,
That Hamilton Woman,
Thief of Baghdad) dating way back to 1974 when Ashley Lawrence gave the UK premiere of
Tripartita. It is therefore no surprise t encounter them giving the golden-sheaves-piled-high treatment to the
Main Titles and
Love Theme of
Ben-Hur. The Richard Hayman ‘Pops’ Hoe-Down takes us into zinging zany duck quacking swannee whistle nonsense territory. Hayman it will be remembered has been behind probably hundreds of Marco Polo and Naxos light music compendia.
You might well find this mix irresistible whether as a guilty pleasure or a delight without any guilt at all.
Rob Barnett
BBC Concert Orchestra/Roderick Dunk 
