The Guild Golden
Age of Light Music series has excited and entertained me
for some time now and I always look forward to each new issue
with great anticipation. For me, the most interesting light
music is the perfectly turned miniature orchestral piece of
3 or 4 minutes duration which is full of sparkling instrumentation
and has a good tune. I am less interested in orchestral versions
of songs for songs are meant to be sung and shorn of their words
many such pieces seem somewhat empty and forlorn.
This new issue - Strings in Rhythm - is unusual in that
although there’s lots of strings, and an amazing amount
of rhythm, the two don’t seem to marry together too often.
Also, there are too many song arrangements and not enough original
orchestral compositions. Indeed, it is this very lack of original
pieces which creates a lack of focus on the disk, there is no
real high point. There’s still lots to enjoy - Ronald
Binge’s arrangement of Sweetheart Of All My
Dreams, with a cheeky reminiscence of Sailing By,
Ray Martin’svery tongue in cheek Tango
Of Regret (aren’t all tangos regretful in some way?)
and Gerardo H Matos Rodriguez’s symphonic treatment of
La Cumparsita. Marvellous stuff.
Of the song arrangements Roland Shaw’s version of Swinging
On A Star really swings and has some delightfully piquant
sounds, Peter Yorke’s version of Noel Coward’s Poor
Little Rich Girl is perfect 1950s laid back, smoothly gracious,
and Jerome Kern’s In Love In Vain is a great arrangement
of a little known masterpiece.
For the rest there’s a mixture of arrangements and original
compositions, Gershwin’s I Got Rhythm is very exciting,
Jacob Gade’s Glamour - Tango proves that he was
a one-work composer with the Tango Jalousie/a>.
Robert Farnon’s arrangement of Johann Strauss’s
Fireworks Polka is gloriously over the top.
But overall I am left with a feeling of a lack of direction
and purpose in this compilation. There’s also the problem
of the original LPs used for the transfers. The sound is quite
harsh on occasion and the high violins really cut into your
ears. The transfers are nowhere near as satisfactory as those
on the disks which derive from a 78 source.
I am afraid that, for once, Guild hasn’t reached its own
exceptionally high standards in both transfers and choice of
repertoire. Less song please, more of what we love about light
music - the orchestral miniature created purely for enjoyment.
But whatever way you look at it, this disk is entertaining,
just as light music should be.
Bob Briggs
(see footnote below)
see also review by Jonathan
Woolf
Track listing & performers
Victor HERBERT (1859 - 1924) Habanera (from ‘Natoma’),
arranged by Percy FAITH [2:47]
Jimmy VAN HEUSEN (1913 - 1990), Johnny BURKE
(1908 - 1964) Swinging On A Star, arranged by Roland
SHAW [2:41]
Cole PORTER (1891 - 1964) You Do Something To
Me [2:01]
Gordon JENKINS (1910 - 1984) In The Heat of The
Day [2:40]
J George JOHNSON Greenwich Village [3:27]
Eros SCIORILLI La Colpa Fu [1:45]
Irving MILLS (1894 -1985), Manny KURTZ
(1911 - 1984), Edward Kennedy (Duke) ELLINGTON
(1899 -1974) In A Sentimental Mood [2:58]
Georges BOULANGER (1893 -1958) Da Capo [2:07]
Jerome KERN (1885 -1945) In Love In Vain (from
Centennial Summer) [2:48]
Noel COWARD (1899 -1973) Poor Little Rich
Girl, arranged by Peter YORKE [2:27]
Dave DEXTER Sunset On The Tiber [2:44]
Gerardo H Matos RODRIGUEZ La Cumparsita [4:57]
Harold (Hal) MOONEY (1911 - 1995) Cancer [2:59]
Ernesto LECUONA (1895 - 1963) Maria La O [2:23]
Franz LEHAR (1870 -1948) You Are My Heart’s
Delight (from Land of Smiles) [2:57]
Art and Kay FITCH , Herbert C
LOWE Sweetheart Of All My Dreams, arranged by Ronald
BINGE [2:27]
ZAMECNIK, KERR Neapolitan Nites Mambo [3:08]
Eugene FORD Rain arranged by Nelson Riddle [2:25]
TRADITIONAL La Cucaracha [1:51]
Otto CESANA Let’s Beguine [2:37]
Ray MARTIN (1918 - 1988) Tango Of Regret [2:09]
Joseph François HEYNE La Petite Gavotte [2:38]
LARA Horizonte [2:44]
Ralph RAINGER (1901 -1942) I Wished On The Moon
[3:02]
George GERSHWIN (1898 - 1937) I Got Rhythm [2:52]
Jacob GADE (1879 - 1963) Glamour - Tango [3:49]
SAFVRANSKI, LOWE Sugar Loaf [2:10]
Johann STRAUSS (1825-1899). Fireworks Polka, arranged
by Robert FARNON [2:52]
Hans Georg Arlt (Boulanger), Ronald Binge (Sweetheart Of All
My Dreams),
David Carroll (Sugar Loaf), Otto Cesana (Let’s Beguine),
Frank Chacksfield (Swinging On A Star), Percy Faith (Victor
Herbert), Robert Farnon (Johann Strauss), Jackie Gleason (I
Wished On The Moon), Pépé Gonzalez (La Cucaracha),
Philip Green (In A Sentimental Mood), Gordon Jenkins (In The
Heat Of The Day), Bert Kaempfert (Horizonte), Monty Kelly (Neapolitan
Nites Mambo), Andre Kostelanetz (I Got Rhythm), Dolf van der
Linden (La Petite Gavotte), Geoff Love (Franz Lehár),
Ray Martin (Tango Of Regret), Hal Mooney ((Hal Mooney), Werner
Müller (Jacob Gade), Nelson Riddle (Rain), Paul Weston
(Jerome Kern) all with His Own Orchestra. Norrie Paramor (Sunset
On The Tiber) and Peter Yorke (Poor Little Rich Girl) with their
Concert Orchestras. Carmen Dragon and the Capitol Symphony Orchestra
(La Cumparsita), George Melachrino conducting the Orchestra
of the 6th Sanremo Festival 1956 (La Colpa Fu), New World Theatre
Orchestra (Greenwich Village), Victor Sylvester and his Silver
Strings (You Do Something To Me), Helmut Zacharias and his Magic
Violins (Maria La O)
.............................................................................
Bob Briggs quite rightly mentions the harsh sound
on some tracks but this is a problem that afflicted many LPs
in the 1950s, so perhaps it is a little unfair to blame the
transfers when they are accurately reproducing what was on the
original recording. In particular, certain American labels seemed
to go out of their way to over equalise the top strings in the
name of “Hi-Fi”. One of the worst offenders was
Mercury, which always seemed odd to me as many of their classical
recordings set the standard by which others were judged. Some
of their Richard Hayman recordings we have used are so bad in
this respect that, believe it or not, even removing everything
above 8kHz had very little effect on the harshness of the sound.
I have lost count of the times when, having sent a listening
copy to David Ades (the other half of the Guild Light Music
team), on which I have already considerably tamed the high end,
he e-mails me back saying “can’t you do anything
about those screeching strings on track so and so?” We
go to an immense amount of trouble to ensure that there aren't
any jarring changes in sound quality from track to track and
that the sound throughout the CD is as uniform as possible but,
for various reasons, we don't always succeed.
Alan Bunting
GUILD GLCD 5167 [77:59] 
