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The Golden Age of Light Music - From the Vintage Vaults
'The Arcadians' Overture (Lionel Monckton; Howard Talbot, arr. Arthur Wood)
[4:34]
ARTHUR WOOD AND HIS ORCHESTRA
Buffoon (Zez Confrey) [2:45]
NEW LIGHT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Rondel (Sir Edward Elgar, arr. Haydn Wood) and Mina (Sir Edward Elgar arr. Haydn Wood) [3:12]
LIGHT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA/HAYDN WOOD
Arpanetta (Ernst Fischer) [2:35]
ROBERT GADEN AND HIS ORCHESTRA
A Fantasy In Blue The Birth Of The Blues, Blue Again, Blue Room, So Blue, There's A Blue Ridge Round My Heart Virginia, Blue Is The Night, Beyond The Blue Horizon, Blue Hills Of Pasadena, Blue Skies, Where The Blue Of The Night, My Blue Heaven, Good-bye Bye Blues [5:53]
FRED HARTLEY AND HIS QUINTET
Lullaby Land (Reginald King) [2:54]
LONDON CONCERT ORCHESTRA
The Dwarf's Patrol - Fantasy (Otto Rathke) [2:49]
THE LITTLE SALON ORCHESTRA
Suite Orientale: Les Bayadères, Au Bord du Gange, Les Almées, Les Patrouilles (Francis Popy) [8:31]
MAREK WEBER AND HIS ORCHESTRA
March Past Of The Kitchen Utensils (Ralph Vaughan Williams) [2:52]
BBC THEATRE ORCHESTRA/CLARENCE RAYBOULD
Gipsy Wine (Helmut Ritter) [2:53]
BARNABAS VON GECZY AND HIS ORCHESTRA
Springtime Serenade (Jonny Heykens) [2:56]
MAREK WEBER AND HIS ORCHESTRA
In Playful Mood (Montague Ewing) [1:51]
INTERNATIONAL RADIO ORCHESTRA
'Gasparone' Potpourri (Carl Millöcker) [6:35]
EDITH LORAND AND HER VIENNESE ORCHESTRA
Püppchen - Two Step Intermezzo (Little Doll) (Jean Gilbert, real name Max Winterfeld) [3:00]
CONTINENTAL NOVELTY ORCHESTRA
A Day In Naples - Tarantella (George W. Byng) [2:48]
NEW CONCERT ORCHESTRA/JAY WILBUR
Mon Bijou (Robert Stolz) [3:01]
ALFREDO CAMPOLI AND HIS SALON ORCHESTRA
Songs Of The Fair (Easthope Martin) [7:16]
SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA/WALTER GOEHR (as 'George Walter' on record label)
Summer Evening In Santa Cruz (Jose F. Payan, Fred Hartley) [3:29]
ALBERT SANDLER AND HIS ORCHESTRA
Niagara (Carl Robrecht) [2:20]
PALL MALL REVELLERS
Sousa Marches - Medley Washington Post, King Cotton Stars and Stripes, Liberty Bell, El Capitan, High School Cadets, The Diplomat, Stars and Stripes
John Philip Sousa, arr Major Williams [4:51]
JACK HYLTON AND HIS ORCHESTRA
rec. 1930-45
GUILD GLCD 5176 [78:14]

Bright, breezy and wittily orchestrated, Arthur Wood gets this disc off the blocks in fine style with his work on behalf of The Arcadians. It begins a programme that, as Guild's David Ades himself admits in his booklet notes, is 'eclectic'. There is a rationale of sorts but it's admittedly sketchy and we're better off enjoying a slab of a decade and a half's recorded music from a variety of sources, British and continental. No American bands this time.

Clifford Greenwood is possibly the conductor in the Zez Confrey number - and I'm not sure who these sessions musicians were but there's a nice guitarist and pianist in amongst them. The year after Elgar's death Haydn Wood arranged and conducted two amongst the former's less well known pieces, and they make for a warm and delicate salute from a man whom Elgar greatly admired as a composer. Fred Hartley always had a versatile quintet and he, and they, unleash a Fantasy in Blue, a medley in which every song sports the word 'blue'.

By contrast there's a delightfully smoochy Lullaby Land courtesy of Reginald King, a Boswell 'mood music' recording, and an amusing Dwarf's Patrol fantasy from The Little Salon Orchestra without a named conductor. Marek Weber, a master of the light genre, is heard twice, once purveying Gallic charm and then offering Springtime Serenade - both in excellent sound for the time. I was very glad to see Clarence Raybould conducting Vaughan Williams's March Past Of The Kitchen Utensils - it's from The Wasps - not least because it's from a 1945 BBC Transcription disc.

Barnabas von Geczy is on hand for some spicy Magyarisms, whilst that other fine violinist-leader Edith Lorand, also a noted classical player, spins a warm waltz; this was recorded as she was on the cusp of leaving Germany for her native Hungary. Two great British fiddle-leaders can also be heard; Campoli and Sandler, both effortlessly fine. There's also a most enjoyable double sided 1935 Parlophone of Easthope Martin's Songs of the Fair, possibly arranged by Henry Geehl, and conducted by Walter Goehr under his light music alias of George Walter. We end with a Sousa march medley from Jack Hylton and his orchestra in 1934. From the inverted commas I sense the David Ades is unsure who the arranger 'Major Williams' is. Me too, but I assume it was one of the famous Williams family bandmasters - possibly Arthur.

Well then. Eclectic, certainly; good, yes.

Jonathan Woolf