This is a recording
surging with life and impact.
If Guy Noble's Benjamin
Jamaican Rumba is more languid
than usual it is also more sensuous
and warm than conventional pacing permits.
From San Domingo is another of
his Caribbean evocations; sultry yet
catchy with woodblock clatter. The final
reach for a repeat of the Jamaican
Rumba's commercial success came
with Caribbean Dance candidly
subtitled A New Jamaican Rumba.
Again it is catchy and colourful - that’s
for sure. Pity though that ABC did not
think to include the Jamaicalypso
as well.
Henry Krips was the
brother of conductor Josef Krips who
was such a fixture in Australia. Henry
is here represented by four miniatures.
The Serenata Piccola has a central
pavane echoing Ravel's but surrounded
by smiling bright romance. The brief
Romanze and the longer tone poem
Blue Mountains are delicate scene-setters
which instantly establish mood and emotional
depth. Blue Mountains perhaps
recalls the languid line of Bess
You Is My Woman Now. The tone poem
Legend has a leading role for
Janis Laurs’ solo cello - a soulful
yet passionate observer to some isolated
endearing wilderness landscape; the
solo saxophone is not left out of the
picture either. The style, once again,
is indebted to the English pastoral
school - loosely resembling George Butterworth
and Vaughan Williams. Krips also orchestrated
Alfred Hill's famous Maori song Waiata
Poi (a Dawson monster hit) - a jaunty
piece.
Mike Kenny's Open
Road is more commercial - 1950s
innocent and flighty. It shuffles and
glints along -a polished ingénue
of a piece. In the same line is Eric
Jupp's smooth Bobsleigh. Jupp
made a great success with the ABC audiences
and his antecedents were impeccable
in the light vein. He had worked in
the Old Country with the bands of Geraldo
and Ted Heath. Jupp had also learnt
a thing or two from Eric Coates. Tommy
Tycho's confident Lifesavers' March
from the Sydney Suite has
all the confidence and sunshine of a
1950s newsreel.
Jack Grismley wrote
many signature tunes for Grundy Television
from the 1960s onwards. His Rebecca's
Dream recalls Malcolm Arnold's most
idyllically serene writing: a lovely
piece.
German émigré
George Dreyfus is not quite the usual
blend. Recognisable in his miniature
Serenade for Small Orchestra is
a mix of lyrical Copland, Malcolm Arnold
(unmistakably echoed here) and Vaughan
Williams. Oh, and there's also a fragment
of Waltzing Matilda.
Nice to see and hear
anything by William Lovelock. British-born
he came to Australia to head the Queensland
Conservatorium in 1956 and stayed there
until 1981. His Hyde Park Shuffle
is one of his few forays into light
music. It's a cheeky confident confection
with Coates, Elgar and RVW jostling
shoulders. This would have fitted one
of Adrian Boult’s popular anthologies
to a tee.
I have heard Down
Longford Way before in a 2 CD ABC Australian
Light Classics anthology ... and on
no account to be missed. It is another
sentimental rural portrait where accustomed
English pastoral lanes are warmed by
an Antipodean sun.
Frederick Whaite's
Argentina is an accomplished
professional combination of tango and
1950s-style sentimentality - there's
even a solo piano chiming the piece
along with Delian warmth.
It would be a serious
mistake to let this pass you by if you
are a British light music maven.
Rob Barnett