British Light Music
CD1 [76:53]
Eric COATES
Calling All Workers
[3:20]
Geoffrey TOYE
The Haunted Ballroom
[8:15]
Anthony COLLINS
Vanity Fair [3:53]
Robert FARNON
Jumping Bean
[2:24]
Sydney BAYNES
Destiny [8:29]
Frederic CURZON
The Boulevardier
[3:55]
W Meyer LUTZ
Pas de quatre
[3:39]
Ronald BINGE
The Watermill
(with Ruth Scott, oboe) [3:45]
Charles WILLIAMS
The Devil’s Galop
[3:12]
Armstrong GIBBS
Dusk [6:07]
Edward WHITE
Puffin’ Billy
[3:40]
Albert W KETÈLBEY
Bells Across the
Meadows [4:40]
Charles WILLIAMS
The Old Clockmaker
[3:12]
Archibald JOYCE
Dreaming [6:04]
Ronald BINGE
Elizabethan Serenade
[3:20]
Vivian ELLIS
Coronation Scot
[2:57]
Charles ANCLIFFE
Nights of Gladness
[5:39]
CD2 [76:25]
Eric COATES
Knightsbridge
March from London Suite [4:34]
Percy FLETCHER
Bal Masqué:
Valse-Caprice: [6:35]
Ernest BUCALOSSI
The Grasshopper’s
Dance [4:10]
Arthur WOOD
Barwick Green
- A Maypole Dance from My Native
Heath [3:20]
Fred HARTLEY
Rouge et Noir
[2:46]
Robert FARNON
The Peanut Polka
[2:56]
Benjamin FRANKEL
Carriage and Pair
[2:49]
Haydn WOOD
The Horse Guards,
Whitehall from London Landmarks
[3:50]
‘Trevor DUNCAN’
March from A
Little Suite [3:18]
Ronald BINGE
Sailing By [2:50]
Gilbert VINTER
Portuguese Party
[3:19]
Clive RICHARDSON
Beachcomber [3:13]
Herman FINCK
In the Shadows
[5:54]
Robert DOCKER
Tabarinage [3:28]
Albert W KETÈLBEY
Sanctuary of the
Heart ‘Méditation réligieuse’
[4:50]
Robert FARNON
The Westminster Waltz
[2:58]
Edward ELGAR
Carissima [3:41]
Charles WILLIAMS
Girls in Grey
[2:38]
Edward WHITE
The Runaway Rocking-Horse
[3:59]
Frederic CURZON
March of the Bowmen
from Robin Hood Suite [4:42]
CD3 [78:45]
Haydn WOOD
Montmartre [3:47]
Clive RICHARDSON,
arr HANMER
Melody on the Move [2:42]
Jack STRACHEY
In Party Mood
[4:01]
Trevor DUNCAN
The Girl from Corsica
[4:37]
Lionel MONCKTON
Soldiers in the Park
[3:51]
Felix GODIN,
arr Adolf LOTTER
Valse Septembre [5:22]
Ronald BINGE
Miss Melanie
[2:25]
Ivan CARYLL
Pink Lady Waltz
[5:25]
Robert FARNON
Portrait of a Flirt
[2:44]
Harry DEXTER
Siciliano [4:37]
Albert KETÈLBEY
In a Persian Market*
[6:15]
Jack STRACHEY
Theatreland [3:19]
Archibald JOYCE
Songe d’Automne
[4:46]
Vivian ELLIS,
arr Sidney
TORCH Alpine Pastures
[3:40]
Ernest TOMLINSON
Little Serenade [3:31]
George MELACHRINO
Woodland Revel
[3:10]
Tolchard EVANS,
arr Fred HARTLEY/Ken
WARNER Lady of Spain
[3:02]
Charles ANCLIFFE
Smiles, then Kisses
[4:26]
Sidney TORCH
On a Spring Note
[2:31]
Eric COATES
Music Everywhere
(‘Rediffusion March’ [3:20]
CD4 [77:58]
‘Marshall ROSS’
Marching Strings
[2:45]
Peter HOPE
Jaunting Car
from The Ring of Kerry [2:46]
‘Trevor DUNCAN’
High Heels [3:13]
Frederic CURZON
Dance of an Ostracised
Imp [3:21]
John FOULDS
Keltic Lament
from A Keltic Suite Op. 29 †
[4:14]
Charles WILLIAMS
Rhythm on Rails
[2:47]
Eric COATES
By the Sleepy Lagoon
[4:03]
Arthur BENJAMIN
Jamaican Rumba
[2:06]
Albert W KETÈLBEY
In a Monastery Garden
[5:53]
Charles WILLIAMS
A Quiet Stroll
[2:55]
Percy FLETCHER
Demoiselle Chic
- Parisian Sketches No 1 [3:59]
Jack BEAVER
Cavalcade of Youth
[3:40]
Fredric BAYCO
Elizabethan Masque
* [2:16]
Henry BALFOUR
GARDINER Shepherd
Fennel’s Dance [5:31]
Charles ANCLIFFE
Thrills [6:04]
Frederick ROSSE
The Doge’s March
from The Merchant of Venice [4:55]
Samuel COLERIDGE-TAYLOR
Petite Suite de Concert
Op. 77: La caprice de Nanette [4:00];
Demande et réponse [4:56];
Un sonnet d’amour [4:01]; La
tarantelle frétillante [2:23]
British light music
reigned on radio and in the concert
halls from the 1920s until the 1960s
and then waned ... suffering an apparently
terminal illness. The lowest point came
when the BBC axed the mid-afternoon
hour's slot – known as Matinée
Musicale on Radio 3. Matinée
Musicale had become the ghetto for
studio concerts of light music recorded
by the BBC Concert Orchestra and conducted
at first by Stanford Robinson and then
by Ashley Lawrence. The end came in
the early 1980s.
Coates and Ketèlbey
were survivors of a once flourishing
two or three generations. They enjoyed
a scant survival in the LP catalogue
but in greybeard recordings. All was
not lost. The launch of a new recording
medium (the CD) seems to have been the
salvation for the genre – and of others
too. Klaus Heymann's Marco Polo label
launched a series each featuring a different
British light music composer. The sessions
took place in the Czech Republic where
recording costs were lower. Coates and
Ketèlbey each had a disc and
more but then so did Curzon, Haydn Wood
and about twenty others. ASV followed
and by the mid-1990s other labels (though
not the majors) were making a significant
impact with British light music.
The present Hyperion
series was different. It began in 1995
and came to volume 4 by 2002. The orchestra
and conductor were English and the style
was exactly comme il faut. There
was no attempt to reinvent the genre
and tempi and balance were close to
the well-loved originals as used for
signature tunes and the like. The recording
values were typically exemplary. Hyperion
are industriously down pricing and imaginatively
repackaging much of its long established
catalogue and the listener is the beneficiary.
That’s certainly the case here. Here
are the four discs all still available
separately at full price yet now to
be purchased together for less than
half price.
Here are my listening
notes:-
CD 1
Calling All Workers
has the requisite bounce and strut and
the trio theme is full of murmurous
confidence. The Tchaikovskian, nostalgic
and balletic qualities of Collins’ Vanity
Fair are memorable; it turns a slim
and well-sculpted heel. Farnon's Jumping
Bean sounds for all the world like
a refugee from a St Trinians score.
Baynes’ Destiny waltz is swell
and sumptuous. Pas de quatre
sounds faintly absurd in a music hall
manner. Then we come to the sweet balm
of Binge's lovely The Water Mill
- a perfect little scena for oboe
and orchestra. Dusk savours of
Delius and RVW. Puffin' Billy will
stir up memories of adults of a certain
age - it was the signature tune for
BBC radio Children's Favourites.
Bells across the Meadow has sounded
more ethereal but it sounds well enough
in Corp's hands. The Old Clockmaker
is suitably whimsical. Yet more mastery
from the smiling delight of Binge's
Elizabethan Serenade - a sweet
inspiration. And my how well Corp uses
dynamics throughout this series! Ellis's
Coronation Scot starts full of
venom but soon develops that plush swaying
motion. These are a superb evocation
of the original recordings. Ancliffe's
Nights of Gladness reeks of old
Vienna, affluence and brightly-lit ballrooms.
CD2
That rather overstuffed
waltz world is evoked again in Bal
masqué by Percy Fletcher.
Then, out of the same silk top hat,
comes Hartley's Rouge et Noir -
actually it is much better orchestrated
than the Fletcher as is another grand
dance number from the same stable: Finck's
In the Shadows. Humour returns
though - and much needed after all those
starched collars - in Bucalossi's The
Grasshopper's Dance. Arthur Wood's
Barwick Green is instantly recognisable
to Brits as the old-style theme tune
for the radio series The Archers. Good
to hear it in full though. Carriage
and Pair - another lilting little
beauty over a clip-clop ostinato from
that otherwise fearsome atonal symphonist,
Benjamin Frankel. The March from
Trevor Duncan's Little Suite is
again well known as the theme tune from
BBCTV's 1960s version of Dr Finlay's
Casebook. It has the authentic sound
of the original soundtrack so nostalgia
lovers will not be affronted. Binge's
Sailing By is effortlessly smooth
and full of the sense of bosky palm
trees. Then we come to the latino snap
and snooze of Vinter's Portuguese
Party which owes a little here and
there both to Chabrier and Copland.
There’s more whimsy from Richardson's
clarinet solo-incited Beachcomber.
Docker's Tabarinage is nicely
flighty. Farnon's wonderful Westminster
Waltz works very nicely indeed.
Corp is a master of the silky line and
the well-timed hesitation. This really
is a cut above the rather heavy Ancliffes,
Fincks and Fletchers. Girls in Grey
still sounds pompous and absurd
even when done as well as this - yet
I guess that is the point - a
touch of Sousa in there too. Edward
White's The Runaway Rocking Horse
is an innocent little fantasy piece.
Curzon's March of the Bowmen is
good of its sort recalling the world
of Korngold as well though spliced with
some Elgar.
CD3
Clive Richardson (arr.
Ronald Hanmer, who later went to Australia)
is flighty yet again in Melody on
the Move which goes with a real
zing. Jack Strachey's In Party Mood
is likely to be best known as background
to an advertisement for household cleaning
products but this music is so obstinately
and insinuatingly memorable that it
will keep finding new milieux. Superbly
Latinate, cool with shadows and Mediterranean
feeling is the wonderful The Girl
from Corsica by Trevor Duncan. Good
but slightly tired as music - not the
performance - is Dexter's Sicilano.
There’s more absurdist fluff from Monckton's
Soldiers in the Park. Speaking
of absurd we also get the sand-dance
kitsch of Ketelbey's In A Persian
Market (complete with chorus). Binge
returns with the gentle hiccup of Miss
Melanie - sweet stuff and all done
up for you with bows and ribbons. Portrait
of a Flirt by Farnon follows as
a necessary antidote to the heavy bread
pudding of Caryll's Pink Lady Waltz.
Strachey's Theatreland breathes
the air of the streets around London's
theatres. Archibald Joyce picks up on
the Tchaikovskian vein in Songe d'automne.
It still works well in all its warmth.
Alpine Pastures by Vivian Ellis
will be familiar as the ‘sig’ for My
Word on the BBC radio Home Service;
latterly Radio 4. Ernest Tomlinson has
done so much for British light music
preserving so much of it during the
dark days of the 1950s-80s when the
skip and the furnace beckoned and swallowed
so much performing material. His cool
yet touchingly lilting Little Serenade
fully merits its place in this company.
Melachrino's Woodland Revel is
stomped and chattered out with alacrity.
Lady of Spain takes us back to
the Iberian peninsula and processed
Chabrier but all rather cheerily done.
Ancliffe's Smile then Kisses is
another sub-Viennese aristocratic confection.
Thank heavens for Torch's flitter and
flutter syncopation in On a Spring
Note - Gershwin in Brighton - well
you know what I mean. Coates’ Rediffusion
March is annoyingly cheery but this
is nothing against the alert performance
just my irritation with much of Coates.
CD4
Marshall Ross's Marching
Strings is not just for strings
but whole orchestra. It proceeds at
a fastish saunter with a touch of the
St Trinian's about it. It's stalking
string theme for years was the ‘sig’
to BBC TV's Top of the Form.
Peter Hope's Jaunting Car from
The Ring of Kerry suite is a
sort of Gaelic Carriage and Pair
with one of those long and infinitely
unwinding tunes. It’s sub-Moeran but
most beautifully done and complete with
bagpipe drone; a lovely piece. There's
also a skirl there amid Rhythm of
Rails by Charles Williams. Trevor
Duncan's High Heels is a flurry
of 1950s style pizzicato - sophisticated:
all fresh rain, shop windows and neon;
another standout track. Curzon's cheeky
Griegian Dance of an Ostracised Imp
is followed by Foulds' Keltic Lament
from A Keltic Suite - pity
the whole suite was not included as
it would have picked up on another burgeoning
market. Michal Kaznowski's honeyed solo
cello registers strongly here. We do
however get the Coleridge-Taylor Petite
Suite de Concert which despite Corp's
excellent performance remains pretty
low-key stuff. Tepid. On the other hand
Coates’ By the Sleepy Lagoon is
perfectly done - an exercise in fidelity
to the original broadcast version yet
with lift and freshness. Arthur Benjamin's
Jamaican Rumba started out as
a two piano piece but was later arranged
for orchestra. In a Monastery Garden
will appeal to many but this syrupy
sub-Elgarian sentimentality is just
too much for me. It is nevertheless
most skilfully done and is complete
with birdsong. Charles Williams' A
Quiet Stroll is a smiling echo of
Grainger's Country Gardens. Percy
Fletcher's Demoiselle Chic belongs
with the heavy molasses of Ancliffe
(also represented here by the sumptuously
Straussian waltz Thrills) and
Finck. Jack Beaver leans on Tchaikovsky's
Symphony No. 5 and Capriccio Italien
for Cavalcade of Youth and
then pulls off a nice dignified trio
melody. Frederick Bayco's Elizabethan
Masque looks back from the renaissance
of the second Elizabethan Age to the
first with imagined grace and touching
sentiment - a nice oboe solo too. Balfour
Gardiner was the affluent friend of
many British composers and a great planter
of trees. His Shepherd's Fennel's
Dance is the one piece of his to
survive although it's all well worth
attention especially his Philomela
and Berkshire Idyll. The
Dance - based on an interlude from Hardy's
Thomas Hardy's The Three Strangers
- is jaunty and affecting with a
bow in the direction of Tchaikovsky.
Balfour Gardiner was a product of the
RAM who tended to venerate the Russians
rather than the German classics. Frederick
Rosse’s Doge's March is portentous
and brazen, full of overwheening confidence.
All four movements of the Petite
Suite de Concert are given here
in the first recording since Sargent's
HMV one in the 1950s. It remains a nicely
put together suite despite my disparagement
earlier. The style is somewhere between
the regions
of Elgar, Dvořák and Massenet.
There are no time-serving
performances here. Everything is bright-eyed
and bushy-tailed. Quite apart from being
generously filled each of these discs
has been adroitly planned. The alternation
of mood is extremely well calculated.
The discs are garnished
with Andrew Lamb's helpful commentary
notes. When you have this set as a nostalgia
trip Mr Lamb’s notes will point you
in all the right directions. The only
minor criticism here is that the sequence
of the commentary on the works differs
from the order of play on the CDs.
Corp and the NLO and
Hyperion really have done an excellent
job here so let’s not forget their American
Light Music Classics CDA67067
and European Light Music Classics
CDA66998.
So there you have it.
Five hours and ten minutes of unstinting
music for the price of four prestigiously
presented, well thought-through and
executed CDs. Golden nostalgia indeed
and more to the point done in style
and with a fidelity to a long departed
but by many still cherished past. The
music has already taken on new life
and new uses such is its vitality. Not
everything still works but most of it
does and much still has the power to
move. Riches indeed!
Rob Barnett
Volume 3
http://www.musicweb-international.com/film/2000/may00/britishlightmusic.htm
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2000/may00/british3.htm
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2000/may00/british3.htm
Volume 4
http://www.musicweb-international.com/film/2002/Oct02/British_Light_Musical_Classics_4.html
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Sept02/BritishLightMusic4.htm
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Nov02/British_Light_Music4.htm
for
details
New London Orchestra/Ronald Corp 
