MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger


 
REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

alternatively
CD: Crotchet

Showtime - 25 Years of BBC Concert Orchestra Favourites
William WALTON Crown Imperial [6:26]
Various (Compiled and arr. Sidney Torch) Les Petites Valses Parisiennes [8:03]
Georges BIZET Farandole from ‘L’Arlésienne Suite no.2’ [3:19]
Kenneth J. ALFORD The Two Imps [3:39]
Alasdair Malloy and Stephen Whibley (soloists)
Traditional (arr. Robert Farnon) A La Claire Fontaine [8:00]
Ron GOODWIN Aces High from the film ‘Battle of Britain’ [3:46]
Cole PORTER (arr. Stanley Black) I Love Paris from the musical ‘Can-Can’ [3:29]
Miklós RÓZSA (arr. Roderick Dunk) Main Titles & Love Theme from the film ‘Ben-Hur’ [4:56]
Richard HAYMAN ‘Pops’ Hoedown [14:24] Various (arr. Gordon Langford)
Eric COATES Calling All Workers [3:14]
BBC Concert Orchestra/Roderick Dunk
rec. The Colosseum, Town Hall, Watford, 29-30 September 2009
DUTTON EPOCH CDLX 7242 [64:41]

Experience Classicsonline

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

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.