GLCD 5116 In Town Tonight - The 1930s Volume II Reviews & Broadcast

THE GOLDEN AGE OF LIGHT MUSIC In Town Tonight - The 1930s Volume II GLCD 5106The 1930's Volume 1 by Henry Hall - Ray Noble - Barnabas Von Géczy - Philip Green - Harry Horlick - Sidney Torch, Charles Shadwell, Alfredo Campoli - Robert Renard - Mared Weber - Edith Lorand - Debroy Somers etc. Track 01 Down the Mall  Track 19 Mr. Whittington

Contents:

The first Guild Light Music collection from the 1930s (GLCD5106) received such a warm reception from aficionados of the period, that a second helping from this tuneful era became a ‘must’. Recognising some constructive comments about the earlier CD, this time some additional famous continental ensembles have been included, resulting in a truly international feel. After all, music knows no boundaries, and whatever the politicians may have been doing during those troubled times, musicians were simply intent upon supplying first-rate entertainment for their grateful audiences.

Henry Hall [1898-1989] takes pride of place in these notes for providing our CD’s title. “In Town Tonight” was a popular British radio programme for 27 years, and its signature tune Knightsbridge from Eric Coates’ “London Suite” firmly established the composer as the leading figure in pre-war light music. Several different versions appeared on record, and while purists may blink at Henry Hall’s dance band version, the superb playing of his musicians has to be admired.

Several once-famous ensembles and conductors are appearing in this Guild Light Music series for the first time, including Barnabas Von Géczy, Debroy Somers, Harry Engleman, Robert Renard, Herbert Küster and Edith Lorand.

Barnabas Von Géczy [1897-1971] was born in Hungary. He had arrived in Berlin in 1922 and by the 1930s he had one of the best known hotel orchestras in Germany.

‘Robert Renard’ is one of several pseudonyms adopted by Otto Dobrindt [1886-1963] - others included Odeon Dance Orchestra, Piano Symphony, Dobbri and Frank Sandlers. He was also respected as a conductor for classical music, and some of his recordings accompanying noted singers of the time are still available on CDs.

Edith Lorand [1898-1960] was born in Hungary, but spent most of her early career in Germany where she became world-famous as a violinist. She made numerous recordings, mostly light classical and ‘salon’ works, but the changing political situation forced her to return to Hungary in the mid-1930s. Even in her homeland she felt unsafe, so in 1937 she went to the USA, where she spent the rest of her life.

Debroy Somers [1890-1952] could almost be described as a recording phenomena of the 1930s. For a while his 78s occupied more space in the EMI Columbia catalogue than any other artist. Intriguingly, unlike other artists who were always catalogued by surname, he was always listed under “D” rather than “S” and, whether fronting a small ensemble or conducting a large orchestra, the labels always said “Debroy Somers Band”. The vast majority of his records were medleys of popular songs, such as the Ice Rink Selection chosen for this CD. Somers was the son of an Army band-master from the 1^st Gloucestershire Regiment, and was born in Dublin in 1890 – the names on his birth certificate were William Henry – ‘Debroy’ came later. He could play virtually every instrument in the orchestra or the military band and mastered the oboe, cor anglais, piano, harp, clarinet, saxophone and xylophone. He was one of the first dance band leaders to broadcast, and was the originator of the Savoy Hotel Orpheans in1923 – he remained their musical director until 1926. A prolific broadcaster, he remained an important figure on the British musical scene until he died suddenly at the age of 62 from a stroke.

Harry Horlick was the conductor of one of early American radio’s most popular salon orchestras, largely due to his regular appearances on the long-running “A & P Gypsies” show from 1924 to 1936. When this series ended, Decca signed him for almost twenty sets of 78s featuring what has been described as ‘musically sturdy, if somewhat careful, albums, with a number devoted to popular and theatre music’. From this period comes the Victor Herbert cameo Badinage.

The Gaumont State Cinema in Kilburn opened on 20 December 1937, and soon afterwards its own orchestra was making records, under its London-born conductor Alfred Van Dam [1902-1973]. He began a twelve-year association with the Gaumont-British organisation when aged only nineteen, and made his first broadcast in 1931. Immediately prior to his appointment at the flagship State cinema, he had been musical director at the Trocadero, Elephant & Castle in south London. During his later career he contributed no less than 140 broadcasts to the BBC’s famous ‘Music While You Work’ programme, his last broadcast taking place in 1958.

For decades the Far East inspired many artists from poets to painters and composers. The word ‘Chinese’ appears in numerous song titles, as evidenced by the two tracks in this collection. The first comes from Alfredo Campoli [1906-1991], one of the finest violinists working in Britain, whose brilliant playing enhanced numerous recordings, often unbeknown to the public since he was always in demand as a leader from the top orchestras. However he did get his own fair share of the limelight, through his recordings and broadcasts with the various groups he formed. His expertise is hardly surprising, since his father was a violin professor and orchestral leader, while his mother – the operatic soprano Elvira Celi – had toured with Caruso. The family moved to England from Rome while Alfredo was still a child, and he made his début at London’s Wigmore Hall in 1923. After enjoying great success in Britain for many years, he was widely praised when he appeared at the Carnegie Hall in New York in 1953, and other overseas tours took him twice to the Soviet Union.

Probably the best known British theatre orchestra during the 1930s was that of the world famous London Palladium which is featured on “British Cinema and Theatre Orchestras” (Guild GLCD 5108).  In recording terms it was also the most prolific, with almost 150 recordings made between 1927 and the early 1940s, most of them conducted by Richard Crean who was in charge from 1930 to 1937. He also made recordings with his own orchestra and Chinese Legend is yet another classic example of the pseudo-oriental music that seemed to fascinate many music-lovers of that era.

The German composer and conductor Erich Börschel [1907-1988] received his musical education at the Conservatory in Mainz, then became repetiteur and conductor at the local Staatstheater from 1927 to 1931. For the next four years he worked as a pianist at the broadcasting house in Königsberg (today part of Poland), before forming his own dance band and light orchestra in 1935. During this time he made various commercial recordings for the Telefunken label and in 1938 he composed the charming Sparrow’s Concert which is included on the Guild Light Music CD “Highdays and Holidays” (GLCD5115). This was just one of a number of successful light pieces he wrote in the 1930s, and Kismet is another of the pieces specially recorded for the early Bosworth Mood Music Library.

Russian-born Joseph Muscant is credited with making the Commodore Grand Orchestra into one of the finest ensembles playing light music at that time. It was formed when the Hammersmith cinema opened on 14 September 1929, and soon became popular throughout Britain thanks to its regular BBC radio broadcasts.

As usual, space is the enemy, but room must be left in these notes to mention a London show which – thanks to Ray Noble and EMI – formed an important landmark in the history of recorded sound.

The musical show “Mr. Whittington” starring Jack Buchanan and Elsie Randolph, opened at the London Hippodrome on 1 February 1934, before transferring later to the Adelphi. Based on the famous story of Dick Whittington, the production was staged by the star himself – Jack Buchanan. Although none of the songs were destined to become standards, some seventy years later they sound pleasant enough, and Ray Noble’s recording for HMV is fresh and appealing.

And now we come to the historical technical comments on these last two tracks of our second 1930s collection. Alan Blumlein joined the Columbia Graphophone Company in 1929 with a brief to improve the then fledgling electrical recording process, which he did with notable success. By 1931 Columbia had merged with The Gramophone Company to form EMI (Electrical and Musical Industries) and Blumlein began experimenting with stereophonic recording (then known as “binaural”) at their Hayes research laboratories. By 1934 these experiments were proving so successful that a complete binaural cutting system was installed in one of the studios at Abbey Road to enable recordings of orchestral and other music to be made and assessed.

Most of the results of these experiments – the “walking and talking” and classical music recordings - have already appeared on various LPs and CDs but it is not generally known that some light music was also recorded. In fact the very first Abbey Road binaural recording was made on the 11^th of January 1934 by Ray Noble and The New Mayfair Orchestra (called “Ray Noble’s Dance Band” in the documentation).  The music chosen was part of a selection from the musical “Mr. Whittington” and the complete mono recording, made at the same time, is featured on track 19 while the binaural version forms the finale of this CD.

The sound is rather distant as the microphones were placed approximately 45 feet from the orchestra and the lack of additional ‘spot’ microphones (and the absence of a stereo mixing desk to accommodate them), means that certain instruments do not have the same prominence as on the mono recording. Even so, the resulting sound is quite exciting, perhaps giving the impression of sitting near the rear of a concert hall or theatre.

It is a pity that the economic climate and the obvious problems of playing such recordings domestically at that time meant that the experiments were abandoned, and the introduction of stereo discs into the home had to wait another 23 years. However Alan Blumlein was responsible for developing the disc cutting principles eventually adopted by the recording industry, although his patents expired in 1952, having never been commercially exploited by EMI. His system was “re-invented” by Westrex, and became the universal standard for stereo LPs.                                                                                                                                       David Ades

Page revised 07.04.06