GLCD 5123 Great Light Orchestras Salute Richard Rodgers Reviews & Broadcast

THE GOLDEN AGE OF LIGHT MUSIC Great Light Orchestras Salute Richard Rodgers PERCY FAITH AND HIS ORCHESTRA, MELACHRINO STRINGS Conducted  by GEORGE MELACHRINO, DOLF VAN DER LINDEN AND HIS ORCHESTRA, MANTOVANI AND HIS ORCHESTRA, WALLY STOTT AND HIS ORCHESTRA, JACKIE GLEASON AND HIS ORCHESTRA (Trumpet solo: BOBBY HACKETT), KINGSWAY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Conducted by STANLEY BLACK, DAVID ROSE AND HIS ORCHESTRA, ANDRE KOSTELANETZ AND HIS ORCHESTRA, MORTON GOULD AND HIS ORCHESTRA, Members of NBC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Conducted by ROBERT RUSSELL BENNETT, PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF NEW YORK Conducted by RICHARD RODGERS, ROBERT FARNON AND HIS ORCHESTRA, RICHARD HAYMAN AND HIS ORCHESTRA (Harmonica solo: RICHARD HAYMAN), RON GOODWIN AND HIS CONCERT ORCHESTRA, LOUIS LEVY AND HIS CONCERT ORCHESTRA Track 01 Carousel Waltz  Track 08 Falling in Love  Track 16 Down By The River

Contents:

During the 20^th Century several gifted songwriters emerged with unique talents which placed them head and shoulders above most of their peers. It was hardly surprising that their music attracted the attention of the finest orchestras and arrangers, and Guild Light Music wishes to recognise the supreme performances that resulted from such a meeting of the very best talents in the popular entertainment business of that magical era.

In the first of these special ‘Salutes’ the spotlight falls upon Richard Charles Rodgers, who became one of America’s greatest songwriters of all time. Indeed his influence on the entertainment scene was immense, spanning six decades during which he wrote more than 900 published songs and forty Broadway musicals.

He was born in New York City on 28 June 1902 and, although he studied at the Julliard School of Music, it appears that his composing abilities were largely self-taught - his early influences being quoted as Victor Herbert and Jerome Kern. By the 1920s his collaboration with lyricist Lorenz Milton Hart (1895-1943) was resulting in frequent successes on Broadway and London’s West End; for a while they were averaging two shows each year, including “The Garrick Gaieties” (1925 & 1926) and “A Connecticut Yankee” (1927). During the years 1931-1935 they concentrated on working in Hollywood, with films for Maurice Chevalier and Al Jolson among others.

Hart once said that he and Rodgers should not be regarded as songwriters: “We’re people of the theatre. We don’t just write songs so that people will like them and sing them all over the country. We write songs to advance the plot. Each expresses a character’s feelings in a certain spot in the story.”

Gradually Rodgers’ compositions were developing into more ambitious instrumental pieces, such as the ballet Slaughter on Tenth Avenue for their 1936 show “On Your Toes”, choreographed by George Balanchine. Gene Kelly and Vera-Ellen later made this one of the most memorable ballet sequences in a Hollywood musical for the film “Words and Music” (1948) which told the life story of Rodgers and Hart.

In 1942 Rodgers teamed up with Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II (1895-1960) who had previously worked with Jerome Kern and George Gershwin. This collaboration produced some of the most popular pieces in Broadway history, including “Oklahoma!” (1944), “Carousel” (1945), “South Pacific” (1949), “The King and I” (1951), and “The Sound of Music” (1959) – all of them later made into successful Hollywood films. Collectively, the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals earned 34 Tony Awards, 15 Academy Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes, two Grammy Awards and 2 Emmy Awards. In 1998 Rodgers and Hammerstein were cited by Time Magazine and CBS News as among the 20 most influential artists of the 20th century and in 1999 they were jointly commemorated on a U.S. postage stamp.

As well as his work on Broadway and in Hollywood, Rodgers was persuaded to compose two early major television documentary scores – NBC’s “Victory At Sea” (1952) and the Winston Churchill series “The Valiant Years” (1960). The former earned Rodgers an Emmy, a Gold Record and a commendation from the US Navy.  After Hammerstein's death in 1960, Rodgers continued to write for the stage and screen and later collaborators included Stephen Sondheim, Sheldon Harnick and Martin Charnin.

Richard Rodgers died at home in New York City on December 30, 1979 at the age of 77. On March 27, 1990, he was honoured posthumously with Broadway's highest accolade when the 46th Street Theater, owned and operated by the Nederlander Organization, was renamed ‘The Richard Rodgers Theater’, home to The Richard Rodgers Gallery, a permanent exhibit in the lobby areas presented by ASCAP which honours the composer's life and works.

Our opening track is probably the most famous piece by Richard Rodgers which is not known through a familiar lyric. When first produced in 1945 “Carousel” was described as an operetta, based on Ferenc Molnar’s drama “Liliom”. The Carousel Waltz was crafted by Rodgers as a combination of themes portraying the various dramatic episodes in the story. It quickly attracted the attention of many orchestras around the world resulting in several versions reaching the hit parade in various countries. Percy Faith certainly gave it a vibrancy lacking in some other arrangements, and we are pleased to offer the full unedited version on this CD. One recent CD reissue removed no less than 32 seconds, while another added an inappropriate pseudo-stereo ambience. Here it is presented as conductor / arranger Percy Faith originally intended.

The waltz Lover was first heard as incidental music in the 1932 film “Love Me Tonight” starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald. Not wishing to consign it to possible oblivion, Richard Rodgers revised it and Lorenz Hart added the familiar lyrics still well-known today. Dutch composer / conductor Dolf van der Linden’s original version is heard here in its entirety, including the charming forty second introduction which was removed when it was released on Epic in the USA.

The NBC documentary series “Victory At Sea” was one of the early landmarks in American television. First screened in the US on 26 October 1952, it ran for 26 weeks and was subsequently shown in many countries overseas. Richard Rodgers was commissioned to create the score: "It was something new for me since no words were involved in the music. I had to express a mood and even a picture with music. In this way the job has been challenging." Robert Russell Bennett [1894-1981] arranged and orchestrated Rodgers’ themes, and the entire project took them two years to complete. Such a major work deserves special recognition in any survey of Rodgers’ career, and three notable themes from the score are therefore included on this CD. Firstly the dramatic opening music Song Of The High Seas; then Beneath The Southern Cross (Rodgers later adapted part of this for his Broadway show “Me And Juliet” in 1953 where it became a big hit as No Other Love); and finally the stirring Guadalcanal March.

The Jackie Gleason orchestra is making its first appearance in Guild’s Golden Age of Light Music series on this CD. Herbert John Gleason [1916-1987] was an actor, comedian and later composer and conductor, yet it was common knowledge that he could not read music. Although the mood albums made under his name from the 1950s onwards were very popular, in effect he was a producer / manager who used the talents of others to create albums which often reached the best sellers lists. Fortunately he had the good taste to employ top musicians and soloists such as Charlie Ventura, Tony Mottola and, as here, Bobby Hackett and the music chosen for his LPs certainly suited the mood of the times. TV stardom also featured in Gleason’s astonishing career, which embraced ballet and designing clothes, children’s games and jewellery.

To conclude this salute to Richard Rodgers we feature a somewhat neglected selection by Louis Levy [1893-1957], one of the leading musical directors in British films for two decades. He made numerous recordings of film music, and his work has already been featured on several Guild Light Music CDs. This is one of the major projects towards the end of his career; although the arranger is not credited, it is possible that it may have been Bretton Byrd [b. James Thomas Byrd 1904] who worked closely with Levy during his most productive years.                    David Ades

Compositions by Richard Rodgers have already appeared on these previous Guild Light Music CDs:

Page revised 26.05.2006