Songs from (or Cut from) 'Out of This World'

Previously in this series about the musical stage, we've tried to reconstruct original cast recordings where there were none. For this post, we'll look at a show where a cast LP exists, by exploring some of the commercial recordings by the popular artists of the day.

The subject is Cole Porter's score for Out of This World, a 1950 opening that lasted for about five months on Broadway. Not one of the composer's greatest hits, and a show whose best-known number was cut before the opening.

Still and all, it offered an entertaining collection of songs that were eagerly adopted by the record companies, providing plenty of grist for this musical mill. The inspiration for my post - if "inspiration" is the right word - was the following trade ad that ran in Billboard in early 1951.

Click to enlarge

As you can see (if you enlarge the ad, that is), nine songs from the score were recorded, eight of which are in this group. ("Hark to the Song" only appeared on a transcription that I haven't found.) The ad also touts the original cast LP, which has been reissued a number of times. Ironically, it lists the cast album right below the song "From This Moment On," which does not appear on said cast LP because director George Abbott cut it in tryouts. It is surely the best known (and best) piece that Porter wrote for the score. Fortunately it came to glorious life in the 1953 movie adaptation of his Kiss Me Kate. We'll eventually get to it in this collection, along with another song that was cut. And we'll add the song "Out of This World," which came from a 1945 film and wasn't by Porter.

Cole Porter and Charlotte Greenwood

Before I get to the music, let me pay homage to the show's star, Charlotte Greenwood, a wonderful comic actor who brightened vaudeville, Broadway and the films for several decades. Out of This World, based on Plautus' Amphitryon, had Greenwood playing Juno and George Gaynes Jupiter. While she does not appear in this collection, she can be heard on the cast album.

The songs below appear in show order - until we get to the cut items, that is.

Songs from the Show

"Use Your Imagination" was popular with the record companies, if not the record buyers, attracting many of the most popular artists of the day. That said, it's a lumbering creature that didn't bring out the best from the best. My favorite is the fresh-voiced Vic Damone with a band led by Harry Geller. Vic does sound fine, but even so, more animation might not have been amiss.

Jo Stafford and Paul Weston pose in the studio

"Where, Oh Where" is given a lush arrangement by Paul Weston that sets off Jo Stafford's lovely voice very well. It was her first Columbia single (and was backed by her own version of "Use Your Imagination," not included here).

Vic and Jo are well remembered, but our next artist is less so. She was a fine singer, though, and here takes up the most popular item from the score as it appeared on Broadway - "I Am Loved" - and does it wonderfully even when compared to such competitors as Frank Sinatra. She was Evelyn Knight, who recorded a great number of songs for Decca from 1944-52 and was often heard on radio. She retired from the business in the 1950s.

One oddity is that the Discography of American Historical Recordings lists Knight as being backed by Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians. However, no label credit is given to the band, and the aural evidence does not point to the Lombardo clan, for sure.

Peggy Lee

With "Climb Up the Mountain," Porter decided to dabble again in the folk-spiritual realm, which he had mined in "Blow, Gabriel, Blow," for 1934's Anything Goes. This new song is similar, and it generated only one commercial recording, that of Peggy Lee. I am an admirer of the singer, but this is an execrable record, starting with the braying band vocal and carrying on through Lee's shrill, overemphatic singing. I'd say it is unlistenable, but then I am asking you to listen to it, and for all I know you might like it!

Rosemary Clooney and Frank Sinatra

Next, Porter tried to replicate the success of "You're the Top" with another simile song, "Cherry Pies Ought to Be You," which Columbia assigned to Frank Sinatra and the up and coming Rosemary Clooney. It's a tad abstruse, what with Porter comparing the loved one to "asphodels" and "Ambrose Light," a light tower in the waters off New York. (At the latter mention, Frank interjects, "Hey, that's a good one!", but then he was from around those parts.) Porter exercises his penchant for mildly risqué lyrics at several points, causing Frank to caution, "Hey, watch it!" when Rosie makes vague reference to Errol Flynn's sexuality. A fun record, even though the singers go out of tune at the end. (The 78 was also mastered considerably flat, which I fixed.)

Dinah Shore - nobody was chasing her

Another song from the show that was heard occasionally was "Nobody's Chasing Me," which was Juno's closing lament in the show but here improbably assigned to RCA Victor's Dinah Shore. It's another example of Porter revisiting an earlier song idea - instead of an entreaty for love, as in "Let's Do It," it's a lament for its absence: "The bull is chasing the heifer, but nobody's chasing me." Henri René accompanies Dinah with slide whistles and accordions.

Songs Cut from the Show

Now on to the songs cut from the show. First is "You Don't Remind Me," dropped during the tryouts but even so recorded by several notables, including Frank Sinatra. It's another list song, but this time a ballad, and Frank makes the most of it. Let me put in a word for arranger Axel Stordahl. This is more for his body of work, because here he and Sinatra seem of two minds about the tempo. It's a beautiful song, nonetheless.

As noted above the best known tune written for the show was "From This Moment On," recorded by several artists in 1950-1, but not achieving great popularity until it was used in the 1953 film version of Kiss Me Kate. It happens to be one of my favorites, so I've included three varied recordings from the later time period.

Dick Noel

First is a disc by the strong voiced Dick Noel, who never achieved great popularity as a record artist, but was hugely successful in the jingle field. It's a pleasure to hear his forthright singing, well suited to the material and ably backed by Decca mainstay Jack Pleis.

One oddity is that Noel has the same name as a well-known studio musician, trombonist Dick Noel, who appears on the next version of "From This Moment On," that by Les Brown's powerhouse band, with a superb chart by Skip Martin. This is exciting, but not more so than the version from the film itself.

There's also a link between Les Brown's record and the film version, because Skip Martin was one of the credited orchestrators on the film, along with Conrad Salinger, with uncredited contributions by Robert Franklyn and Wally Heglin. Any or all of them could have handled "From This Moment On." It is a wonderful chart, performed by the M-G-M Orchestra conducted by André Previn.

'From This Moment On'

On screen, the music's impact is heightened by the colorful set design and dancing. The film's choreographer was Hermes Pan, but at least some of this dance has more than a whiff of Bob Fosse about it, particularly his section with Carol Haney. Vocally, he is credited on the record label along with Tommy Rall, Ann Miller and Bobby Van. The strongest singing voice you hear is Rall's.

The download includes the audio version from the M-G-M commercial issue, along with the longer version directly from the film soundtrack. I prefer the edit because it seems better integrated and doesn't reflect the dancer's footfalls. The soundtrack is in stereo, though. (You can watch the dance on YouTube, of course.)

The Song "Out of This World"

Finally, let's discuss the song "Out of This World," which is unrelated to Porter's musical and predates it. It comes from a 1945 Eddie Bracken film of the same name, with a wonderful title song by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer. Bracken plays a Bing-style crooner; his singing voice is, appropriately enough, dubbed by the man himself.

Sheet music from the film, George Paxton ad and vocalist Alan Dale

Crosby's Decca disc is desultory, so I turned instead to a relatively obscure recording, that of George Paxton, who had a strong band in the brassy mid-40s manner also adopted by Stan Kenton and Boyd Raeburn. Singing is the young Alan Dale, a very good romantic baritone. The Paxton-Dale record represents the Arlen-Mercer song very well.

These records are remastered primarily from Internet Archive needle drops. The sound is generally excellent ambient stereo.

Barber's Complete 1950 Decca-London Recordings, and More

The UK Decca company invited American composer Samuel Barber to London in 1950 for three day-long sessions in which he recorded some of his major works. Previously on this blog, we've heard the ballet suite Medea and the later-suppressed Symphony No. 2, recorded on December 12 and 13. The day before, Barber had addressed his beautiful Cello Concerto, with soloist Zara Nelsova, which is new to the blog.

The other two Decca-London recordings are newly remastered in ambient stereo, as are the first recordings of Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Four Excursions for piano, and Violin Concerto, all of which come from 1950.

Details follow. The headings for the remastered works contain links to the original posts. Download links can be found in the comments to those posts, as well as this one. The older posts have been revised and include new photos.

Cello Concerto, Op. 22

All Barber's Decca-London recordings were made with the New Symphony Orchestra of London, which was, I believe, primarily or exclusively a recording orchestra. The site was the Kingsway Hall, plush acoustically if not in creature comforts, and a favorite of the big labels of the time.

The composer wrote his cello concerto for Raya Garbousova, who premiered it in 1946 with the Boston Symphony and Serge Koussevitzky, who commissioned it on behalf of John and Anne Brown. When it came to record the work, Barber enlisted the 31-year-old cellist Zara Nelsova, who had recently moved to London and who came recommended by Gregor Piatigorsky. (Garbousova herself recorded it in 1966 for US Decca.)

Zara Nelsova

The composer Arthur Berger wrote in the Saturday Review: "The concerto stands high among the available works for the cello, and in the hands of so excellent a soloist as Zara Nelsova the idiomatic writing for the instrument spins itself out like silk thread (with only occasional strands of coarser material because the recording sometimes picks up the extra sounds of the fingers’ attack on the strings)."

In past years the Cello Concerto was not often heard because it was so difficult, but today there are at least 20 recordings available. This may be among the best, and the sound in ambient stereo is very good.

C.J. Luten's view in the American Record Guide: "A directness of emotion, a gratefully written cello part, a well thought out orchestral accompaniment are the memories this musical delight leaves."

LINK

Symphony No. 2, Op. 11 

The Symphony No. 2 was a wartime work, written while Barber was in uniform, and includes programmatic elements, as indicated by the title Night Flight given to the slow movement in its independent existence. Barber had revised the symphony in 1947 to remove its programmatic elements, but then decided to suppress it altogether in 1964, while retaining the andante as a separate composition.

Barber with score of Symphony No. 2

At first, the composer had thought highly of the work, and it's not hard to understand why. Reviewing this recording the critic of The New Records wrote, "this symphony is not radical in method nor approach, but uses forms both old and new, It is not easy to grasp on first hearing, but its message is worth repetition, and the chances are better than fair that this work will some day be a part of the standard orchestral repertoire." The last thought was overly optimistic, but the work has had a revival in recent years.

LINK

Medea, Op. 23

Barber wrote the Medea ballet suite for the choreographer Martha Graham. C.J. Luten quotes Barber as follows: “Neither Miss Graham nor I wished to use the Medea-Jason legend literally in the ballet. These mythical figures served rather to project psychological states of jealousy and vengeance which are timeless."

Martha Graham in Medea

The characters in the ballet appear both as mythological figures and as modern characters, as the composer wrote, "caught in the nets of jealousy and destructive love; and at the end reassume their mythical quality. In both the dancing and music. archaic and contemporary idioms are used."

In later years, the music was generally heard in revised and excerpted form as Medea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance, Op. 23a, or today as Medea's Dance of Vengeance. (Barber had a penchant for revisions.)

LINK

Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Op. 24 and Excursions, Op. 20

Knoxville: Summer of 1915 is one of Barber's most evocative scores, notable both in its music and in the text by James Agee, excerpted from the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, done with photographer Walker Evans.

As I wrote many years ago, "This is the first recording of the work, done by the distinguished American soprano Eleanor Steber, who commissioned it and first performed it with the Boston Symphony and Serge Koussevitzky in 1947. This November 1950 recording is of the revised version for smaller orchestra."

James Agee

"Knoxville: Summer of 1915 is often considered a nostalgic idyll, but it is much more than that. In 1915, Agee was 5 years old, and the piece is a memory and meditation on an evening that summer, in the year before his father's death. Agee's words were set to music by Barber when his own father's death was near."

The LP also includes the first recording of the Four Excursions for piano, as performed with considerable panache by the young Rudolf Firkušný, whom Barber admired.

In addition to the sound being cleaned up and remastered in ambient stereo, this version includes the Agee text and NPR excerpts from a 1949 interview with the composer about Knoxville: Summer of 1915.

LINK

Violin Concerto, Op. 14 (with Copland's Piano Concerto, 1926)

For this post I've also revisited my old transfer of what I believe was the first recording of Barber's superb Violin Concerto, finely played by Louis Kaufman with a surprisingly accomplished anonymous orchestra as led by Walter Goehr in a 1950 recording.

The concerto may be the composer's most popular work, leaving aside the orchestrated Adagio for Strings. This is on the strength of the almost rhapsodic first two movements, which are followed by a relatively brief moto perpetuo finale that some consider a letdown, even though it is related to what has gone before and is an exciting piece in its own right, particularly as dispatched by Kaufman.

Aaron Copland and Samuel Barber

The coupling is Aaron Copland's Piano Concerto, 1926, which is an enjoyable jazz-influenced work although not as memorable as, say, the Rhapsody in Blue or Copland's own Americana compositions. There were various conceptions of jazz back then, and the composer's jumping off point would seem to have been W.C. Handy.

The Piano Concerto is fun to hear and is played to a turn by the young Leo Smit, a great advocate of Copland, with the composer himself at the helm of a Rome radio orchestra that can get a tad raucous in the tuttis. This is another first recording, dating from 1951.

As with all these posts, this now includes restored scans, photos and reviews.

LINK

Tammy Grimes - the Early Recordings

Actor-singer Tammy Grimes was something of an entertainment world phenomenon in the 1960s. She was a Noël Coward protege, won Tonys, made records, and was ever-present on American television.

Critics strained to invent colorful descriptions of her singing: "pliable frog voice," "afflicted with a permanent case of laryngitis," "rusty-coated," etc.

The landmarks of her career were a Tony for the title character in The Unsinkable Molly Brown and another for a revival of Coward's Private Lives, the leading role in Coward's musical version of Blithe Spirit (High Spirits), two Columbia LPs, and her own, brief television series.

But in my estimation some of her best work was done before the 1960s, particularly in the remarkably good cabaret act she mounted in 1958-59, and before that in her songs in 1956's The Littlest Revue. In this article we'll explore those recordings. A second post will present her 1962-63 Columbia LPs.

Julius Monk Presents Tammy Grimes

Grimes (1934-2016) was from the Boston area, but moved to New York as a young adult. Her earliest real success was in 1956's The Littlest Revue, with songs primarily by Vernon Duke and Ogden Nash. We'll get to her numbers from that show below.

Cabaret producer Julius Monk saw her in a non-singing role and somehow decided she would make a good chanteuse, or so it is said. I think it's more likely that he saw The Littlest Revue and knew she had a strong voice, powerful personality and off-kilter charm.

Grimes at The Downstairs

Whatever the background, Monk and Grimes developed a superb cabaret act, and deployed it at his Downstairs at the Upstairs nightspot in December 1958. It soon became a popular success - so much so that it merited a page of photos in Life magazine, one of the principal chronicles of the time. (The article is in the download.)

Monk quickly produced an LP of the act, which came out on the small Off-Broadway label. I like the reaction by the High Fidelity reviewer: "Miss Grimes is a singer of remarkable range: she can be subdued and touching in a song like 'Molly Malone' or strident and brash in Cole Porter’s 'From Alpha to Omega'; she relishes the point of 'Take Him' from Pal Joey, yet can also toss off the inconsequentialities of 'Doodle Doo Doo' with unbounded good nature."

Julius Monk

Her choice of material is strikingly good. Cabaret expert James Gavin insists that Monk selected the repertoire: "Grimes had never heard these songs, so the experience was like learning a new role - or a dozen - on short notice," he wrote in his book Intimate Nights.

The record begins with Monk himself announcing Grimes in his affected manner, backed by Stan Keen and Carl Norman at the pianos, playing Bart Howard's "Upstairs at the Downstairs Waltz." Keen and Norman were among Monk's house pianists; they also appear on his own revue LPs.

Night club acts often begin with an up-tempo number, and Grimes tears through "Fit as a Fiddle," a 1932 song that had been revived in 1952 by Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor in Singin' in the Rain.

Next, the singer launches into a wonderfully affecting version of one of the best but little-remembered  songs by Rodgers and Hart, "We'll Be the Same," which is memorable both in words and music. It comes from 1930's America's Sweetheart.

A Sammy Fain-Yip Harburg faux-madrigal, "The Springtime Cometh," is next, followed by her knowing reading of "Take Him." The Arlen-Harburg-Gershwin "Let's Take a Walk Around the Block" (from 1934's Life Begins at 8:20) could hardly be bettered. As with all relevant numbers, she sings the verse, handling it in a delightfully extroverted manner.

'Let's Take a Walk Around the Block'

I am no fan of the maudlin "Molly Malone" - although Grimes does it sensitively - but I do love "Limehouse Blues," written for a West End revue, made famous by Gertrude Lawrence and later a jazz standard. 

Next, three Cole Porter songs  - "From Alpha to Omega," "What Shall I Do" and "I Loved Him But He Didn't Love Me" (an exceptional performance). The first two are from You Never Know; the latter from Wake Up and Dream.

Arlen, Harburg and Gershwin (and the score of Life Begins at 8:40) return with "Shoein' the Mare," followed by Oscar Levant's greatest hit, "Blame It on My Youth," which benefits from including the verse. Eddie Heyman was the lyricist.

Harburg appears again with the delightful "Something Sort of Grandish," which he wrote with Burton Lane for Finian's Rainbow. Its wordplay is perfect for Grimes. The jazz age "Doodle Dee Ooo" (called "Doodle Doo Doo" here) must have appealed to the singer - she included it on her first Columbia LP as well. Here she presents it as a torch song.

The principal issue with this terrific LP is its sound. This could be understandable if it had been recorded in situ, but this appears to be a studio recreation - there is no audience present. The music as reproduced had almost no bass, a strident upper mid range and shrieking highs. I've rebalanced it, added a small amount of room tone and processed the mono-only recording in ambient stereo. It sounds good now, and hopefully does justice to this remarkable singer.

Songs from The Littlest Revue

The young producer Ben Bagley had some success with the Shoestring Revue in 1955, and even managed to get it recorded. He returned the next year with The Littlest Revue, and Epic was there to record it as well, even though it ran for only a month.

Grimes was one of the eight cast members, who also included Joel Grey and two of the wackiest comic actors of the time, Charlotte Rae and Larry Storch.

The revue's main songwriters were Vernon Duke and Ogden Nash, with additional contributions from John Latouche, Sheldon Harnick, Strouse and Adams, Michael Brown and others.

Both of Grimes' songs were by Duke and Nash, and can be best described as mildly amusing, although strongly presented by the vocalist. The first, "Madly in Love" is a take-off on "The Boy Next Door" and similar songs. Perhaps the "boy next door" in this case was Larry Storch?

The Littlest Revue - Tammy Grimes and Larry Storch

"I'm Glad I'm Not a Man" is predictable in its implications and reflective of the time, but Grimes is again commanding. Epic's sound is very good.

Next time, we'll look into how the singer changed her approach for a major label, Columbia. Thanks to my friend jake for inspiring this brief series!

Boult and Jochum Conduct Brahms

Two Johannes Brahms symphonies today, with similar approaches although from different conductors and eras. First we have a follow-up to a recent post of Brahms' Symphony No. 2, as led by Sir Adrian Boult - the Symphony No. 1 in a splendid 1972 performance from the same cycle.

Then, a worthwhile version of the Symphony No. 3 as conducted by Eugen Jochum in a 1939 recording from Hamburg.

Boult Conducts the Symphony No. 1

"Judged by this performance, Sir Adrian [then 83] seems younger than ever. His Brahms performances have lost nothing of muscular buoyancy and exuberance in allegros ('bracing' is perhaps the best word), while his insight goes ever deeper, without in the least trying to make points." So wrote Trevor Harvey in The Gramophone when the record was issued. And even 50 years later, the performance seems fresh.

The performance is striking from the first bar. Harvey: "The very opening, for example, with pounding timpani is not very slow; it sounds perfectly marvelous without one feeling that the conductor is out to make the greatest effect possible."

Sir Adrian

The entire work is just as fine, the finale in particular - beautifully balanced and controlled but with great impact. The London Philharmonic is in prime form, and the recording could hardly be better. This symphony - unlike the second - was done in the more resonant Kingsway Hall. My transfer comes from a Korean pressing of the original issue.

1973 HMV ad

Jochum Conducts the Symphony No. 3

Today's reading of the Third Symphony comes from Hamburg, where Eugen Jochum (1902-87) was the music director from 1934-49. In his New York Times obituary for the conductor, John Rockwell called him "one of the last representatives of the traditional German school of conducting.

"From his earliest recordings, Mr. Jochum's interpretive profile seemed well formed. He was neither an intense literalist like Arturo Toscanini nor a brooding mystic like Wilhelm Furtwängler, whom he much admired. His conducting - in Bach, Haydn, Beethoven and Brahms as well as Bruckner - flowed purposefully but genially forward, responding to the music without imposing his will upon it in a self-conscious way."

Eugen Jochum in 1941

Although he was relatively young, Jochum was a seasoned recording conductor in 1939, having started making discs as early as 1933. He was to record the first and third Brahms symphonies in the Musikhalle Hamburg for the Telefunken company, turning to the other symphonies later in his career.

This transfer comes from a 1949 LP release on the US Capitol label, one of a series that the label reprinted from the Telefunken catalogue. The critic of The New Records was impressed: "Here is as fine a Brahms Third as we have ever heard. Jochum gives it a well knit, vital reading that is interesting, exciting, and satisfying, and all this without doing malice to the score. His tempo is a shade brisk occasionally, but his conception of the music is so valid, and his projection of it so convincing, that it stands as a great performance."

The sound is good for the time, and is now enhanced by ambient stereo. The Hamburg orchestra was not as skilled (or perhaps as large) as Boult's LPO, but more than adequate and responsive to Jochum's conducting.

The conductor has appeared here previously with Jean Françaix's Serenade for Twelve Instruments, also from Hamburg. It is now available in a new ambient stereo version.

Wieland Wagner in 1954 with three notable conductors: Joseph Keilberth, Eugen Jochum and Wilhelm Furtwängler

Gordon MacRae in Victor Herbert Operettas - Plus a Bonus LP

My posts of pop operettas starring Gordon MacRae have been surprisingly popular. (They are The New Moon and Vagabond King, Student Prince and Merry Widow, and Desert Song and Roberta). So let's complete the set (and fill a request) with this disc combining The Red Mill and Naughty Marietta, two enduring Victor Herbert favorites.

As before, these are pop versions of the operettas, such as audiences might have heard from MacRae's weekly Railroad Hour on radio. Most of the song selections are quite brief, allowing more of the numbers to be included on each side of a 12-inch LP (or separately on 10-inch albums).

My transfer comes from a 12-inch disc, although I believe I have at least Naughty Marietta in yet another format - a double EP.

This post also includes a bonus - a 10-inch LP of selections from Naughty Marietta and Herbert's 1905 operetta Mlle. Modiste, from the RCA "Show Time" Series of the early 1950s, featuring Doretta Morrow.

The Red Mill

Still from the 1906 production

The operetta was a precursor of the American musical comedy, generally with slight but amusing stage business stitching together the singing. The Red Mill is a good example; Wikipedia describes it well: "The farcical story concerns two American vaudevillians who wreak havoc at an inn in the Netherlands, interfering with two marriages; but all ends well." To make sure you can place the opera, Capitol is sure to show you on the LP cover a red mill and the delightful Lucille Norman in a Dutch bonnet.

The photo of Norman and MacRae that inspired the cover art

Henry Blossom wrote the book and lyrics for the operetta, which opened on Broadway in 1906. The main attraction is Herbert's endless supply of melodies, including "The Isle of Our Dreams," "Moonbeams," "Because You're You" and "In Old New York.

The arranger and conductor for The Red Mill was Carmen Dragon, making his only appearance in this series. He was a Capitol mainstay for many years - as was George Greeley, who filled the same roles for Naughty Marietta. Neither use Herbert's own charts, even though the composer was famed for his orchestrations. For those, you can look to several more modern recordings.

Carmen Dragon and George Greeley

MacRae and Norman both sing well, although MacRae had a tendency to let his vocal line go slack during this period, a problem that never afflicted Norman. Capitol enlisted Los Angeles contralto Katherine Hilgenberg to sing "'Neath the Southern Moon."

From the 1906 production

These Capitol recordings date from 1954, and were the last in a series that began in 1950.

Naughty Marietta

Victor Herbert

Naughty Marietta, which graced Broadway in 1910, is Victor Herbert's most famous operetta and possibly his greatest achievement. Featuring an intricate - if unlikely - story by Rida Johnson Young, it takes place in the New Orleans of 1780, and involves pirates, slaves, disguises, a scheming politician and of course naughty Marietta.

Marguerite Piazza and Katherine Hilgenberg

Capitol decided to cast the title role with Marguerite Piazza, a talented singer with the required temperament but who also had a tendency to be squally and whose diction was not the clearest. She does match well with MacRae, however. Los Angeles contralto Katherine Hilgenberg joined the cast for "'Neath the Southern Moon," a good performance.

No matter who sings, Herbert's melodic profusion wins out. This particular work include both my own favorite Herbert melody ("I'm Falling in Love with Someone") and his most parodied piece ("Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life"). Capitol saved them both for the grand close of this quick and pleasant spin through Herbert's most enduring legacy. It and its disc mate are very well recorded, with the impact enhanced by ambient stereo.

Film still with Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald

Unlike The Red Mill, I found no stills from the first production of Naughty Marietta, so we'll have to make do with a publicity photo from the famous 1935 film, with Jeanette MacDonald as Marietta and Nelson Eddy as the hero, Captain Richard Warrington.

The download includes a few additional stills from the original production of The Red Mill, plus a brief review of Naughty Marietta from The Gramophone. W.A. Chislett liked the production, but complained of McRae's diction: "I do not like 'comrade' pronounced with a short 'a'." OK then.

Bonus - Songs from Mlle. Modiste and Naughty Marietta

In the early 1950s, RCA Victor marketed a set of EPs and 10-inch LPs with excerpts from popular musicals, which it called the "Show Time" Series. For one of the entries, the label reached back to the early 1900s for Naughty Marietta and another Victor Herbert score, that of Mlle. Modiste.

These materials (and all the "Show Time" Series entries) have appeared on the blog once before, but this is a new ambient stereo mastering based on the Internet Archive's 10-inch LP, rather than the EPs I presented years ago.

Felix Knight and Doretta Morrow

The leading lights of these Herbert operettas were Doretta Morrow and Felix Knight, both veterans of stage and film productions. Morrow introduced many famous songs as an original cast member of Where's Charley ("My Darling, My Darling"), The King and I ("I Have Dreamed" and "We Kiss in Shadow") and Kismet ("Baubles, Bangles and Beads"). Knight was a regular in the operetta and musical recordings of this era, having taken part in productions of The Merry Widow, The Desert Song, The Red Mill, Can-Can, Kiss Me Kate and others. 

Edward Roecker

Radio and stage vocalist Edward Roecker joined the cast for Mlle. Modiste's "I Want What I Want When I Want It." Leading the orchestra for this LP was Broadway veteran Jay Blackton.

The "Show Time" presentations were even more abbreviated than the Capitol series - four songs from each of the two shows on a 10-inch LP. But the selections here are appropriate, and the performances and sound are excellent. Morrow in particular is an exciting performer. RCA sensibly leads Mlle. Modiste with her gorgeous performance of "Kiss Me Again," one of Herbert's best songs.

Brahms with the New Friends of Music Quartet

My last post featured the two Brahms piano quartets recorded by the New York Quartet, No. 1 and 3. For whatever reason, that ensemble did not record the second quartet, so I looked around for a suitable alternative. My own collection contains only well-known readings, but I did find a gem in the Internet Archive.

That jewel is the 1949 recording by the New Friends of Music Quartet, made for the small Allegro label. It's apparently the only disc made by the quartet, whose members were Hortense Monath, piano, Bronislav Gimpel, violin, Frank Brieff, viola, and Jascha Bernstein, cello.

Bronislav Gimpel, Jascha Bernstein

Hortense Monath, Frank Brieff

Monath (1904-56) was the program director and driving force behind the New Friends of Music, a New York concert society, until its demise in the mid-50s. She was quite a good pianist who had recorded with the Kolisch Quartet and the Trio Pasquier in the 1930s and who made a solo Mozart LP for Allegro.

Bronislav Gimpel (1911-79) was perhaps the best known instrumentalist in the group. He emigrated from Europe to the US in 1937, and soon became the concertmaster of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He was a conductor of the ABC radio orchestra at the time of this recording.

Violist Frank Brieff (1912-2005) became better known as a conductor, and was for many years with the New Haven Symphony. He was a member of the NBC Symphony when this recording was made.

I have not turned up much information on cellist Jascha Bernstein, but I do know that he emigrated to the US in 1940, was active in New York at the time of this recording, and much later made a few discs for the Musical Heritage Society.

The Piano Quartet in A is a large-scale work, both in length and emotional scope. It is not tragic like its successor, the Quartet in C minor. Indeed, it is sometimes considered Schubertian in its songfulness, although its scale and dramatic quality are entirely characteristic of its composer. This recording does it full justice. The sound in ambient stereo is well balanced and truthful.