Customer Reviews

Best Ever Mantovani Collection

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This is a wonderful three-CD compilation of some of the best original recordings made by the Grand Master of Light Orchestral music. But it also contains an added bonus: one of the CD's reproduces in its entirety the 1960 LP "Operetta Memories" which, although hard to find on CD, is by far one of Mantovani's finest albums of sound artistry which charted in the top 40 for 3 months in 1961. Today's marketing teams might have entitled this LP, "Strauss Waltzes ..And More" because it followed a few years after the phenomenally successful stereo LP recording of Strauss Waltzes (1958) and included the great studio version of "the hymn to champagne" Die Fledermaus Overture, and another Mantovani concert favorite, the Gypsy Baron Waltz, also known as the Sweetheart Waltz which has the Blue Danube running right through the melody as only the genius of Mantovani could create. The "more" is represented by extraordinary arrangements of popular operetta music by Franz Lehar and Emmerich Kalman. Mantovani's inventive sounds and synchronized strings are nothing short of spectacular on Kalman's Gypsy Princess Waltz and Lehar's Count of Luxembourg Waltz and Merry Widow Waltz. All ten tracks are time-honored melodies that you will keep you humming and remembering how incomparable the Mantovani sound is and will always be. Purchase this CD set for 48 tracks of the very best of Mantovani's prolific discography.

What happened to the great instrumentals of the past? Consider (all #1 Pop hits):
1956 - Lisbon Antigua (Nelson Riddle - 4 weeks); Poor People Of Paris (Les Baxter - 4 weeks, replaced by Elvis, 'Heartbreak Hotel'):
1958 - Tequila (Champs - 5 weeks):
1959 - The Happy Organ (Dave "Baby" Cortez - 1 week); Sleepwalk (Santo & Johnny - 2 weeks):
1960 - Theme from "A Summer Place" (Percy Faith - 9 weeks)
1961 - Wonderland by Night (Bert Kampfert - 3 weeks); Calcutta (Lawrence Welk - 2 weeks)
1962 - Stranger on the Shore (Acker Bilk - 1 week); The Stripper (David Rose - 1 week)
1962-1963 - Telstar (Tornadoes - 3 weeks)
1963 - Sukiyaki (Kyu Sakamota - 3 weeks) - a vocal, but in Japanese, making it akin to an instrumental in the U.S; Pipeline (The Chantays - ? weeks); Wipe Out (The Surfaris - ? weeks)

You get the idea - back then it wasn't just Mantovani playing instrumentals for old people. And, who can forget the dozens of chart instrumentals that didn't make it to #1 - A Swingin' Safari, Raunchy, That Happy Feeling, O Mein Papa (my favorite trumpet number, by Eddy Calvert), Woodchoppers Ball, Music Box Dancer, A Walk in the Black Forest, Bilitis, Wheels, The typewriter, Apollo 100s "Joy," Red River Rock, Diamonds, Shangri-La, Born Free, Calcutta, Alley Cat, Cast your Fate to the Wind, Exodus, Love is Blue, Mule Skinner blues . . . . not to mention Dick Dale and the other 'zillion' surfin' instrumentals.

Anyone who thinks the instrumentals of forty-five to fifty years ago are 'blase' doesn't know what he is talking about. Mantovani made a living out of taking popular songs and performing wonderful instrumental renditions of them. So did many other great orchestras.

Why not today? How do you 'instrumentalize' rap, or punk, or most of the other monotone, nasal 'music' of the past couple of decades? Until today's songwiters write MELODIES, we'll just have to keep replaying these great tunes of the past.

I bought this for my 92 year old mother - she is a huge fan of Mantovani and is able to listen to all of her favorites.

This is wonderful relaxing music. While I prefer modern jazz, my wife plays this day and night so I made sure she had a large and original recordings. The soothing sounds allows us to perform and focus on other tasks in a very tranquil environment.

A magnificent array of favorite melodies covering a wide spectrum, magnificently played by the pure Mantovani Orchestra.

This cd collection is a great fireside companion. Great music for relaxing on a lazy night!

Who knows what is like Mantovani, but for those who do not like is no good explanation ...

This isn't quite "music" - it's closer to the kind of bloodless, overproduced orchestral music made popular in the 50s and 60s for older people who lacked a background in the classics, yet enjoy sentimental easy listening. This sort of thing has long been replaced by the likes of easy rock and easy listeing jazz, though it's possible that there are still listeners who haven't been exposed to much else, or otherwise have depressed standards in their popular music. Even Lawrence Welk had more variety and personal style in his presentation of music for older people.

This isn't even nostalgic anymore - just dull.