Customer Reviews

British Light Music Classics, Vol. 2

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Light orchestral works are becoming something of a lost art, but the British have excelled at them -- the form is especially popular during their annual "Proms" concerts -- and this second volume of Hyperion's popular series continues in the same high-quality vein as Volume One. Twenty pieces by some of the best British light music composers on a generously-packed 78 minute CD -- no skimping here!

These aren't meant to be challenging works, but are skillfully orchstrated, excellently played, and well recorded. The variety is tremendous -- you may even recognize a few of the pieces and say to yourself, "so THAT'S where that tune came from!"

Perfect music for easy listening on a lazy Sunday afternoon, or anytime you need a break from the classical music heavyweights. Hyperion's packaging and booklet notes are, as usual for this premium classical label, uniformly excellent.

For more of this refreshing series, check out Volumes One and Three, as well as European Light Music Classics and American Light Music Classics.

British light music was radio and concert hall staple fare between 1920 and the 1960s, when it fell thoroughly out of fashion and was rarely heard (apart, perhaps, from Eric Coates). Mostly due to changing tastes, it is claimed, but I have to say that the revival during the last ten years shows pretty decisively that - some clear exceptions apart - most of it was never carved out for lasting value, just like most pop music or TV show ditties today aren't. Even Hyperion's celebrated series, of which this is the second issue, is far from consistently interesting, despite the clearly sympathetic advocacy of Ronald Corp and the New London Orchestra. The problem is in part that this music is tune-driven, and when the composer fails to come up with a really catchy one, there is dangerously little else to appreciate.

Among the worst failures featured here is Percy Fletcher's waltz Bal masque, a thoroughly dreary piece. The other waltz items, such as Fred Hartley's Rogue et noir and Herman Finck's In the Shadows are similar in style and lack of memorability, but at least these two composers - as opposed to Fletcher - knew how to score them with lightness and sensitivity. Yet I wouldn't want to listen to them again even if I were paid to do so. The Brit style evocations of atmosphere succeeds only slightly better. Arthur Wood's Maypole Dance from Barwick Green is forgettable if decent enough. Even Elgar's Carissima sounds grey and nondescript when presented among the works here (and it is, to be honest, a very minor work of his). Other failures include Haydn Wood's flat and dull Horse Guards and Charles Williams's utterly dreadful study in faux pomposity, Girls in Gray. I wouldn't give much to listen to Gilbert Vinter's enervating Portuguese Party again either.

Turning to the more successful items on the disc, it is striking how much more successful these light music composers were when employing humor rather than the swing and schwung and "elegance" of the day. Ernest Bucalossi's Grasshopper's Dance might not be a masterpiece, but is snappy and catchy enough for a listening. Benjamin Frankel's Carriage and Pair isn't typical of the (usually atonal) composer, but lilts along entertainingly. Trevor Duncan's Little March is forgettable but inoffensively decent and Robert Docker's Tabarinage, while paper-thin with respect to level of invention, is capricious enough to sustain a single listening. Edward White's Runaway Rocking-Horse is another humorous little success (on first listening; on the second it is merely annoying) and Curzon's March of the Bowmen is Korngold on an off day but still nicely swaggering. Ketelbey's Sanctuary of the Heart is dreadfully clichéd, but a guilty (very mild) pleasure nonetheless.

The real gems are few, however, though Robert Farnon's catchy Peanut Polka might count (although his Westminster Waltz is hardly durable). Ronald Binge's Sailing By is still intermittently encountered elsewhere, and is a beautiful little piece of atmosphere with a simple tune, never overdone. Clive Richardson's Beachcomber is also a fine, whimsical and really catchy and jazzy little piece, very much of its time but definitely worth hearing. Yet the most striking thing about this issue is how inferior everything is to the music of that master of British Light Music, Eric Coates. His Knightsbridge March is a minor masterpiece which completely overshadows every single other work here both with respect to memorability and construction.

The playing comes across as idiomatic, and I guess the New London players really try to raise the spirits with bright-eyed and sprightly playing, even though they have frankly only so much to work with (the swagger and flair of the Coates indicates that any shortcomings aren't to be blamed on the performers). The sound quality is exemplary, however. Now, it is only fair to point out that other listeners, those who remember these works from their original settings, will presumably react differently. For there is a strong appeal to nostalgia hanging over this project (just read the booklet notes), and I admit that the music here had disappeared long before I was born and belongs to a world I cannot possibly remember. In any case this issue did strike me as an issue for the specialist or the nostalgic with rather thinly distributed musical rewards for the rest of us.