Customer Reviews

The Columbia Album of Victor Herbert

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This is one of Percy Faith's most beautiful albums and it is finally on cd.Most of this album is beautiful and lush but there is a few songs that are brassy,2 Christmas songs and 1 Semi classical song.Here is the song list.

The Columbia Album Of Victor Herbert-1958(Liner Notes Included)
1)Ah Sweet Mystery Of Life-Lush
2)Spanish Life-Brassy
3)Dream Girl-Lush
4)Because Your You're You-Lush
5)Toyland-Lush Christmas This is the most beautiful version of toyland I have ever heard although Johnny Mathis has a pretty good version too.You should play Percy's version during the Christmas season off of this cd.
6)March Of The Toys-Brassy Christmas with Drums interspursed.Percy's version of this song is great and should also get a lot of play during the holiday season.
7)Gypsy Love Song and Romany Life-Semi Classical
8)A Kiss In The Dark-Lush
9)I Want What I Want When I Want It-Brassy
10)When You're Away-Lush
11)Cuban Love Song-Light Strings
12)Indian Summer-Lush
13)Every Day Is Ladies Day With Me-Brassy
14)Kiss Me Again-Lush
15)Habanera-Brassy
16)To The Land Of My Own Romance-Lush
17)Dagger Dance-Brassy
18)Italian Street Song-Brassy
19)Sweethearts-Lush
20)Yesterthoughts-Lush
21)Streets Of New York-Lush
22)I'm Falling In Love With Someone-Light Strings
23)Thine Alone-Lush

All 23 Songs are just with orchestra and no chrous.Also the two Christmas Songs on this album are not available on his other 3 Christmas albums only here.You may also like Percy Faith's Columbia Album of George Gershwin if it's still available,if it's not Collectibles will probebly be reissiuing it eventually.If you like beautiful music this album must be in your collection.Doubtless a lot of these songs probebly got played on beautiful music stations before beautiful music died out on the radio.

Now we have something that only Percy Faith could tackle "The Columbia Album of Victor Herbert", composer Victor Herbert has all the elements that Mr. Faith was looking for, and what a workout the award winning Percy Faith Orchestra has in store for them, look at the result...pure satisfaction and then some ~ "TOYLAND" is one of the most beautiful songs ever written, Percy's arrangement comes from the heart and weaves a magic spell over the listener ~ "MARCH OF THE TOYS", once again the signature arrangement comes to the surface of each cue that Mr. Faith records, very stimulating performance ~ listen to this cue and visualize the toys coming to life ~ "A KISS IN THE DARK" and "KISS ME AGAIN", once again the magic prevails with soft and sweeping strings, The Percy Faith Touch comes to the forefront ~ and Percy was always there to record the music whenever the time presented itself, and it is here and now.

Two great giants in the music world Victor Herbert (1859-1924) and Percy Faith (1908-1976), brought together by Columbia Records and originally released in 1958 (C2S-801), received wonderful reviews from the music critics. This is an historic event for Faith fans, a double LP that has all the ingredients is now released on one single compact disc ~ with all the sonic clarity you could ask for.

Great job to all who were involved in bringing this to listeners of fine music ~ very impressive with all original liner notes and recording cues intact. This has to be in the top five of Faith's re-issues, keep them coming, cause there is an audience out there crying and craving more of the same...gotta love it!

Total Time: 73:46 on 23 Tracks ~ Collectables 7565 ~ (9/16/2003)

If you love the Percy Faith orchestral style, you will certainly
enjoy this typical example. The disc is full and the selections are numerous and varied, including characteristic pieces, operetta
excerpts, and even a couple of excerpts from one of Herbert's
grand operas.
BUT - if you're primarily interested in the music of Victor Herbert, then the advice has to be to avoid this seemingly tempting item. The combination of anachronistic arrangements, altered harmonies, and orchestrations foreign to anything Herbert would have imagined or countenanced ends by falsifying the charm and character of Herbert's music. In essence it's more like "1950's Fantasies Loosely Based on Certain Herbert Themes."

Percy Faith, the easy listening music arranger and conductor, pays homage to composer Victor Herbert (1859-1924) and in doing so offers us a remarkable recording of Herbert's oft-forgotten music. Faith interprets Herbert's music with his signature lush strings and sound orchestral arrangements that provide a light buoyancy to the compositions. Especially good are Indian Summer, Spanish Serenade and Gypsy Love Song. But all tracks are impressive and offer good testimony to Herbert's compositions and Faith's tuneful arranging. This is one of the better Faith re-releases from Collectables to date.

This is a very poor rendering of the music of Victor Herbert. I am very disappointed in it and would not have ordered it if I realized that there were no vocals.