Customer Reviews

Sleigh Ride: The Best of Leroy Anderson

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Awesome! My mother and father were fans of Leroy Anderson so I grew up listening to his music. Listening to this CD now I realize how much I've missed hearing Mr. Anderson's songs. I especially like "Blue Tango", "Sleigh Ride", and "The Waltzing Cat" (one of my cats is helping me write this review as we listen to the music on my computer). There is not a single song on this CD that I do not like. Who else but Leroy Anderson can take the sound of sandpaper and make a song of it ("Sandpaper Ballet"). The changes in tempo in some of the songs are perfect for the piece. Almost forgot, "Bugler's Holiday" is a must-listen-to song, as is "Song of the Bells", "Fiddle Faddle", and... Oh! just buy the CD and ENJOY!!

This 20 track disc of original Decca singles is the definitive retrospective of composer/arranger/conductor Leroy Anderson. All the classics are represented in their original hit Decca versions. No matter how many orchestral versions have been recorded, no one has managed to touch this recording of "Sleigh Ride". It's the little differences. Example: the horseclops, the sleigh bells, the sound effect of the horse. And the sound quality on this disc is nothing short of perfect. Lovers of easy listening, classical and orchestral pop will all find this disc a treasure trove of classic Americana.

This features the first time CD release of many Leroy Anderson favorites in the original composer conducted recordings. Some of these pieces, like The Typewriter, were given their world premiere performances when they were recorded by the composer. Anderson was an teriffic conductor of his own works and these mono recordings have a little more snap than his later stereo sessions, which are now out of print, except through a mail order label.

I have been a fan of Leroy Anderson ever since I played his music in middle school band in the 1950's. His classics were very inventive: imitating a typewriter (remember those?), a cat on a piano, a sleigh ride with bells and whips cracking, bugle calls, and so much more, most of it composed for highlighting specific instruments: trumpet, wood block, sandpaper block, pizzicato violin. Anderson is truly an accomplished, American composer. In this CD he conducts his own compositions. And the CD insert also taught me more about Anderson, the man, and his involvement with the Boston Pops Orchestra. Buy it, read it, and listen to it.

The unforgettable tunes of Leroy Anderson are here done in crisp exacting performances. Most of the composer's best short pieces can be found on this CD, and some of them are as good as any since recorded - Anderson's skill as a conductor is quite remarkable.
The orchestra used consists of 55 top New York musicians, working during the summer to earn much needed extra cash in a time when musicians' pay had barely nudged in decades. (To give an idea of how bad things went in the early days of the fifties: The top prima donnas at the Met such as Tebaldi or Callas were payed a flat 1,000 dollars a performance, most of it taken in federal, state, and city taxes, and infinitely less than the top stars such as Melba or Farrar received in the tax free days fifty years before, when a dollar went ever so much further.)

What this means for today's listener is that Anderson enjoyed superb top drawer players and took full advantage of their skills. As the notes explain; "Anderson had string players from the New York Philharmonic, Toscanini's French horn section and some of the best trumpeters and percussionists in New York. Anderson once said with a smile, "recording really isn't fair because you could never get an orchestra like that together in a concert hall. It's only the record industry that can make a miracle like that."" You can hear this quality in each recording: small fine rythmic touches are displayed everywhere - much to the advantage of the music. Has there ever been a better rendition of his famous "Sleigh Ride" or "The Typewriter"? Instead of sloppy sentimental music, Anderson's lead gives his compositions a commendable tautness rarely encountered in concert performances today.

It's forgotten today how bright and gifted Anderson was - he graduated from Harvard in 1929 with a B.A. Magna Cum Laude in music, learned to play a half dozen different instruments, then took his M.A. in music from Harvard and taught Music at Radcliffe College. A master linguist who was fluent in Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Dutch, he served with distinction throughout World War II in Intelligence, along the way creating an English/Icelandic dictionary.

Anderson's music's light quality belies a great deal of sophistication, and his best work has a thorough compositional underpinning. This Cd set captures, as a group, the finest performances his music has ever received.

Summing up: Classics conducted with masterful verve by the composer leading a superb ensemble of the cream of New York classical musicians of the early fifties.

Every year about this time, I like to add some new Christmas related item to my collection of Ammyland Reviews, Lists, or Guides. This year it was between reviewing The Jingle Dogs album, where they bark holiday favorites, or THE BEST OF LEROY ANDERSON, where the composer conducts his own miniature orchestral compositions, including the classic version of his original instrumental, SLEIGH RIDE. If you're reading this, then you already know that the annoying canines got the boot. And they ran all the way to the Spring of 2007 with their tails between their legs. "And don't come back! Shut them dawgs up, April!"

OK, where were we? Oh, yeah: It was in December of 1996 when I kept hearing this particular instrumental version of Sleigh Ride played on the radio station I listened to every day while delivering fresh squeezed organic juice to a grocery store or health food store near you. This was the most imaginative, briskly paced, and snowy version of Sleigh Ride I'd ever heard: the horses were clip-clopping, the whip was cracking, and I was bundled up warmly with a lovely lady friend at my side in this imaginary Santa suit-red sleigh polished to a high sheen after twelve coats of wax and a Laurie Partridge in a pear tree. (Yeah, I know I get a little carried away, but what are ya gonna do?)

Soon I was obsessed with that musical piece. "Who does THAT version, Mr. DJ Man? Who does it?" Finally, on the thirteenth day of Christmas, my DJ said to me, "That was Sleigh Ride - Leroy Anderson." I was about to yell at the radio, "I know it was Sleigh Ride, and my name's not Leroy Anderson!" when all of a sudden, the light bulb lit up above my head... in the same moment that the light bar on the police car behind me lit up. (When the cop finally managed to catch up to me, he found me at the counter of my local music store, paying for a copy of THE BEST OF LEROY ANDERSON.)

To this day, my four favorite instrumentals of all-time are MOONLIGHT SERENADE; THE TRUTH WILL ALWAYS BE; BUMPIN' ON SUNSET; and SLEIGH RIDE. But not just any version of Sleigh Ride. No! It must be THIS recording, the one found on THIS disc, conducted by Anderson himself. I believe that Anderson may have recorded Sleigh Ride more than once, but THIS 1950 version is the one you want. Hey, would I lie to you about something so important this late in the season, and risk finding only lumps of coal in my stocking again?

Of course, there's other "stuffs" here that you might like also. As the informative liner notes say, "Many of these pieces have become part of the musical fabric of American life. Most everyone knows one or more of his tunes, though they may not know the name of the composer [*It's Leroy Anderson, remember?*] or even the title of the composition." For instance, there's BLUE TANGO, the first instrumental piece ever to sell over one million copies. And THE SYNCOPATED CLOCK, used as the theme for "The Late Show" on WCBS-TV in New York for over 25 years.

Anderson was incredibly imaginative and he composed each piece almost completely in his head. He stated, "When I'm making something up I never play a melody on the piano, because your fingers are used to falling into familiar patterns. You don't give your imagination free rein that way. In other words, your fingers are holding you back." I find his brief musical pieces to be very evocative. For instance, when I hear SUMMER SKIES, in my mind I seem to see images of Lee Remick romping in a bathing suit at the beach as if in a black and white montage from some classic movie of the 1950s. Or when I hear THE WALTZING CAT, I always seem to imagine a cat waltzing in my mind. THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING always makes me think of the first day of Spring ("Shut them dawgs up, April!"), and FORGOTTEN DREAMS always reminds me of... hmmm... I forget. But anyway, SLEIGH RIDE takes me for a ride in a sleigh in my wintry mind. And just how imaginative WAS Leroy Anderson? Get this! He composed Sleigh Ride during a 1948 July heat wave in Woodbury, Connecticut! OK? Uh-huh. That's what I'M talkin' `bout! So, what else ya wanna know?

For me, Christmas season begins the day after Thanksgiving every year, when I pull out my copy of THE BEST OF LEROY ANDERSON and blast the one piece of music that says "Christmas" to me like no other Christmas song does - this 1950 recording of Sleigh Ride. And I usually play the song at least once a day up through and including the 25th of December. Then I put the compact disc away for another year (after all, who really wants to hear about a waltzing cat? I mean really?!) Get into the swing of the Holiday spirit with THE BEST OF LEROY ANDERSON. Otherwise, I may just have to send Rocco over there to take you for a little (sleigh) ride... if you catch my (snow)drift.

Leroy Anderson was one of the best Lite Classical American Composers of the mid 20th Century and this CD won't dissappoint you. Taken from original recordings that Anderson conducted you'll hear the orchestrations as he wanted them to be heard. There's a mix of familiar and unfamiliar pieces that are all satisfying to listen to.

For many years, there was a perfect rendition of Sleigh Ride that I could never find the title for. When I recently went on your website to listen to different ones, lo and behold! It turned out to be Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride. I couldn't wait, so I ordered it and am very happy with it.
Thank you very much!

While his music was light-classical or Boston-Popsish in style, Mr Anderson's melodies remain catchy, clever, and memorable. This album made me think of Proust's madeleine - on first hearing it, I was somewhat overwhelmed with a sense of pleasure not from the music alone, but from nostalgic connections with the melodies. I suspect many at or beyond my years (near 70) would have a similar reaction. For a younger audience, I suspect the lovely melodies and orchestrations performed by top-notch instrumentalists might open a new chapter in the American song book for them.

I have played this CD over and over again and each time it is like "new". I borrowedit at the local library and had to purchase a copy for our personal library. The music is vibrant and alive and never gets tiring to listen to. I also purchased two other CD's by Leroy Anderson. Thanks to Amazon for this wonderful series.

Jackie Wallis
Aurora, Colorado