JERRY HADLEY - STANDING ROOM O

Track Listing
1. I'd Do Anything - (mono)
2. Love Is the Thing - (mono)
3. Fun to Be Fooled - (mono)
4. It's Love - (mono)
5. You're the One - (mono)
6. I Get the Blues When It Rains
7. Darn That Dream
8. I'm Through With Love
9. Someone to Watch over Me
10. I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart
11. I'm Confessin' (That I Love You)
12. It's Anybody's Spring
13. Rules of the Road, The
14. Paradise
15. I Got Rhythm
16. I Understand
17. It's a Lonesome Old Town
18. I Hadn't Anyone Till You
19. They Didn't Believe Me
20. Come on Strong

Personnel includes: Lena Horne (vocals); Marty Paich, Marty Gold (conductor); Lennie Hayton & His Orchestra.

Producers: Dick Peirce (tracks 6-11, 13-19); Hugo & Luigi (track 20).

Engineers: Bob Simpson (track 7-9, 13, 17-19).

Compilation producer: Paul Williams.

Recorded between May 1955 and July 1962. Includes liner notes by Will Friedwald.

All selections are stereo except tracks 1-5.

Liner Note Author: Will Friedwald.

Recording information: 05/31/1955-09/04/1962.

Arrangers: Joe Reisman; Marty Paich; Ralph Burns.

PIERRE MONTEUX EDITION VOL 5 -

Track Listing
1. Caruso (Sung by Luciano Pavarotti)
2. Franks Madness
3. Waltx 1929
4. Kidnapping
5. Window, The
6. Allegretta
7. Franks Theme
8. Mckraig's Theme
9. Winnie's Death
10. Riverbank
11. Sleazy
12. Depression

BEETHOVEN: MOONLIGHT BACH, BR

TCHAIKOVSKY: PIANO CONCERTO NO

This programme offers immaculate bravura performances of a fairly wide range of encore pieces, some of which suit Spivakov admirably but others are made less completely appealing by the player's apparent determination to avoid sentiment at all costs. Thus he sets off into Elgar's Salut d'amor with gusto, where a little more lingering would have produced charm. Kreisler's Liebesfreud and Liebesleid are smartly done and the Rachmaninov song which gives the disc its title is played with a sensitive 'vocal' line and full tone, but fails to be really touching. Spivakov seems completely at home in the three Tchaikovsky pieces, the first two gently nostalgic and the Valse-scherzo quite dashing. Massenet's famous "Meditation" is beautifully phrased, with a total absence of gush (but it can sound much more luscious) and La Capricieuse is deftly thrown off. Then again in Cyril Scott's Lotus Land one feels Spivakov's ardour and this performance is quite memorable in its way. Schubert's Valse sentimentale is charmingly innocent, but undoubtedly the highlight of the recital is the set of four Romantic Pieces of Dvorak (the third particularly touching in its simplicity of line—it has a quite lovely tune).

The recital ends with a curious birthday joke which Brahms played on his friend Joachim in the form of a waltz-hymn ("in Veneration of the Great Joachim") for two violins and double-bass. There is a false start (accurately mirrored here) and various mistakes and inaccurate tunings, which in performance brought angry comments from the unsuspecting violinist. Afterwards Brahms put all the 'errors' into the music parts. But to modern ears used to all kinds of 'wrong note' dissonances the joke falls a bit flat and one is left instead admiring Brahms's rather charming melody plus a few quirky additions. Throughout, Sergei Bezrodny accompanies most sympathetically; indeed at times his introductions set a more romantic mood than is then forthcoming from his partner. He is especially good in the Dvorak.

The RCA recording gives the violin striking presence, providing a fairly bright spotlight, and is certainly kind to the pianist.

-- Gramophone [5/1995]

TOSCANINI COLLECTION VOL 28 -

These songs respond to the sheer beauty of Stutzmann's singing like grass to rainfall.

The performances here are distinguished throughout by the evident intelligence as well as the assured technical ability of singer and pianist; but probably the feature that will single out this recital in memory, say a couple of years hence, is the depth, the contralto quality, of the voice. It is not simply that it makes a change (though it surely does that), but that the deep colouring of the tone gives a rather different aspect to several of the songs, particularly the Ariettes oubliees, and often serves them well. The third of the ariettes, ''L'ombre des arbres'', for instance, responds to it like grass to rainfall: there's a glow that wasn't there before. The ending of ''Green'' (''puis que vous reposez'') and, in the Baudelaire settings, the evening-scene of ''Recueillement'', are also lovely examples.

Not that there is any sense of luxuriating. It is not sensuous singing; not, as it were, inviting to stroke the velvet. Attention is very much focused on the words. Yet there is a sheer beauty of sound to enjoy as well, sometimes lovely in itself (as in the last line of Baudelaire's ''Harmonie du soir'') but often as a subtle reflection of mood, as in the diminuendo so finely achieved in ''Il pleure dans mon coeur'' (''Le dueil est sans raison'') from the Ariettes oubliees where the note trails away in quiet thoughtfulness. Sometimes one would welcome more of a smile in the voice, and perhaps in the Histoires naturelles there is opportunity for a little more showmanship, especially in the first, ''Le paon''. But this too has its compensations: the jokes, such as they are, are not killed by coyness, and in the first of the Bilitis songs there is none of that cute wide-eyed-innocence act over the ''ceinture perdue''.

Though recordings of the songs have not been in notably short supply, many of the best are currently unavailable. This new disc is as attractive in its programme as in its performances; presentation and recorded sound likewise. In case a lingering doubt remains, perhaps I should add that Stutzmann is not another of those American girls in Paris, but was born there (in 1965).

-- Gramophone [7/1992]

STRAUSS: ZARATHUSTRA, DON JUAN

LULLABY ARTHUR FIEDLER, BOSTO

Spivakov himself is the very competent soloist in the Hartmann Concerto funèbre...Spivakov and his band have toured Europe extensively and are well known to aficionados of this kind of repertoire...Some of the transcriptions are by Spivakov himself (Schnittke). - MusicWeb International

Selections recorded December 18-21, 1990.

BACH: BRANDENBURG CONCERTOS 5

5 out of 5 Stars for Performance and Sound!

Both Meyers and Schub enjoy distinguished international careers. Meyers made her debut as a soloist with orchestra when she was seven and has performed to high acclaim with major orchestras and ensembles in the US, Europe and elsewhere. Schub was once described by Harold Schonberg in the New York Times as ‘pianistically flawless’. But apart from their solo work they are supremely well-fitted to perform together. Their dynamic control is impeccable, and there is plenty of give and take between them. Meyers’s tone is rich and warm, her vibrato sensitively calculated. She achieves drive and precision in Piston’s outer movements and a singing line in his neo-Baroque Adagio. Copland’s undemonstrative middle movement is convincingly shaped, and she recreates to perfection the sharply pointed rhythms of his final Allegretto, with nimble, controlled pizzicato when required. Schub is a perceptive companion. Between them they hold Ives’s patchwork Sonata together, capturing its flavour from its springy start to its culminating revivalist hymn tune, and they are superb in both Baker’s genuine Blues and Copland’s Nocturne, which points in that direction. An excellent programme of American music for violin and piano, delivered with style and commitment.

-- Wadham Sutton, BBC Music Magazine