Constant Lambert Conducts 'The Skaters Waltz'

In 1937, Composer-conductor Constant Lambert (1905-51) devised a ballet score for the Vic-Wells Ballet called Les Patineurs, utilizing music from two operas by Giocomo Meyerbeer. Selections from that score have appeared on disc several times, including a set by Lambert in 1939. My other blog has the 1950 Sadler's Wells recording led by John Hollingsworth, one of Lambert's successors with the company.

Émile Waldteufel

By the time of the Hollingsworth recording, Lambert was a sick man who would survive only until August of the following year. Fortunately the UK Columbia company had him in the recording studio several times in 1950, with his final session in late September. Among those last dates were a few devoted to the works of Émile Waldteufel (1837-1915), the Alsatian composer whose best-known work was another (and better known) Les Patineurs - in the Anglophone world usually called The Skaters Waltz.

Lambert also recorded more works by Waldteufel at the same time - Estudiantina, Pomone and Sur la plage. I don't - or to be more accurate, Internet Archive does not - have those discs. A shame because Lambert and the Philharmonia Orchestra do Les Patineurs beautifully, and the Kingsway Hall sound as remastered in ambient stereo is excellent.

I admire Lambert's conducting, and generally like his championing of lighter works such as this. In his last year of recording, he had a final go at Walton's Façade (which can be found on my other blog), plus Suppé's Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna (also available there). His last recorded performance was his own arrangement for orchestra of Chabrier's piano piece Ballabile (which I don't have).