Lambert Conducts Auber, Waldteufel and Chabrier

My recent post of Daniel Auber's Fra Diavolo Overture on my other blog reminded me that I have this set of French music - including another Auber treat - ready to go, as conducted by one of my long-time favorites, the English composer-conductor Constant Lambert (1905-51).

Auber's Les diamants de la couronne ("The Crown Diamonds") Overture leads off this collection, here in a 1938 performance with Lambert conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Auber (1782-1871) is seldom heard today, but his music is delightful, similar in spirit to the better-known Gioachino Rossini.

Daniel Auber and Émile Waldteufel as seen by their contemporaries

Lambert championed the music of Émile Waldteufel (1837-1915). In previous posts, we heard the composer's waltzes Les Patineurs and Pomona. Today we complete Lambert's set of Waldteufel's works with Estudiantina and Sur la plage. He handles the music wonderfully well in 1950 recordings with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Finally, we have Lambert's last recording. As it happens, it is his own orchestration of a posthumous work by Emmanuel Chabrier (1841-94), a graceful Ballabile, written for piano.

The sound of these vintage recording is splendid.

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A Fantin-Latour painting of Emmanuel Chabrier at the piano. Vincent d'Indy is at right.

Constant Lambert Conducts Borodin and Waldteufel

The composer-conductor Constant Lambert has been a long-standing interest of mine, as demonstrated by the frequent posts both on my main blog and most recently on this singles outpost, where I presented his recording of Émile Waldteufel's Skaters Waltz.

Today, we follow up that Waldteufel post with another from that composer - the waltz Pomona, again in a sophisticated performance by the Philharmonia Orchestra under Lambert. Waldteufel (1837-1915) was an Alsatian composer whose best-known work was the Skaters Waltz mentioned above, aka Les Patineurs.

Alexander Borodin

Lambert also was an aficionado of Russian music. His Tchaikovsky recordings have appeared on Big 10-Inch, but here he is in a superior performance of an atmospheric composition by Alexander Borodin (1833-87), In the Steppes of Central Asia. This helpful introduction to the motifs in the piece comes from Wikipedia: 

A caravan of Central Asians is crossing the desert under the protection of Russian troops. The opening theme, representing the Russians, is heard first; after it, the strains of an ornamented eastern melody on English horn, representing the Asians. The melodies eventually combine contrapuntally. Amid these two ethnic melodies Borodin inserts a "traveling" theme in pizzicato that represents the plodding hoofs of the horses and camels. At the end, only the Russian theme is heard.

As with the Waldteufel, this memorable work was recorded in London's resonant Kingsway Hall, the Borodin in 1946 (also with the Philharmonia) and the Waldteufel in 1950. Both recordings were remastered from 78 needle-drops on Internet Archive.

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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).