A Glinka Favorite from Philadelphia and Boston

The overture to Mikhail Glinka's opera Ruslan and Ludmila is one of the great program openers, beloved of maestros who want to stun the audience with orchestral viruosity. And two of the great virtuoso ensembles of all time are those of Philadelphia and Boston, and they do indeed amaze in these vintage recordings led by Eugene Ormandy and Arthur Fiedler, respectively.

The young Fiedler

The earlier of the two is from 1939 and is devoted to the Boston Pops, then in the ninth year of Fiedler's 49-year reign. Victor issued the performance on two sides of a Red Seal 78.

The Philadelphia Orchestra version comes from 1946, when Ormandy was eight years into his 44-year tenure as music director. He had recently moved over from Victor to Columbia, which issued this endeavor on its own 78.

The Boston performance is perhaps the more lithe; the Philadelphians were unrivalled in the depth of their string tone, which has an intoxicating effect in the overture's rapid string figurations. 

I do prefer the Fiedler, perhaps because it is much better recorded and because the pressing at hand is far superior. Either way, I am sure you will enjoy the experience.

Ormandy as the Phantom of the Orchestra

More Silliness from Boston

Awhile back, good pal and fellow blogger Ernie gifted us with an EP produced in the palmiest (and silliest) years of the Boston Pops under Arthur Fiedler. Called Fiedler's Folly, it included four musical parodies as presented during the concerts of that legendary aggregation.

The idea was to break up the serious parts of the concert with mirth. Back then (1954) I think they used to sell beer at the old hall (see tie-in ad below), so perhaps the audience was in the mood for a hoot and holler - or at least a discreet giggle.

Now Ernie has returned with an additional and intriguing Pops find. It is artifact called "TV-ana," a product of longtime Pops arranger Richard Hayman, who played the harmonica and recorded mood music and pops albums of his own when not under Fiedler's patronage.

In this record, Hayman weaves together various television themes and jingles of the time in a jovial manner. These would have been instantly familiar to the Boston audience, but 65 years later may be more arcana than "TV-ana" to any of you who didn't overdose on American television back in the day.

Click to enlarge

I was a five-year-old at the time, and would happily watch anything from Norman Vincent Peale to I Love Lucy, so I have something of a grounding in the material Hayman covers. Even so, I didn't identify nearly all of the jingles he jangles at us. I caught (in order) the NBC theme, the Halo Shampoo and Oldsmobile jingles, the Dragnet music (an easy one), Ajax cleanser, Robert Hall (an early clothing discounter) and Colgate toothpaste. It says something about the memorability of this nonsense that I could recall these - and sing many of the them - many decades later. I am reminded that the Ajax and Colgate jingles were very similar. This allowed you to combine them thusly: "Use Ajax / the foaming cleanser (bah-bah-bah-ba-bum-bum-bum) / Cleans your breath as it cleans your teeth." Fortunately I did not put this into practice at the sink.

If any of you recognize anything else in Hayman's arrangement, please let me know. Ernie is far too young to be of much help - but I do thank him for the contribution, as always!

By the way, the other side of this 45 is "The Glow-Worm Turns" - but that number also appears on the Fiedler's Folly EP previously on offer.

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More Fiedler: Where Is Your Doo-Wacka-Doodle

I just had to bring you one more Arthur Fiedler record, this one a promo 78 from 1953. My reasons:

1. It has a RED promo label! (Sorry for the outburst; I am a record nerd.) RCA promos of this vintage always have white labels. I have to assume it was because Fiedler and the Pops were Red Seal artists.

2. The "A" side (at least it's the "A" side for me) is "The Song from Moulin Rouge (Where Is Your Heart)," which Fiedler later re-recorded in stereo for his Music from Million-Dollar Movies LP, available via my other blog.

3. The arrangement for "Where Is Your Heart" is by blog favorite George Siravo. I never would have guessed he did this Pops arrangement, which is different from his usual style (and quite wonderful).

4. RCA flubs almost every aspect of the information on the label, attributing the music to lyricist William Engvick and the words to composer Georges Auric, and misspelling Siravo's name. (They did get Fiedler's right.)

And now for the down side, also known as the flip side.

It is a tune called "Doo Wacka Doodle," written by Lou Singer, whose greatest hit was "One Meatball," so you know what to expect. This side is attributed to "Members of the Boston Pops Orchestra," and one can speculate that the other musicians refused to participate.

The Billboard ad at left suggests that Fiedler "swings" these tunes, but "Doo Wacka Doodle" is the antithesis of swing, and "Moulin Rouge" is a lush instrumental. Copywriters should listen to the records they promote.

Not my transfer, but I did work it over and the sound is good. Highly recommended for the "Where Is Your Heart."

Breaking Batons in Boston

Our friend and benefactor Ernie returns to the blogs with this unusual EP from 1954 called Fiedler's Folly. It includes four musical parodies as made popular by the Boston Pops and their longtime conductor, Arthur Fiedler.

Despite what the cover may suggest, far from getting mad about these things, Fiedler himself commissioned the parodies or at least the arrangements from Pops staff arranger Peter Bodge. The conductor used them to liven up his programs.

The best known of the four items is probably "The Glow-Worm Turns," based on an operetta tune by Paul Lincke. The Johnny Mercer revision of "Glow Worm" had been a hit for the Mills Brothers in 1952, and would have been very familiar to a 1954 audience. As is his pattern with these numbers, Bodge works in everyone from Richard Strauss to Johann Strauss in his arrangement.

Fiedler plays an RCA 45 - one of his own?

Also overly familiar to the contemporary Bostonians would have been basic material in the "Cry Parody," which is Bodge's deconstruction of Johnny Ray's histrionic 1951 single, "Cry."

Perhaps the most elaborate number is "Low-Tide," a take-off on Robert Maxwell's 1953 hit, "Ebb Tide." The sea setting provides Bodge a pretext to toss in The Flying Dutchman, seagulls, "Yo Ho Blow the Man Down," "The Sailor's Hornpipe" and similar material.

The fourth piece is Alec Templeton's "Mozart Matriculates," which weaves in "From the Halls of Montezuma" on muted trumpet.

The brief program is enjoyable; just don't expect a laff riot. Genteel titters were more the fashion in mid-50s Boston. Ernie's transfer is excellent, and I thank him once again for thinking of us!