Yes & Brahms

Now I'm not a huge fan of Brahms, nor am I any longer much of a fan of Yes, but as a kid, Fragile was in heavy rotation for a couple of years. I honestly didn't care how little sense the lyrics made (other favourite bands were The Tubes and Adam and the Ants, bands not known for their lyrical depth, generally). Anyway, the coolest tracks by Yes, for me, were Excerpts from The Six Wives of Henry the Eighth (on the 4-LP monster Yessongs) and Cans and Brahms. The latter is Rick Wakeman's handy distillation of the 3rd movement of Brahms' 4th Symphony.

Brahms' 4th at that time also went into heavy rotation. And for the better part of 30 years, I've never been without a copy of it. When I moved to Europe in 2002 (with 2 suitcases, a cheap walkman and 10 tapes), I sold almost my entire CD collection, but I'd only been over a couple of months when I bought a new CD player and a couple dozen cheap classical CDs. The version linked below is a 1987 Supraphon recording of the Chech Philharmonic Orchestra under the conduction of Jiří Bĕlohlávek (George Whitehead, the Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra since July 2006).

Brahms' Glorious 4th + Cans and Brahms (rs/320 - Yes@192)

Coffee!

If I can't drink my bowl of coffee three times daily, then in my torment, I will shrivel up like a piece of roast goat

So, many years back I worked at a bookstore on Haight street, the long departed Austen Books. Across the street from Austen was a lovely cafe called Cantata Coffee. Interested in the name, I asked the owner, a sweet older gentleman of some European extraction. He explained it was named for JS Bach's Coffee Cantata. He also gave me a philosophy of coffee that included something to the effect of "It should be hotter than hell and blacker than a woman's heart". Or something like that.

It was several years before I picked up a copy of said cantata, but I share it with you today. Wikipedia has a nice summary of the cantata here.




Kantaten BWV 211 u. 212 (rs/320/24 minutes)

A break from the soundtracks

Happy Pi Approximation Day!

Prior to his solo career, Richard Barone fronted Hoboken, NJ new wavers The Bongos who had a minor hit with Numbers With Wings. His first solo album, a low-key live recording called Cool Blue Halo (1987) featured nice performances of the Beatles' Cry Baby Cry and Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World.

In 1990 he released Primal Dream, the second of his 4 solo albums. The third, Clouds Over Eden came out in '93 and Between Heaven and Cello (a live recording with cellist Jane Scarpantoni who appeared on CBH and PD) was released in '97.

Seems I totally missed hearing about a spate of Bongos reunion shows a couple of years ago. Reports are that were very cool. There's also much love for Bongos back catalogue reissues.

When Primal Dream was released, it went into heavy rotation on my walkman (though it did not enamour me of the Bongos, though I went back and listened to them at the time and still was not grabbed, despite their fine critical appraisal), and didn't come off for about 2 years.

I recall that Clouds Over Eden was quite beautiful, but it didn't have the punch of songs like Opposites Attracting and River to River. Barone handles slow and beautiful as well, exemplified by a sweet cover of VU's I'll Be Your Mirror.

Enjoy Primal Dream (RS/320)!

Scaramouche!

Victor Young's fine score to George Sidney's 1952 film of Raphael Sabatini's 1921 novel Scaramouche.

The tale takes place during the French Revolution and the soundtrack buckles swash appropriately.

Enjoy!

Part I
Part II (rs/320)

The Constant Nymph

Now, I know these soundtracks I've been posting are kind of random. That's how I got them, I listen to them for the first time in the days or week before posting the link. It was the oddness of how they were all part of the same (apparently failed, as the label no longer lists them in the catalogue) reissue series.

I'm not posting in any order either, as there's not really one to be had.

That said, this week's post is Erich (Elizabeth and Essex) Korngold's soundtrack to the 1943 CharlesBoyer vehicle The Constant Nymph.

It's a convoluted love story in which Boyer plays a poor composer the fourteen year-old daughter of whose mentor falls in love with him. The director, Edmund Goulding, later took on Maughm's The Razor's Edge (so-so, IIRC, as the movie sidesteps some of the book's trickier religious themes) and Of Human Bondage (both in 1946).

This string-heavy music is, not surprisingly, pretty melodramatic. I imagine Douglas Sirk's movies to be similarly soundtracked.

This is one that's probably more interesting if you know the movie, but the music is quite moving in its way.

This CD also includes an unused alternate take of the vocal Tomorrow.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold's The Constant Nymph (320/rs)

Alfred Newman

This is a pair of short ones.

Alfred Newman's scores for All About Eve (1950, directed by Joseph Mankiewicz) and Leave Her To Heaven (1945, directed by John M. Stahl).

Alfred Newman was nominated for 45 oscars (2 more were nominated before the academy attached the composer's name to the award.)

link: http://rapidshare.com/files/126130959/ANewman-AAE-LHTH.rar

Madame Bovary

As promised, here is Milos Rozsa's beautiful soundtrack to Vincent Minnelli's 1949 film of Madame Bovary.

I've been listening the past couple days and am fondest, I think, of tracks 7 and 8 Passepied and Waltz (which I think are both labeled Passepied - my apologies). Passepied is all beautiful and flowing and the Waltz, midway through, trips into a minor key catching the listener off guard.

Rozsa had previously scored (among others) Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945), and would go on to score Ivanhoe (1942, for which he earned an Oscar nomination), Ben-Hur (1959, for which he won the Oscar for Best Original Score), and the Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974, which starred the recently departed John Philip Law as Sinbad).

Next up, I believe, will be a double-shot of All About Eve and Leave Her To Heaven, both composed by Alfred Newman.



320/94MB Rozsa-Emma.rar

Sorry for the delay

I've got Miklós Rózsa's beautiful soundtrack to Vincent Minelli's 1949 Madame Bovary ready to upload as soon as I get home.

Apparently the movie is an abject victim of the Hays Code, but that didn't stop Rózsa.

More tonight.