LONDON
LIGHT MUSIC MEETINGS GROUP
SPRING
GATHERING 8th May 2022
It was an
unseasonably warm and sunny day
in London, when our loyal band of
followers arrived at the
Lancaster Gate Hotel to wallow,
once again in the wonderful world
of light music, knowing sadly,
that the majority of the public
are unaware of its existence, let
alone how thoroughly enjoyable it
is.
As usual, Tony
Clayden welcomed us to the
meeting and presented the first
section. In this Jubilee year it
was appropriate that he began
with the third movement from Eric
Coates' 'Three Elizabeths
Suite' – the march Youth
of Britain. This was written
to honour Princess Elizabeth in
1944, some eight years before she
ascended to the throne as our
Queen.
The next item was
Haydn Wood's Mayday Overture
played by the Slovak Radio
Orchestra conducted by Ernest
Tomlinson – although it was
a few days after the actual May
Day!
One of our
'regulars' is the distinguished
harmonica player, Sigmund Groven,
who travels all the way from
Norway to attend our meetings! So
Tony played one of his
compositions – Siesta
– in which he was
accompanied by an orchestra in an
arrangement by Robert Farnon.
This piece appears on the latest
of Sigmund's CDs.
Tony continued
with Valse Moderne
written by Robert Docker and
dedicated to his daughter,
Beverley – who, by an
amazing coincidence, also
happened to be in the audience,
with her husband, Adam ! Readers
may be interested to know that
Beverley has agreed to take part
in a special feature about her
father, in our October
get-together!
Tony concluded
with Les Jeux (The Games)
– subtitled 'Playing',
written by George Melachrino and
played by the Royal Ballet
Sinfonia, conducted by David
Lloyd-Jones. A little-known work
which forms part of a suite
entitled Five Sketches From
Life, it is written in a
rather more 'serious' vein than
some other Light Music pieces
from this composer.
It was then my
turn to come to the top table
with selection of 'off-air'
recordings – all performed
over 60 years ago! I doubt if
many people remembered the pieces
– let alone the orchestras!
I started with one
of Robert Docker's best-known
compositions, Tabarinage
(Buffoonery) from Marcel
Gardner and his orchestra, in an
arrangement by the conductor.
This piece was played at Robert
Docker’s funeral – but
using the original published
arrangement.
I continued with Highland
Fiddler – a Montague
Ewing composition, played by Hugh
James and his orchestra.
We then turned to
the music of pianist Maurice
Arnold and his sextet for the
delightful Edelma. by
Terrig Tucci – who doesn't
appear to be known for anything
else!
This was followed
by Anton and his orchestra (real
name, Arthur Sweeting) and a
march called Here's To Love
by Charles Mougeot.
Next, a samba by
Gilbert Vinter – Portuguese
Party, given an authentic
treatment by Fredric Cooper and
his Tipica Orchestra. This was
followed by a composition by
Harry Dexter, (founder of The
Light Music Society). His Budgerigar
Polka was played by Louis
Voss and his Kursaal Orchestra.
My final
contribution was written by
Raymond Agoult and performed by
his players. He called it Honouring
the Haggis. As this was the
final item in a 'Music While You
Work' broadcast, I let the
recording run on to take in the
show's famous signature tune Calling
All Workers by Eric Coates.
All of these
pieces were recorded from BBC
radio in the early 1960s. It
seems sad to me that tuneful
music such as these items, hasn't
been heard on the radio for
decades. There is no outlet for
light music on terrestrial
broadcasting these days. You have
to turn to 'Serenade Radio' (on
the internet) for that.
At this point we
adjourned for tea. As usual,
there was a wide range of CDs for
sale, which attracted quite a few
buyers.
Tony opened the
second part of the programme with
I’ll Close My Eyes
by accordion band leader, Billy
Reid.
Now it was time to
welcome to welcome Anthony Wills
to the top table. His
presentation took the form of a
tribute to three legends of the
music business, whose deaths have
occurred recently.
The first was
Stephen Sondheim and Anthony
opened with Something's
Coming from "West
Side Story" performed
by Larry Kert (music by Leonard
Bernstein). This was followed by
Frankie Howerd performing Comedy
Tonight from the show "A
Funny Thing Happened On The Way
To The Forum."
From the show "Company",
Geraldine Turner sang Another
Hundred People. All the
music for the show "A
Little Night Music" was
in waltz time, and Anthony played
us part of the Overture.
To counteract the
suggestion made by some that
Sondheim didn’t write TUNES,
we listened to Julia McKenzie
sing Losing My Mind from
the show "Follies".
From the show "Merrily
We Roll Along" we were
treated to Old Friends
featuring Michael Cantwell, Maria
Friedman and Evan Pappas. This
was the trio number.
Anthony then
turned to the lyric-writing team
of Alan and Marilyn Bergman.
Marilyn died in January, aged 93.
They wrote lyrics for many of
Michel Legrand's compositions.
They also provided the lyrics for
The Way We Were –
music by Marvin Hamlisch, which
we then heard, sung by Barbra
Streisand.
Anthony’s
final tribute was to British
composer and lyricist, Leslie
Bricusse. We heard Matt Monro
sing his 1961 hit, My Kind of
Girl (accompanied by the
Johnny Spence Orchestra.)
From the show "Stop
The World, I Want To Get
Off", we heard Danny
Williams sing What Kind of
Fool Am I?
Leslie Bricusse
also collaborated with Henry
Mancini for the film "Victor
Victoria" from which
came the song that we heard next
– You And Me –
sung by Julie Andrews and Robert
Preston.
Anthony concluded
his presentation with Bricusse
and Newley's The Good Things
in Life performed by Tony
Bennett in a magnificent
arrangement by Robert Farnon.
It was now the
turn of Andr? Leon to present
some favourites – opening
with Haydn Wood's Horse
Guards – Whitehall,
featuring Ronald Corp and the New
London Orchestra. This was
followed by Ronald Binge's Sailing
By – which is the
closedown music for Radio Four.
Staying on that
theme, Andr? continued with The
Radio Four Theme, (by Fritz
Spiegel, arranged by Manfred
Arlan), played by the London
Philharmonic Orchestra conducted
by David Parry. Andr? concluded
by playing us the first
introduction spoken by him on
Classic FM.
At this point we
took our second interval.
In Part Three, we
welcomed, once again, our special
guests, The Martin Cleave Trio,
who played a delightful selection
of light music – as
follows:-
Roses From The
South –Johann Strauss
On Parade –
E.Kershaw
Love's Dream After The Ball
–Czibulka
Mi Adorado (Tango)-
Joseph Rico
In The Tuileries' Garden
–Haydn Wood
The Boulevardier-
Frederic Curzon
Melody in F –
Rubinstein
Jeux d'Esprit- Harry
Dexter
After a short
break, the trio continued with:
Chums (March)- Fred
Meyer
Song Of Songs –
Harold Vickers
Jealousy – Joseph
Gade
Petite Valse – Joe
Heyne
Tony thanked the
trio for their performance –
and the audience for their
attendance, and reminded us that
we shall be meeting up again on
October 9th.
Thanks were also
conveyed to Ursula Kermack, who
looked after the 'door' and to
Terry Guntrip for handling the CD
sales. Terry performs an
invaluable service in running and
maintaining our website.
© Brian Reynolds
2022
The next
LLMMG meeting will take place at
the Lancaster Hall Hotel on
Sunday October 9th 2022 –
All are welcome, please tell your
friends !
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