"HOORAY
FOR HOLLYWOOD"
John
Wilson and his Orchestra at the BBC Proms
Yet
again John Wilson has given us another magnificent Prom Concert with
his recreation of the glory days of Hollywood Musicals on Monday 29
August. The Prom was sold out within four hours of the tickets going
on sale, and the audience reaction heard via Radio-3 was astounding.
It must have been so exhilarating if you were lucky enough to be
among those enthusiastic ‘Prommers’.
Last
year we were treated to the delights of Rodgers and Hammerstein, but
this time John reverted back to the formula that made his MGM Prom
such a resounding success in 2009. As well as MGM he featured music
from the other major studios, so we also heard some of the best from
the likes of Warner Bros, RKO and United Artists.
No
doubt everyone will have had their favourite moments from this year’s
wallow in musical movie nostalgia. High on my list were This
Heart Of Mine from
"Ziegfeld Follies" and Put
On Your Sunday Clothes from Hello Dolly". Whoever described "Ziegfeld Follies"
as Fred Astaire’s swansong must have suffered from a sudden
mental block! He was on screen for many years thereafter, in both
serious roles and musicals such as "Easter Parade" (1948)
and his last outing with Ginger Rogers in "The Barkleys of
Broadway" (1949) – to name just two.
But
such minor ‘fluffs’ in no way detract from this glorious
occasion. We have come to expect some extra treats from John, and
after the ‘last’ piece in the programme the orchestra and
singers suddenly launched into Hooray
For Hollywood,
quickly followed by There’s
No Business Like Show Business (this
arrangement was from the 1954 Twentieth Century-Fox film of the same
name starring Ethel Merman, Dan Dailey, Donald O’Connor and
Marilyn Monroe) .
Rarely can such brilliant encores have been so ecstatically received!
The British press was similarly
enthusiastic. In the Guardian, John L Walters wrote:
Without
the tap dances, chorus girls and (often flimsy) plots, the music had
to stand up for itself. Wilson, who has brought a passion for
authentic performance to movie soundtracks, shone a glittering
spotlight on arrangers such as Ray
Heindorf, Conrad
Salinger and Lloyd
"Skip" Martin. They were Hollywood's invisible men, who
toiled behind the tinsel to stretch three-minute ditties into
extended suites (This
Heart of Mine)
or craft subtle tone poems that became huge hits (Secret
Love,
sung beautifully by Clare
Teal).
A
tag team of vocalists interpreted familiar songs from movies made
between 1935 and 1969 – from Top
Hat to Hello
Dolly.
The charming Matthew Ford charmingly channelled both Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. Annalene
Beechey did a pitch-perfect Julie Andrews (as Mary Poppins) on Jolly
Holiday,
in which Irwin Kostal's dense, relentlessly complex score tipped a
hat to composer Carl
Stalling (of Warner Bros cartoon fame).
A
suite of Heindorf arrangements from the Judy Garland vehicle A
Star Is Born let singer Caroline O'Connor shine on the sultry, subtle The
Man That Got Away.
Tenor Charles Castronovo interpreted two of the more classical tunes: Serenade (The
Student Prince)
and One
Hand One Heart (West
Side Story)
with soprano Sarah Fox.
The
Maida Vale Singers sang lustily on showstoppers such as Sit
Down You're Rockin' the
Boat and Put
On Your Sunday Clothes.
But the stars of the evening were the (until now) unsung arrangers,
whose work was reinvigorated by Wilson's scholarship – and the
musicians, who performed the demanding scores with affection and
exuberance.
Similar
praise was heaped upon John Wilson by Ivan Hewitt in the Daily
Telegraph:
John
Wilson and his now famous orchestra made their first Proms appearance
only two years ago. Yet, when Wilson swept on stage and the orchestra
burst into his own specially composed overture – a cunningly
constructed medley of great Hollywood musical tunes, giving a
foretaste of what was to come – it felt as if we were welcoming
back a much-loved Proms institution.
Lots
of factors conspired in that comfortable feeling, one of which is the
way Wilson embodies an old matinee-idol archetype. He’s just
the right slender shape for tails, with a beat that’s as
shapely as a chorus girl’s ankle. More than that, the orchestra
resurrects something we all remember and love but haven’t heard
in a long while, in all its pristine splendour: the sound of the
great studio orchestras.
For
this survey of the movie musical from the Thirties to the Sixties,
the band seemed even more lavish than usual, with two harps and
pianos adding their lustrous magic to the singing strings and muted
brass.
Best
of a very good bunch for me was Caroline O’Connor, who gave a
tremendous performance of The
Man That Got Away from Judy Garland’s comeback musical, A
Star is
Born.
If
everything flowed in such an easy and irresistible way, it was
because Wilson had given such care to even the tiniest detail. One
example: in the final show-stopping number, Put
on Your Sunday Clothes,
from Hello,
Dolly! – the movie musical’s swansong – everybody sang the
words "All aboard". Just as they did, somebody somewhere
in the orchestra blew a whistle that was a fair imitation of a
train’s whistle.
It
was over in less than a second, and it was almost lost in the brassy
din. But, when you’re dealing in fantasy, half-heard things are
as important as heard ones, something John Wilson understands very
well.
Former
BBC producer Anthony Wills has just a few reservations about this
year’s offering from the amazing John Wilson.
John Wilson and his wonderful
orchestra, together with the Maida Vale Singers, returned to the
Royal Albert Hall on 29 August for what is now becoming a traditional
(and much appreciated) appearance at the BBC Proms. This year’s
concert covered nearly 40 years of movie musicals from 42nd Street to Hello
Dolly!, and this time
the doors were flung open to include the best of the output from
Warner Brothers, RKO, Columbia and 20th Century Fox as well as (of course) MGM. Sadly, in my opinion, Hooray
for Hollywood (composed by Richard Whiting with lyrics by Johnny Mercer, and
performed here as an encore) is not one of the strongest songs
around, though it certainly made for an arresting title.
Given that the purpose of these
concerts is to recreate note for note the superb arrangements and
orchestrations heard on the original soundtracks, it did seem
slightly bizarre to begin with an overture made up of songs from a
whole host of different pictures scored by different composers. The
problem of course was that many of the songs were originally built
around Busby Berkeley and Hermes Pan tap routines. An incomplete
performance of the title number from 42nd Street was followed
by another medley, this time from various Astaire/Rogers RKO
pictures, that conflated the music of George Gershwin, Irving Berlin
and Harry Warren into a single suite. Of course Fred and Ginger
could have had a whole concert devoted to their music, but if a
choice had to be made I would have liked the complete (and magically
arranged) song and dance sequences from Top
Hat including the
title song, Cheek To
Cheek and The
Piccolino – and
if John Barrowman had been hired to perform them we could have had
the taps as well! This would also have served as a trailer for the
new stage adaptation of the film, which is currently touring the UK.
There followed a complete change
of style as Charles Castronovo and Sarah Fox took us into the world
of operetta as Nelson Eddy and Jeanette Macdonald, with Sigmund
Romberg’s Will
You Remember? A
sequence entitled Hollywood
Goes To War began
with Strike Up The
Band from the film of
the same name (made in fact two years BEFORE America entered the
war), stylishly performed by Caroline O’Connor. Annalene
Beechey trilled prettily as Deanna Durbin in Kern & Yarburg’s
title song from Can’t
Help Singing, then we
hopped forwards to 1949 with On
The Town before
returning to Harry Warren and Mack Gordon’s You’ll
Never Know (introduced
by Alice Faye in Hello
Frisco Hello (1943) rather than Four
Jills & A Jeep the following year as claimed). The non-chronological running order
was presumably devised to allow all of the soloists to get their
turn.
Leading up to the interval we
heard the extended musical sequence This
Heart Of Mine from Ziegfeld Follies. At the risk of being
shot down in flames may I say that in my humble opinion this is one
of Conrad Salinger’s worst arrangements, amounting to no fewer
than 16 choruses of a rather mediocre tune in a plot-less movie. In
any case it was most definitely NOT Fred Astaire’s "swansong"
as stated by the presenters, since he continued to appear in musicals
until Finian’s
Rainbow in 1967, and
thereafter in straight roles such as The
Towering Inferno well
into the ‘70s.
After this slightly shaky first
half the concert really sprang to life after the interval, when we
enjoyed a whole gamut of different composers, and it can fairly be
said that the musical selections fitted the vocalists like a glove.
Thus we heard Caroline O’Connor magical as Judy Garland in A
Star Is Born, Doris
Day sound-alike Clare Teal in Secret
Love - the No. 1 hit
from Calamity Jane - and the wondrous tenor of Charles Castronovo as Mario Lanza in the Serenade from The Student Prince and (with Sarah Fox) One
Hand, One Heart from West Side Story. On
the lighter side there was Annalene Beechey as Julie Andrews in Mary
Poppins, Matthew Ford
taking the place of Stubby Kaye in Sit
Down You’re Rockin’ The Boat and a trio of "babes in arms" in Triplets from The
Band Wagon. The
magnificent Overture from Gypsy – released in 1962 not 1964 as stated - was the icing on the
cake.
A particular pleasure for me was
the inclusion of lesser known numbers by Meredith Willson and Leslie
Bricusse. I have long been a champion of Mr Bricusse’s music
and lyrics, from Out
Of Town onwards, and
the extracts from his score for Dr
Dolittle were a
fitting tribute in his 80th year. Something
In Your Smile is a
real curiosity. It was cut from the movie (though can be heard in
the overture) but was later recorded in London - as was the complete
score - by Sammy Davis Jr., in a lush arrangement by Marty Paich.
John Wilson brought the show to
a glorious climax with the tremendous Barbra Streisand production
number Put On Your
Sunday Best from
Fox’s Hello
Dolly! This was
really the dying gasp of the great American movie musical, though the
genre certainly went out in style, and its stable of stars,
directors, designers, choreographers, arrangers and musical directors
dispersed, retired or moved on to other things. In came movies such
as Saturday Night
Fever, Grease and Mamma Mia:
huge box-office successes though not, perhaps, the kind of music John
will want to spend a lot of time reinventing.
Once again the BBC, having
mounted this spectacular concert, shot itself in the foot with regard
to presentation. Apart from the errors noted above the Radio Times
BBC2 billing was a nonsense, implying that Top
Hat and Shall
We Dance weren’t
Astaire/Rogers movies. Astonishingly, the names of the six soloists
weren’t listed in the Proms prospectus and, worst of all, there
was no mention on air or in the programme notes of several of the
lyric writers. Thus "Yip" Harburg, Howard Dietz and Paul
Francis Webster never received a credit, even though they contributed
to their songs’ immortality just as much as the composers. Why
the Corporation cannot use experts in the field I cannot imagine:
there are plenty in the Robert Farnon Society!
The television presentation of
the concert on BBC2 was visually acceptable, though a number of my
acquaintances have complained about the sound quality, some remarking
that it was at times out of sync with the pictures. Be that as it
may, viewers once again suffered the cutting of four songs. Would
this happen with Beethoven, I ask? Hopefully they will be restored in
the DVD.
May I add in conclusion that,
despite the reservations mentioned above, the actual performances
from players and singers were flawless and left the Proms audience
screaming for more. I’m sure that John and his team are
already working on next year’s extravaganza and I for one can’t
wait! Meanwhile, a condensed version of this year’s Prom will
be touring the UK in late November and early December.
The
full contents:
Hooray
For Hollywood Overture
42nd Street medley
Fred
and Ginger at RKO
**Maytime
– Jeanette Macdonald and Nelson Eddy
Strike
Up The Band
Can’t
Help Singing
**Main
Street – from ‘On The Town’
You’ll
Never Know – ‘Hello, Frisco, Hello’
This
Heart Of Mine - ‘Ziegfeld Follies’
Judy’s
Comeback – ‘A Star Is Born’
The
Man Who Got Away
Secret
Love – ‘Calamity Jane’
Serenade
– ‘Student Prince’
Clap
Yo’ Hands - ‘Funny Face’
Gypsy
Overture
One
Hand, One Heart – ‘West Side Story’
**Being
In Love - ‘The Music Man’
Triplets
- ‘The Band Wagon’
**Sit
Down You’re Rockin’ The Boat – ‘Guys &
Dolls’
Jolly
Holiday - ‘Mary Poppins’
When
I Look In Your Eyes – ‘Doctor Doolittle’
Put
On Your Sunday Clothes - ‘Hello Dolly’
Hooray
For Hollywood
There’s
No Business Like Show Business
**
omitted from the TV broadcast
This
article appeared in ‘Journal Into Melody’ issue 190,
December 2011.
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