Search results: Search results
2 results
Products
CLASSIQUES ET INEDITS 1929-56
Frémeaux
CD
$32.99
May 01, 2008
"Hollywood legend Judy Garland left her mark on 20th century American art through her movies, stage performances, radio and songs. Her peerless ‘Over the Rainbow’ was voted ‘song of the century’ and five of her recordings entered the Grammy Hall of Fame. Lawrence Schulman presents an exceptional anthology with the first album featuring Judy Garland’s greatest hits and the second offering titles from private collections which have never been issued previously. The rarity of these recordings compensates the quality of sound which is inferior to studio recordings. A new aspect of this timeless icon from America’s Golden Age." Patrick Fremeaux
FReMEAUX & ASSOCIeS ISSUES 25 NEVER-BEFORE-HEARD JUDY GARLAND TRACKS
French Label Unveils 79-Year-Old Film Soundtracks and 72-Year-Old Radio Broadcasts
Fremeaux & Associes is proud to announce the release of a new box set of two compact discs Judy Garland: Classiques et Inedits 1929-1956 [Judy Garland: Classic and Previously Unreleased Recordings 1929-1956] that contains forty Judy Garland recordings, most of which have been unavailable for up to seven decades. Culled from studio sessions and private collections from around the world, the anthology, whose tracks were trans-ferred by Grammy Award winner Jon M. Samuels in New York and remastered by Art & Son Studio in Paris, has been in preparation for over a year. It includes well-known and lesser-known Garland classics, but also collectors’ items many of which are previously unreleased, such as her screen debut at First-National—Vitaphone Pictures in 1929, 20 rare radio appearances of which 19 are new on CD, the first re-lease of a song she herself composed, and surround sound reproductions done for the set’s director, Lawrence Schulman, by the Australian sound engineer and award-winning radio host Robert Parker shortly before his death in 2004.
The two tracks that open the first CD, "Blue Butterfly" and "Hang on to a Rainbow", are both from Vitaphone discs done by the 7 ½ Frances Gumm for early talkies in 1929 – almost a decade before "Over the Rainbow"! The collection encompasses all the labels for which Garland recorded during her career, from the earliest Decca side "Stompin’ at the Savoy", to her last MGM recording Get Happy, and beyond to her Columbia and Capitol sessions. Of special interest on the first CD are "Send My Baby Back to Me", "Heartbroken", "Without a Memory", and "Go Home, Joe", all recorded in 1953. Robert Parker, well-known for extracting stereo from vintage jazz and popular recordings, transferred them from DJ vinyl 78s into surround in 2002. This is the first time any Garland studio session has been heard in surround. A regular guest on the radio during her movie heyday, Garland sometimes tried her hand at standards and novelty numbers she never performed on film or record. These coveted collectors’ items, released sparingly over the years, make up the collection’s second CD, which includes her first preserved radio appearance from 1935 wherein she belts "Broadway Rhythm", as well as "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" in 1938, "Goody Goodbye" in 1939, "In Spain They Say “Si-Si”" in 1940, "Daddy" in 1941, and "You and I" in 1951. Other new items to be savored are "Love’s New Sweet Song", a song Garland herself composed with husband David Rose in 1941 for a radio show, and a never-before-heard private record of her performing "Someone to Watch Over Me" for a Democratic Party dinner in 1944. “The fact that so many Garland radio performances have never been released so many decades after their broadcast is astounding” states Schulman.
The 32-page brochure in French and in English contains liner notes by Schulman, as well as a detailed discography. Fremeaux & Associes, founded by Patrick Fremeaux and Claude Colombini, and recipient of the Grand Prix in honorem of the Charles Cros Academy, has built a catalogue over the years of some 25,000 references distributed in 32 countries. With of over 1000 awards, the label takes pride in striving to rehabilitate the sound heritage of the 20th century to make our collective memory permanently available to future generations.
Rorem: Piano Works Vol 2 / Thomas Lanners
Centaur Records
CD
$18.99
Apr 01, 2009
Also Available: Volume 1 - Rorem: Piano Sonatas performed by Thomas Lanners.
Ned Rorem has always written for the piano, and after hearing both of these discs, I agree with Thomas Lanners. “These works deserve wider acclaim than they currently enjoy . . . a significant body of captivating works that musically inquisitive pianists would be wise to explore.”. . . Lanners’ two-disc survey of Rorem’s piano music. Vol. 2 (2007) includes works composed around the same time as the three sonatas, as well as others from much later in Rorem’s career. The three Barcarolles share the traditional 6/8 meter and are primarily gentle and soothing, although Rorem’s harmonies, in keeping with the date of composition (1949), sound appropriately modern (nothing extreme, however). The second is the slowest of the three, and at first suggests that Rorem’s boat is becalmed; the forward motion picks up as it continues. The third is the liveliest, with bursts of speedy figuration propelling the vessel across the waters. A Quiet Afternoon (1948) is a suite of nine short pieces for children. The music is serene, playful, and wistful; it’s a pleasant addition to the genre. Fast- forward almost 30 years to 1976 and the Eight Etudes: conceived as a group, they naturally pose various challenges, including the rarely encountered one of an etude for the right hand alone (parallel motion plus simultaneously conflicting rhythms). Others include (in Rorem’s words) “a study in softness . . . [one] for speed without pedal . . . [and one for] slow tune with fast filigree.” There are also studies for fourths, sevenths, loud contrary motion, and a novel concluding etude that’s “a disguised medley of all the preceding ones.” This is an exciting and imaginative set in a modern idiom—“fiendishly difficult but exceptionally well-crafted for the instrument”—that deserves a place alongside such famous 20th century etudes as those by Bartók, Messiaen, and Ligeti. The five brief pieces that Lanner performs after the Eight Etudes were written for friends of the composer (for example, Sixty Notes for Judy celebrates singer Judy Collin’s 60th birthday). These are all more or less cut from the same cloth: slow, evocative, harmonically interesting, occasionally with more dynamic variety than one would expect in such a short span (the longest only takes 1:42). Recalling (2003) is in three parts. The first, “Remembering Lake Michigan,” begins mysteriously, and then startles the listener with a sudden, fortissimo crash. This pattern, repeated several times, gives way to a driving series of bass and treble flurries, also periodically interrupted by crashes. It’s an unforgettable opening to the program. In “The Wind Remains (Remembering Paul Bowles),” Rorem (in his own words) “quotes the descending minor third—‘the dying fall’—as utilized by Paul Bowles” in his opera of the same name. The piece is very similar in mood (as well as thematically and harmonically) to “Remembering Lake Michigan’s” slower moments. To Rorem, “‘Remembering Tomorrow’ defies explanation, as indeed does any music.” Paradoxical title aside, it’s interesting that the piece begins with a 12-tone row. (I’m taking Lanners’ word for that, as I didn’t count. I just heard it as an unexpected use of pointillism, perhaps symbolic of the future?) Combined with scurrying figures in both hands and references to the earlier movements, the result is an exciting piece that “races towards its crashing conclusion.” Song and Dance (1986, commissioned as a competition piece) combines jazzy syncopation and sweet-toned lyricism: it ends amusingly with a bland major cadence that drops in out of the blue. The piece is “appropriately flashy and crowd-pleasing”; it would make a great encore. Lanners plays it to the hilt, as he does all the virtuosic pieces, and he’s also a sensitive musician who communicates the essence of Rorem’s varied moods. Additionally, his album notes are so “spot on” that I felt obliged to quote him throughout my review. Recommended.
- Robert Schulslaper, Fanfare, Issue 33:3 [Jan/Feb 2010]
Ned Rorem has always written for the piano, and after hearing both of these discs, I agree with Thomas Lanners. “These works deserve wider acclaim than they currently enjoy . . . a significant body of captivating works that musically inquisitive pianists would be wise to explore.”. . . Lanners’ two-disc survey of Rorem’s piano music. Vol. 2 (2007) includes works composed around the same time as the three sonatas, as well as others from much later in Rorem’s career. The three Barcarolles share the traditional 6/8 meter and are primarily gentle and soothing, although Rorem’s harmonies, in keeping with the date of composition (1949), sound appropriately modern (nothing extreme, however). The second is the slowest of the three, and at first suggests that Rorem’s boat is becalmed; the forward motion picks up as it continues. The third is the liveliest, with bursts of speedy figuration propelling the vessel across the waters. A Quiet Afternoon (1948) is a suite of nine short pieces for children. The music is serene, playful, and wistful; it’s a pleasant addition to the genre. Fast- forward almost 30 years to 1976 and the Eight Etudes: conceived as a group, they naturally pose various challenges, including the rarely encountered one of an etude for the right hand alone (parallel motion plus simultaneously conflicting rhythms). Others include (in Rorem’s words) “a study in softness . . . [one] for speed without pedal . . . [and one for] slow tune with fast filigree.” There are also studies for fourths, sevenths, loud contrary motion, and a novel concluding etude that’s “a disguised medley of all the preceding ones.” This is an exciting and imaginative set in a modern idiom—“fiendishly difficult but exceptionally well-crafted for the instrument”—that deserves a place alongside such famous 20th century etudes as those by Bartók, Messiaen, and Ligeti. The five brief pieces that Lanner performs after the Eight Etudes were written for friends of the composer (for example, Sixty Notes for Judy celebrates singer Judy Collin’s 60th birthday). These are all more or less cut from the same cloth: slow, evocative, harmonically interesting, occasionally with more dynamic variety than one would expect in such a short span (the longest only takes 1:42). Recalling (2003) is in three parts. The first, “Remembering Lake Michigan,” begins mysteriously, and then startles the listener with a sudden, fortissimo crash. This pattern, repeated several times, gives way to a driving series of bass and treble flurries, also periodically interrupted by crashes. It’s an unforgettable opening to the program. In “The Wind Remains (Remembering Paul Bowles),” Rorem (in his own words) “quotes the descending minor third—‘the dying fall’—as utilized by Paul Bowles” in his opera of the same name. The piece is very similar in mood (as well as thematically and harmonically) to “Remembering Lake Michigan’s” slower moments. To Rorem, “‘Remembering Tomorrow’ defies explanation, as indeed does any music.” Paradoxical title aside, it’s interesting that the piece begins with a 12-tone row. (I’m taking Lanners’ word for that, as I didn’t count. I just heard it as an unexpected use of pointillism, perhaps symbolic of the future?) Combined with scurrying figures in both hands and references to the earlier movements, the result is an exciting piece that “races towards its crashing conclusion.” Song and Dance (1986, commissioned as a competition piece) combines jazzy syncopation and sweet-toned lyricism: it ends amusingly with a bland major cadence that drops in out of the blue. The piece is “appropriately flashy and crowd-pleasing”; it would make a great encore. Lanners plays it to the hilt, as he does all the virtuosic pieces, and he’s also a sensitive musician who communicates the essence of Rorem’s varied moods. Additionally, his album notes are so “spot on” that I felt obliged to quote him throughout my review. Recommended.
- Robert Schulslaper, Fanfare, Issue 33:3 [Jan/Feb 2010]
