Hérold: Zampa - Overture

Recording producers: John Culshaw (La Princesse Jaune, Benvenuto Cellini, Si j’étais roi, Zampa, Donna Diana, Pique Dame, Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, Le Domino noir); Victor Olof (Masaniello, Le cheval de bronze, Fra diavolo, Les diamants de la couronne); James Walker (Le Corsaire, Le roi Lear, Le Carnaval Romain, Les francs-juges)

Recording engineers: Kenneth Wilkinson (La Princesse Jaune, Benvenuto Cellini) James Brown (Masaniello, Le cheval de bronze, Fra diavolo, Les diamants de la couronne); Roy Wallace (Le Corsaire, Le roi Lear, Le Carnaval Romain, Les francs-juges); Ken Cress (Si j’étais roi, Zampa, Donna Diana, Pique Dame, Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, Le Domino noir)

Recording location: La Maison de la Mutualité, Paris, France, June 1951 (La Princesse Jaune, Benvenuto Cellini), September 1954 (Masaniello, Le cheval de bronze, Fra diavolo, Les diamants de la couronne), June 1955 (Le Corsaire, Le roi Lear, Le Carnaval Romain, Les francs-juges), November 1957 (Si j’étais roi, Zampa, Donna Diana, Pique Dame, Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, Le Domino noir)

The recorded legacy of Albert Wolff is one of the most sought-after by collectors. Of Dutch parentage, but born in Paris, Wolff was something of a polymath: pianist, organist, conductor, composer, and had a long career in recording studios beginning in 1920. His first recordings for Decca, starting in the summer of 1951, were a complete Carmen (with Suzanne Juyol), a Manon (with Janine Micheau) as well as several French orchestral suites and individual pieces. ‘Overtures in Hi-Fi’ was the title given to a now ‘cult’ LP of Wolff conducting six overtures: Si j’étais roi, Le Domino Noir, Zampa, Donna Diana, Pique Dame and The Merry Wives of Windsor. To these are added a further ten overtures to make up this 2CD anthology.

Sparkling accounts of famous French overtures, rare and familiar, all recorded in 1960, and part of Eloquence's magnum opus, the Decca Ansermet Legacy.

David Briggs, Keith John, Adrian Partington, Adrian Lucas, Thomas Murray, Ian Tracey and Malcolm Archer

Louis Ferdinand Hérold’s theatrical works are very rarely performed these days. The overtures to Zampa and Près aux Clercs are both firmly part of the so-called “light-classical” repertoire. The triumphal fanfare opening of the Zampa Overture is a brilliant piece of music that is hard to forget. Alongside the overtures are Symphonies No. 1 and 2.

The true identity of the organ featured here was not discovered until 2007. It was originally built in 1913/14 for the “Britannic” ocean liner, sister of the “Titanic”. Because the vessel was used as a hospital ship during World War I, it was probably never installed on the ship’s passenger deck. It has been renovated and called the “Britannic Organ” and is in outstanding condition. Here we have performances by Rumsey, as well as Welte rolls and some of the oldest recordings of historic organists.

Conductor Ronald Corp’s survey of a dozen of the shorter works given by the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra between the Wars, is here played with great enthusiasm by its successor the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. The mix of short symphonic works and the tuneful light music Dan Godfrey played on the pier and on his 78-rpm recordings is striking and makes for a delightful programme equally appealing to lovers of both light music and orchestral music of the 1920s. Hérold’s popular Overture Zampa sets the scene. World premiere recordings include Percy Whitlock’s brilliant Carillion for organ and orchestra, Armstrong Gibbs’s tuneful ballet music from Maeterlinck’s 1921 London hit The Betrothal and Ina Boyle’s prize-winning Baxian tone poem The Magic Harp of 1919. Dan Godfrey was notable for championing women composers, and as well as Ina Boyle, Ronald Corp’s programme includes Dame Ethel Smyth’s tuneful overture to her opera The Boatswain’s Mate. Also from an opera of that time is the orchestral version of the Love Duet from Rutland Boughton’s The Immortal Hour, which has not been recorded since the 1920s. Similarly evocative of the 1921 London theatre is the charming, scented violin solo In an Eastern Garden from Sir Landon Ronald’s music for the play The Garden of Allah. These are set in context with half-a-dozen surviving light music scores including Byron Brooke’s scintillating Gee Whizz! This is a sparkling and entertaining xylophone solo brilliantly played here by Matt King. Other light music scores include Montague Birch’s Dance of the Nymphs and Intermezzo (Pizzicati), Howard Flynn’s novelty fox-trot Clatter of the Clogs, Ludwig Pleier’s Karlsbad’s Dolls’ Dance and Cecil White’s A Sierra Melody. Once favourites on dim old 78s, hearing them again in modern recordings is an invigorating musical experience, and Ronald Corp and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra catch the élan and charm of this music. Includes world premiere recordings.

The world famous Russian conductor and musician Rozhdestvensky conducts famous Overtures including Lalo’s The King of Ys, Massenet’s Phèdre, Hérold’s Zampa and Suppé’s Poet and Peasant and Light Cavalry.

Performed by the peerless band of the Grenadier Guards

Recorded at The Garrison Chapel, Chelsea Barracks, London

This recording was commissioned to be sold to audiences at the annual Henley Regatta on the River Thames where the Band of the Grenadier Guards perform every year. As one would expect, this is a very traditional programme, beginning with a Grand March by Gounod, followed by Hérold’s Zampa Overture and the delightful Valse Caprice-Bal Masqué by Percy Fletcher. The programme is wonderfully varied and contains, as one would expect, The Eton Boating Song, together with music by Peter Yorke and Haydn Wood inspired by ships and the sea.