Argo issue number: ZFB 31 Producer: Frederick Woods Engineer: Iain Churches Cover photo: Donald Bott
Availability: long deleted, never released on CD
Singers
Ken Langsbury – baritone
Ron Taylor – tenor
Dave Stephenson – bass
TRACKS
Side One
1 Robin Hood and the Three Squires
2 The Three Knights
3 The Deadly Wars
4 Stormy
5 Tom O’Bedlam’s Song
6 Old Jonas
Side Two
1 News From Holland’s Leager (words adapted from broadsheets by The Songwainers)
2 Bright Phoebus
3 The Old And New Courtier
4 The False Fox (tune Songwainers)
5 The Glittering Dewdrops
6 George Ridler’s Oven
7 John Barleycorn (tune Schulz)
Argo issue numbers: 1967 as RG 531 (mono) ZRG 531 (stereo); re-released in 1969 as ZDA 125 and as ZFB 41 in 1971
Recorded in Romania in 1965 and produced by Deben Bhattacharya
Availability
never issued on CD in toto, but tracks A4, A5, A6, B4 appear on the CD Music on the Gypsy Route Vol 2 (Fremaux & Associés, 2003)
Artists/Musicians
Maria Rusu – vocals (A1, A2)
Folk orchestra of Palatul Culturii, Brasov, conducted by Dan Moisescu (A1,A2)
Mircea Nîţu – cimbalom (A3)
Ion Dragoi – cimbalom (A4)
Nicolae Netotu – violin (A4)
Folk orchestra of Olteniţa, directed by Constantin Preda (A5, A6)
Constantin Preda – first violin (A5)
Ion Florea – cimbalom (A6) Laura Lavric – vocals (A7) Ilie Cazacu – fluier (A8)
Petruţ Tarana – cobza (A8)
Viorel Mîndrilă – bucium (A9)
Maria Popa – vocals (B1, B3)
Gypsy musicians from Lazareni, Transylvania (B1)
Gavril Tent – violin (B2)
Maria Sălăjan– vocals (B3)
Ferenc Antal – violin (B4)
Rudolf Tóni– viola (B4)
Ferenc Berki – double bass (B4) Emil Bozbici, Ilie Trif, Ioilă Persică – trisca (B5)
Larion Marica – caval (B6), trisca (B5)
Maria Precup – vocals (B7)
Stoica Gheorghe – violin (B8)(B11)
Unnamed musicians (viola, double bass) from Cojocna Transylvania (B8)(B11)
Mihai Lăcătus – tilinca (B9) birchbark whistle (B10)
Here’s a map of where Deben Bhattacharya recorded on the field trip. The numbers refer to the locations given in the track listing below. Click on it to enlarge.
From Cimpulung, Muscel (2)
3 Doina (lyric-song)
4 Hora (round dance)
From Oltenita (3)
5 Sîrbâ Tsiganească (gypsy dance)
6 Cîntec si Hora lăutărească (song and round dance)
From Radauti, Moldavia (4)
7 Foaie verde foica vita (love song)
From Cimpulung, Moldavia (5)
8 Trilisesti (dance music)
9 Improvisation on bucium
Side B
From Lăzăreni (6)
1 Wedding Dance (in Romanian Strigături de nunta)
2 Talandar (dance music)
3 Doina (lyric-song)
From Mera (7)
4 Marching music (march for conscripts)
From Lesul Ilvej (8)
5 De-a mină (melody of love-song)
6 Invirtită (dance music)
7 Doina (lyric song)
From Cojocna (9) 8 Slow dance from Pata
From Cimpulung, Moldavia (Câmpulung Moldovenesc) (5)
9 Bătută (dance music)
10 Farmer’s Wedding (Carpathian folk tune)
11 Tărăneasca (farmer’s dance)
Notes I wonder how the recordings for this album were made. It was 1965. Ceausescu had just come to power and moves were under way in Romania towards liberalisation and away from dependence on the USSR.
But ‘cultural interaction’ with the non-communist world was still very limited, foreigners were still regarded with considerable suspicion and there was no way Deben Bhattacharya was going to be allowed to wander around the countryside with a tape recorder and no chaperone.
He will have had to apply to the communist authorities for permission to make the field trip, presumably seeking the prior blessing of the leadership at the Romanian Folklore Institute in Bucharest.
Did he apply to them with a specific itinerary in mind or did he place himself in the hands of his hosts? Who knows? But the fact that several of the musicians and singers appearing on this album had previously been recorded by Romanian folk music collectors (as far back as the 1930s) suggests that he may have been nudged into accepting a route decided (at least in part) by the good comrades in Bucharest.
I only mention it because, as far as I can tell, this was the first post-war recording field trip carried out in Romania by a foreigner. Should it be seen as evidence of the cultural thaw under way?
Topic, Folkways and Columbia True, the UK label Topic had issued an album of field recordings from Romania in 1958 (Rumanian Folk Music, Topic 10T12), but that was a compilation by A. L. Lloyd of pre-recorded tracks handed over to the label by the Romanian Folklore Institute.
Same again for the Folkways 1958 album ‘Romanian Songs and Dances’ (notes by A. L. Lloyd). Pre-recorded tracks from the Institute’s archives, including several by the same performers as appear on the Topic album.
And same again for the early ‘60s Columbia album ‘The Folk Music of Romania’ (Volume XVIII of its World Library of Folk and Primitive Music – it’s no longer available), which was compiled and edited from the Institute’s archives by Lloyd in collaboration with Alan Lomax and the Institute’s Tiberiu Alexandru. Many of the same performers as on the two earlier albums, and in some cases the same tracks.
And same again for all those other Rumanian folk albums that found their way on to record racks and mail order catalogues in Paris, London and New York in the 1950s and early 1960s courtesy of labels like Artia, Supraphon, Period and Bruno.
Prior to Bhattacharya’s field trip, every album of ‘authentic’ Rumanian folk released to the English-speaking ethnic music market had been mediated by the state-sponsored Romanian folklore behemoth, the Institute, which had its own (Marxist) perspective on the theory and practice of folk music, old and new.
Does it matter?
Does it matter that many of the performers on those albums were, despite Lloyd’s careful description of them as ex-loggers or workers on collective farms, almost certainly semi-professionals or members of state-sponsored folk ensembles and orchestras set up in Romania in forced imitation of the Soviet folkloric model?
Does it matter that some of the songs they sang weren’t traditional, but examples of Romania’s ‘new folk’ – contemporary creations reflecting ‘the social consciousness of the Romanian people’?
Does it matter that the style of some of the recorded ensembles was already standardising away from the local/regional towards some kind of ideology-driven national hybrid?
Well, from this distance, yes and no. But those issues certainly mattered at the time.
Romania’s ‘new advanced forms of folk music’
The issues were discussed at some length, for example, when the great and good of the folk world gathered in the posh, leafy suburbs of Bucharest in August 1959 for the annual conference of the International Folk Music Council
Imagine the horror from some of those attending when the Romanian Folk Institute’s Mihai Pop told the conference that ‘the idealisation of outdated forms (of folk music) with acceptance of their absolute value’ was getting in the way of making ‘new advanced forms’ of folk music.
Imagine the consternation from others when the Institute’s Sabin Dragoi (whose brother Ion appears on one of the tracks on this album) briefed the conference about the appearance in Romania of “a rich production of the new type of melodies which have begun to edge their way into the folklore circuit, and in various parts of the country even to exert an influence upon the melodic patterns of the songs”.
According to Pop: “…the representative popular character of folklore is an historically determined aesthetic-ideological category expressing the essential and progressive interests of the popular masses at a given time…Contemporary folklore reflects a collective feeling based upon a community of interests and aspirations, binding town dwellers to villagers and peasant to worker in a common effort to build up socialism.”
Needless to say, there were those who didn’t agree.
Maud Karpeles, a stalwart of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, told the conference that a distinction had to made between music made by the people and music made for the people; folk songs in a class society did not necessarily reflect the struggle against the ruling classes, she insisted.
Image distorted, tracks dropped
Of course there was no happy resolution to the differences of opinion (over half a century later they’re still a live topic on folk music internet boards), but it’s worth noting here that when Rounder re-issued the Columbia World Library album on CD in 2001, five of the original tracks were dropped.
“Triumphalist, artificial, predictable, and conforming to official aesthetic criteria….they gave a distorted image of musical life in Romania,” said editor and compiler Esperanţa Radulescu in her liner notes.
She suggested that the Communist authorities may have imposed those pieces on the Institute’s Alexandru and that Lloyd and Lomax would have had little choice but to accept. But would Lloyd and Lomax have been that bothered?
In his defence of Romanian ‘new folk’ to the 1959 Conference, Lloyd (an apostle of the links between folk music and the masses’ struggle) said that social influences had been helping to shape folk music since the dawn of musical history and suggested a new definition of folk music was called for, with anonymity no longer being a sine qua non.
Song of the Five Year Plan A quick aside: to get an idea of the kinds of shenanigans the comrades from the Romanian Folklore Institute occasionally got up to when out collecting and cataloguing ‘new-folk’ songs in the 1950s, check out this article by Florinela Popa.
‘Song of the Five Year Plan’, ‘On the collective farm when I hear the doina’, ‘I sing to Stalin the great’. They’re all there. Plus a brief assessment of the creative socialist development of the ubiquitous Barbu Lautaru Traditional Orchestra, who appear on all three of the A.L. Lloyd-curated albums (discussed above) and on many more besides.
So? So what has all this got to do with Deben Bhattacharya’s recordings made in 1965 and issued on this Argo album? Well, if nothing else, it raises questions about just what it is you’re listening to and how it ended up on the record.
At least one contemporary reviewer thought he smelt a rat, and complained that there was “more commonplace professional band music than we would like” on the disc, particularly on Side A (check track 2 and see what you think).
“It is not just the fact that professional Gypsy bands are included which disappoints us; it is rather that these bands are partly those of the local ‘culture institutes’ whose style seems to have been taken from that of the large radio ‘folk orchestras’ of Bucharest.”
In a review for the Gramophone magazine, W. A. Chislett had a different opinion of the ‘gypsy-style music’ on the album: “…more often than not we in this country hear it either in idealised or adulterated form. It is good to have it in its raw authenticity”.
My guess is that the ‘commonplace, professional’ tracks that caused offence to the reviewer may have been the price Bhattacharya had to pay to keep his hosts sweet. To my ears a lot of the rest of the album sounds ‘raw and authentic’, but I’m no expert.
I suppose this ending up recording who got put in front of your microphone by the authorities went with the territory, especially if the territory was part of the Soviet empire. Bhattacharya seemed to have the same problem when he visited Uzbekistan in 1970 and ended up recording the National Folk Music Orchestra instead of ‘true folk musicians’.
“It’s kind of like the difference between the stylized “folk music” (as a genre) by the Kingston Trio, vs. the real, and emotionally haunting power of, say, Clarence Ashley or Dock Boggs at their best. It’s two different worlds,” says a review of Bhattacharya’s Uzbek stuff on Amazon. Quite like the Kingston Trio myself.
Constantin Brailoiu
Focusing on the ideology-driven aspect of folk music collection in post-war Romania only tells part of a long story that began in the 19th century when Brahms and Liszt were into Romanian folk music. After that, of course, there was Bela Bartok, who famously collected in Transylvania before the First World War and probably did more to familiarise the world with the country’s folk melodies than anyone else (even Taraf de Haidouks).
Serious collecting began with Constantin Brailoiu (pictured on the right recording in Dragus in 1929), the father of Romanian ethnomusicology (A. L. Lloyd was a big fan), who made recordings throughout the inter-war period for the folk archives of the Society of Romanian Composers.
The Society released a large number of recordings before the war through domestic labels such as Lifa and Cristal (which later became Electrecord) and a variety of foreign ones including Odeon, Columbia and HMV. There was even a recording made – with the collaboration of the English Folk Song and Dance Society – in Decca’s London studios in 1935 during an international folklore festival.
Brailoiu went into self-imposed exile in 1944 in Switzerland (where he had been working as a cultural attaché) and founded the International Archives of Folk Music (Archives Internationales de Musique Populaire, AIMP). He’d taken some of his field recordings with him when he left Rumania and came up with a plan – “to collect in Geneva, in a laboratory equipped for the purpose, materials that would be in sufficient numbers and quality to allow the study and confrontation of original melodies from all regions of the world”.
In the 13 years before his death in 1958, the AIMP collected some 250 wax cylinders and over 1,300 78 rpm records of music from all over the world, plus several hundred hours of recorded tapes, with written documentation. With backing from the International Council of Music and UNESCO, a 40-volume set of records entitled World Collection was issued between 1951 and 1958 – the first set of records of its type ever published. Romania was represented in the anthology by four 78s.
Back in Rumania
Meanwhile, back in Romania (as in all the other Soviet satellite states) folk music had become a massive state enterprise, promoted by the state-run media, driven locally by centrally-controlled cultural associations and supported by the state-run recording monopoly Electrecord.
Brailoiu, officially at least, was a non-person (if not a traitor) and the recordings he left behind were subsumed into the archive of the Romanian Folklore Institute set up by the communist authorities in 1949.
Tainted it may have been by a slavish following of Marxist folkloric theory (what were they going to do? say no?), but the Institute added significantly to the pre-war archives and issued important traditional and ‘new folk’ recordings, works of scholarship and print anthologies, with former colleagues of Brailoiu like A. L. Lloyd’s collaborator Tiberiu Alexandru playing a leading role. By 1961 the Institute was said to have over 70,000 recordings in its archive and was planning to transfer those most at risk on to tape.
There’s an interesting article on the Romanian recording industry around the time this record came out here.
For a comprehensive account of the recordings made under the auspices of the Romanian Folklore Institute – currently known as The ‘Constantin Brailoiu’ Institute of Ethnography and Folklore (he was rehabilitated – as far as I can tell, in the late ‘sixties) – click here.
Postscript
When Brailoiu died in Switzerland in 1958, the AIMP stopped functioning. His life’s work was left abandoned in a store room of the Museum of Ethnography in Geneva: dozens of metal tins and old cardboard boxes filled with 78 rpm records and wax cylinders, a vast number of dusty paper bundles, barely tied with string, all of which were moved around the building periodically to provide space for documents which were deemed more important.
Since then they’ve been salvaged (find out more). And you can hear his Romanian collection here.
Rumania Gobbles Yank Music?
Can it really be true that in 1947, two years into the glorious liberation of Romania by the Red Army, the nation’s favourite music was American? That’s what a dispatch from Bucharest in the US music magazine Billboard said in May 1947.
“Music picture here adds up to one solid ‘Sold – American’ and this holds true not only in the pop and jazz departments, but among the longhairs as well,” the dispatch said.
Despite exorbitant prices, discs by Sinatra, Crosby, Shaw and Goodman were selling out in a single day; most Romanian dance bands were chiefly playing American tunes; and “concerts featuring records by top American jazzmen draw crowds which are compared better than favourably with the number of cats who dig live concerts in the US”.
More of "The English Poets" series, the end of the marathon effort to record all of Shakespeare’s plays (Pericles), continuing collaborations with the British Council, the label’s first foray into educational recordings (Rhyme and Rhythm) and the release on disc of the first of the BBC’s Radio Ballads (John Axon) after protracted negotiations.
Spoken word in yellow, classical (dominated by choral and song) in grey, and miscellaneous – including several albums of Irish songs – in green.
RG 400 ZRG 5400
Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, dir Neville Marriner
The English Poets – The Metaphysical Poets – Religious
1965
RG 405 ZRG 5405
Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge, dir Guest
Hymns for all Seasons
1964
RG 406 ZRG 5406
Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge, dir Guest
English Cathedral Music – Walmisley, Nares, Goss, Wesley
1964
RG 407- RG 410
ZRG 5407- ZRG 5410
Marlowe Society, plus Wymark, Wordsworth, Squire, Garland, Lehmann, Scales et al, dir Rylands
Shakespeare – Richard III
1964
RG 411- RG 413
ZRG 5411- ZRG 5413
Marlowe Society, plus Squire, Duncan, Hordern, Orr, Church, Watson, King, McCarthy, Scales, Rawlings, Richer. Dir Rylands.
Shakespeare – Pericles
1964
RG 414- RG 417
ZRG 5414- ZRG 5417
Various artists incl. Pat Shuldham artists including Pat Shuldham Shaw, Esme Lewis, Choir of Hamsptead Garden Suburb School, Spike Milligan, Prunella Scales etc
Rhyme and Rhythm – poems and songs for children (4 vols)
1965
RG 418 ZRG 5418
Peter Pears (tenor), Benjamin Britten (piano) Joan Dickson (cello)
Twentieth-Century English Songs – Ireland, Bridge, Richard Rodney Bennett, Rainier
1964
RG 419 ZRG 5419
Simon Preston (organ)
Bach – Sechs Chorale von verschiedener Art Mozart – Fantasia in F minor K 608/ Fantasia in F minor and major K 594
1964
RG 420 ZRG 5420
Simon Preston (organ)
Reger – Toccata in D minor and Fugue in D major/Chorale Fantasia, Straf’ mich nicht in deinem Zorn
Reubke – Sonata on the 94th Psalm
1964
RG 421-2 ZRG 5421- ZRG 5422
Philomusica of London, dir George Malcolm
Bach – The Art of the Fugue
1965
RG 423 ZRG 5423
Choral and Song Choir of St Michael’s College, Tenbury, cond. Nethsingha
Sing Joyfully – anthems by Tallis, Morley, Tye, Gibbons, Britten
1965
RG 424 ZRG 5424
Elizabethan Singers dir. Louis Halsey, Wilfrid Parry (piano)
Benjamin Britten – Part Songs
1964?
ZRG 5425
Dartington String Quartet, Katherina Wolpe, Leonardo Wind Quartet, Joan Dickson, Margaret Kitchin
Elisabeth Lutyens – Bagatelles, two quartets Ian Hamiton – Cello Sonata, Three Pieces for Piano
1965
ZRG 5426
Richard Rodney Bennett (piano), Susan Bradshaw (piano), John Alldis Choir, in assoc. British Council
Choral Music – Gardner, Lutyens, Joubert, Naylor
1965
RG 427
Stride, Watson, Bonnamy, Holmes, Orr, Church, Squire, Marquand. Dir Rylands, assoc. British Council, OUP
The Metaphysical Poets – Secular
1965
RG 428
Alan Bates, Bonnamy, Devlin, Johnson, Marquand, Orr
William Blake – Poems
1964
RG 429
Orr, Squire
William Wordsworth – The Prelude (excerpts)
1965
RG 430 ZRG 5430
Stephane Caillat Chamber Choir, cond. Caillat
Milhaud – Cantata Les Deux Cites, Cantate de la Paix Poulenc – Motets, Lauds
Bernadette Greevy (contralto), Harold Cray (bass), Our Lady’s Choral Society, Radio Eireann Light Orchestra sextet, Radio Eireann Symphony Orchestra, cond. Doyle
Ireland Mother Ireland (anthology of Irish songs)
1965
RG 436 ZRG 5436
King’s College Cambridge Choir, Cambridhe Universirty Musical Society, Andrew Davis (organ), John Langdon (organ), cond. David Willcocks
Thomas Tallis – Selections
1965
RG 437
Robert Donat
Robert Donat reading Poetry
1965
RG 438 (part from RG 41 1955)
Burton, Neville, Hardy, Bonnamy, Devlin
Samuel Taylor Coleridge – The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
1965
RG 439 ZRG 5439
Peter Pears (tenor), Benjamin Britten, Alan Bush, Viola Tunnard (piano), assoc. British Council
Peter Pears – English Songs
1965
RG 440 ZRG 5440
Roger Parker (treble), Michael Pearce (counter-tenor), Forbes Robinson (bass), Marisa Robles (harp), Brian Runnet (organ), St John’s College Choir, cond. George Guest
Britten – Rejoice in the Lamb, Missa Brevis, A Ceremony of Carols
1965
RG 442 ZRG 5442
Roger Lord (oboe), Academy-of-St. Martin-in- the-Fields, dir. Marriner
Handel – Instrumental Works
1965
ZRG 5443
Grayston Burgess (counter-tenor), Gerald English (tenor), John Frost (baritone), Robin Stenham (treble), Robert Tear (tenor), Jihn Whitworth (counter-tenor), Osian Ellis (harp & voice), Desmond Dupre (plectrum lute & guitar), Joan Rimmer (psaltery), Christopher Taylor (recorder), Christopher Wellington (viola), Frank Ll Harrison (music director)
Medieval English Lyrics
1965
RG 444 ZRG 5444
Roger Parker (treble), Charles Brett (counter-tenor), Robert Tear, Wilfred Brown (tenors), Christopher Keyte, Christopher Bevan (baritones), Inia Te Wiata (bass), Choir of St. John’s College, Cam-bridge, Brian Runnett (organ), Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields con. George Guest
Purcell – Music for the Chapel Royal
1964
RG 446 ZRG 5446
Elizabethan Singers cond Louis Halsey
Sir Cristemas (a collection of carols)
1965
RG 447 ZRG 5447
Simon Preston (organ), rec. in Westminster Abbey
Messiaen – La Nativite du Seigneur
1966?
RG 449
Curran, O’Sullivan, Norton, Manahan
William Butler Yeats – Poems
1966
RG 450 ZRG 5450
Choir of King’s College, Cambridge
A Festival of Lessons and Carols
1965
RG 451
Various poets read their own works. Recorded in assoc. with British Council and Harvard University.
The Poet Speaks Vol 1 – James Reeves, David Jones, William Plomer, C. Day Lewis
1965
RG 452
Various poets read their own works
The Poet Speaks Vol 2 – Norman Nicholson, Stevie Smith, W.R. Rodgers, Vernon Watkins, Edward Lowbury
1965
RG 453
Various poets read their own works
The Poet Speaks Vol 3 – John Heath-Stubbs, Thomas Blackburn, Laurnece Whistler, John Press, Julian Ennis
1965
RG 454
Various poets read their own works
The Poet Speaks Vol 4 – Tony Connor, Thomas Kinsella, Elizabeth Jennings, Peter Redgrove
1965
RG 455
Various poets read their own works
The Poet Speaks Vol 5 – Ted Hughes, Peter Porter, Thom Gunn, Sylvia Plath
1965
RG 456
Various poets read their own works
The Poet Speaks Vol 6 – Nineteen Poets – John Ardin, Michael Baldwin, Taner Baybars, Patricia Beer, George Mackay Brown, John Fuller, Michael Harnett, Hamish Henderson, David Holbrook, James Liddy, George MacBeth, Christopher Middleton, Adrian Mitchell, Ruth Pitter, Herbert Read, Edward Thomas, Anthony Thwaite, Rosemary Tonks, David Wevill
The English Poets – Chaucer – Canterbury Tales/Nun’s Priest Tale
1966
RG 467 ZRG 5467
Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields dir. Neville Marriner
Mendelssohn – String Symphonies
1966
RG 468
Various Artists. Dir Barry Cassin and Noel MacMahon, music by Gerard Victory.
W.B. Yeats – Noh Plays Vol 1 – At the Hawk’s Well,The Dreaming of the Bones
1966
RG 469
Various Artists. Dir Barry Cassin and Noel MacMahon, music by Gerard Victory.
W.B. Yeats – Noh Plays Vol 2 -The Cat and the Moon, Resurrection
1966
RG 470- RG 472
Barbara Jefford, Alec McCowen, Max Adrian et al, dir. Shirley Butler
G. B. Shaw – Saint Joan
1966
RG 474
Ewan MacColl, Charles Parker, Peggy Seeger et al
The Ballad of John Axon (BBC Radio Ballad)
1965
RG 475 ZRG 5475
a) Barry Tuckwell (horn) Brenton Langbein (violin) Maureen Jones (piano) b) William Bennett (flute), Peter Graeme (oboe), Gervase de Peyer (clarinet) c) William Pleeth (cello) Gervase de Peyer d) Margaret Kitchin (piano) Barry Tuckwell (horn)
Modern Instrumental Music – a) Banks b) Rodney Bennett c) Tate d) Hamilton
1966
ZRG 5479
Choir of King’s College Cambridge, dir. David Willcocks
Tallis – Tudor Church Music Record II
1966
RG 484
Ashcroft, Holm, Johnson, Stride
Elizabethan and Jacobean Lyrics
1966
RG 485
Holm, Johnson, Rylands, Stride
The English Poets – a) Elizabethan Sonneteers b) Edmund Spenser
1966
RG 486
Ashcroft, Holm, Johnson, Orr, Stride
16th-17th Century Poets – Campion, Johnson and Herrick
1966
RG 488
Church, Scales, Scott, Squire, Watson
Edmund Spenser – The Faerie Queen (excerpts)
1966
RG 489 ZRG 5489
Alberni String Quartet – Dennis Simons, Howard Davis (violins), John White (viola), Gregory Baron (cello). In assoc with British Council.
Rawsthorne – String Quartets
1966
RG 490 ZRG 5490
Elizabeth Vaughan (soprano), Alexander Young (tenor), Forbes Robinson (bass), Andrew Davis (harpsichord), John Langdon (organ continuo), King’s College Choir, Academy of St Matin-in-the-Fields cond. David Willcocks
Handel – Chandos Anthems
1966
RG 491-492 ZRG 5491- ZRG 5492
George Malcolm (harpsichord)
Rameau – Harpsichord Works
1967
RG 493
Michael MacLiammoir
I must be talking to my friends (Ireland’s Poets, Wits and Revolutionaries)
1966
RG 494 ZRG 5494
Choir of St John’s College, Jonathan Bielby (organ), Christopher Hogwood (harpsichord), strings from Academy of St Martin-in-the-Field, cond George Guest
Monteverdi – Messa a 4 voci
1966
RG 495 ZRG 5495
Purcell Singers, English Chamber Orchestra, cond. Imogen Holst
Holst – Six Choruses with Medieval Lyrics, Seven Part Songs
Sick of seeing that ‘go-no-further’ sign when you come across an interesting article about folklore (or anything else, for that matter) on the internet?
Especially when they’re articles written by academics whose salaries are paid for with your taxes, read by a closed circle of people who are subsidised by your taxes, and published in journals bought by academic and other institutions with your taxes.
Especially when the only people doing well out of the process are the major publishing conglomerates who’ve got the ‘learned journal’ market sewn up, making big money by fleecing libraries and other subscribers.
How come we don’t get a look in when we pay for it all?
How come libraries take this rip-off lying down? How come all those left-wing academics (it’s tautology) don’t down pens and refuse to collaborate? How come all those learned institutions can’t think of a better way to spread their knowledge than one that’s regulated by mammon?
Rant over.
While we’re waiting for them to do the decent thing, there’s a hopeful new initiative been launched (October 2010) by the American Folklore Society and Indiana University.
They’re making available a good amount of stuff that’s been (and is being) written in the field of folklore studies. It doesn’t, of course, include some of the major publications that are still locked into JSTOR and ProjectMuse, but it’s a great start.
Producer: Frederick Woods Engineer: Adrian Martins
The Ian Campbell Folk Group Ian Campbell – vocals Lorna Campbell – vocals Brian Clark – vocals, guitar John Dunkerley – banjo, guitar
Arranged by Bill Le Sage
Cover picture Courtesy Mitchell Beazley Ltd.
Track listing
Side A 1 Come kiss me, love (trad/Campbell) 2 The snow is falling (Campbell/Dunkerley) 3 Old man’s tale (Campbell/Tams) 4 I don’t know (Campbell) 5 Alexander Somerville, dragoon (Campbell) 6 The sun is burning (Campbell)
Side B 1 Lover, let me in (Trad/Campbell) 2 A hard life on the cut (Campbell) 3 I just can’t wait (Campbell/Dunkerley) 4 The man in black (Campbell) 5 Apprentice’s song (Campbell) 6 Talking blackbird (Campbell)
Notes A mix of re-workings of songs recorded previously by Campbell (for Topic and Transatlantic) and others that don’t appear elsewhere.
Below are Campbell’s sleeve notes about the songs:
Come kiss me love I cannot claim authorship of this song, merely the credit for bringing its component parts together. The tune comes from an American folksong called Peggy Gordon, which is an emigrant version of the English traditional song The Banks of the Sweet Primroses, and the words were patched together from various traditional sources. In reassembling traditional elements in this fashion I have merely helped to perpetuate a process to which folksongs have always been subject, and which has been responsible for many of the variants which have added to the richness of our tradition.
The snow is falling The symbolic use of the seasons of the year to represent the phases of a love affair is an artistic concept which has become respectable with age. I lost interest in my original tune and came to prefer this one by John Dunkerley; the orchestral textures of Bill Le Sage add, I think, another dimension.
Old man’s tale Written after an enjoyable evening spent with some Old Age Pensioners in Birmingham. The tune is from the cornkister, Nicky Tams.
I don’t know As far as I know the words and music of this song are original. This is always a dangerous claim to make, because all songwriters have had the experience of burning midnight oil on the creation of a masterpiece which, on its first performance to a critical friend, is immediately recognised as a currently popular song. I once sat up all night writing a song which I later recognised as The Water is Wide. Still, as far as I know . . .
Alexander Somerville Dragoon I was moved by the story of the Scottish country boy who became a dragoon in the Scots Greys and was flogged in 1832 for expressing his sympathy for the Chartist demonstrators. It seemed irrelevant that in later life Somerville became a journalist of eccentrically reactionary ideas; I suspect that the flogging which failed to break his spirit may well have broken his mind. I tried to write the song in a style which would reflect the period, and composed a tune intended to stand on its own when played on fife and drum.
The sun is burning This was probably the first lyric anti-war song to achieve popularity and wide circulation in the British CND movement. The demonstrators marched to the strains of The H Bombs Thunder, but when circumstances called for something less rousing and more introspective this, I am proud to say, was the song that in the early days often met the need. It was written for Lorna and she has made it uniquely her own.
Lover, let me in John brought this Bosnian folk tune back from a holiday in Jugoslavia and I liked it enough to attempt to write a set of words. I based it on a half-remembered Czechoslovakian song, but it is also reminiscent of many British night-visiting songs like The Spinning Wheel and Are Ye Sleeping, Maggie?
A hard life on the cut Written for "A Cry From the Cut", a BBC radio-ballad type of programme produced by Charles Parker.
I just can’t wait For many years I worked as a craftsman in the Birmingham jewellery trade, where loyalty and skill are notoriously underpaid. Out of those years, and some of the men I worked with, came the words of this song. One of my workmates was John Dunkerley, who wrote the tune.
The man in black It has been pointed out to me that in parts of Ireland a priest is sometimes referred to as the Man in Black. This is mere coincidence; my Man in Black is not intended to symbolise the organised church, nor The Bomb, nor pollution, nor racial intolerance, although he can be any or all of these. The song only says that the Man in Black, whatever form he takes, is the product of wilful ignorance: that our world is being poisoned not by THEM but by you and I and the other ordinary people who fiddle while Rome burns.
Apprentice’s Song This was written some years ago for the apprentice fitters at Birmingham’s Saltley Gasworks, which has now been displaced by North Sea Gas.
Talking blackbird I wrote this after reading in a nature magazine about the treatment meted out to an albino blackbird by its own kind. Perhaps because of its length I have tended to neglect this song, but I suspect I would perform it oftener if I could carry Bill Le Sage’s up-dated talking-blues backing around with me.
True to Argo’s initial promise, a feast of British composers and musicians among the ZRG 700s, including a series devoted to composers from Wales (a collaboration with the Music Department of University College, Cardiff).
Apart from its continuing work with the British Council, the label picks up the reins of the ‘Music for Today’ series of contemporary music sponsored by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, re-releasing recordings made by the Foundation with EMI in the mid-sixties and producing several new ones.
Contemporary music on the label got contemporary covers – abstract art for the Gulbenkian releases and some nice (then still very modern) typography by people like 50’s graphic design mould-breaker George Daulby.
ZRG 700
Martin Jones (piano)
Shostakovich – Piano Sonata No 1, 24 preludes
Never issued
ZRG 701
a) b) BBC Symphony Orchestra, cond. Colin Davis b) with Yfrah Neaman (violin). Rec. in assoc. with British Council and Arts Council
Gerhard – a) Symphony No 4 b) Violin Concerto
Feb 1972
ZRG 702
a) New Philharmonia Orchestra cond. Frederick Prausnitz. b) Barry Tuckwell & Anthony Chidell (horns) London Sinfonietta, dir. Frederick Prausnitz. Sponsored by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
a) Roger Sessions – Rhapsody, Symphony No 8 b) Thea Musgrave – Night Music, Wallingford Riegger – Dichotomy Op 12
May 1973
ZRG 703
a) Felicity Palmer (soprano) BBC Symphony Orchestra cond. Pierre Boulez b) Robert Tear (tenor), London Sinfonietta dir. David Atherton
a) Olivier Messiaen – Poemes pour Mi b) Michael Tippett – Songs for Dov
May 1973
ZRG 704
Thea Musgrave, Richard Rodney Bennett, Malcolm Williamson. Rec. in assoc. with British Council
‘Composers at the piano’ – Thea Musgrave – Monologue, Excursions Richard Rodney Bennett – Capriccio, Five Studies Malcolm Williamson – Sonata for Two Pianos, Piano Sonata No 2
Sep 1972
ZRG 705
Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, dir. Neville Marriner
Mozart – Divertimento No 17 in D, Serenade No 8 in D
Dec 1972
ZRG 706
Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, dir. Neville Marriner
Mozart – Symphony No 25 in G minor. Symphony No 29 in A
Apr 1972
ZRG 707
Robert Tear (tenor) Philip Ledger (piano)
Tchaikovsky – Nineteen songs
Sep 1972
ZRG 708
Benjamin Luxon (baritone) David Willison (piano)
Mussorgsky – Songs and dances of death, Sunless, Little Star, Classic, The Flea
Oct 1972
ZRG 709
Purcell Consort of Voices dir. Grayston Burgess
Vecchi – unidentified titles
never issued
ZRG 710
Schutz Choir, Philip Jones Wind Ensemble, dir Roger Norrington
Bruckner – Mass No 2 in E minor
Oct 1973
ZRG 711
Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields dir Neville Marriner
William Walton – Sonata for Strings Prokofiev – (arr Barshai) Visions Fugitives
Sep 1973
ZRG 712
a) The Fires of London dir. Peter Maxwell Davies b) New Philharmonia Orchestra dir Charles Groves. Spons. by Gulbenkian Foundation
Peter Maxwell-Davies – a) Points and Dances b) Second Fantasia on John Taverner’s In Nomine
May 1973
ZRG 713
Martin Jones (piano) Rec in assoc with Music Department, Univ College, Cardiff
Szymanowski – Fantasy Op 14, Metopes Op 29, Etudes Op 4, Masques Op 34
Mar 1973
ZRG 714
Allegri String Quartet – Hugh Maguire (violin) David Roth (violin) Patrick Ireland (viola) Bruno Schrecker (cello). Rec. in assoc. with British Council
Frank Bridge – String Quartets Nos 3 & 4
Mar 1973
ZRG 715
Yfrah Neaman (violin) Royal Philharmonic Orchestra cond. Norman del Mar
Don Banks – Concerto for violin and orchestra Peter Racine Fricker – Concerto for violin and orchestra Opus 11
Nov 1974
ZRG 716
Felicity Palmer (soprano), Schutz Choir dir. Roger Norrington, Gillian Weir (organ)
Mendelssohn – Motets
Nov 1972
ZRG 717
Philip Jones Brass Ensemble
‘Golden Brass’ Scheidt – Battle Suite Locke – Music for His Majesty’s Sackbuts and Cornetts 16th Century English Dances, 16th Century Italian Music
Nov 1974
ZRG 718
Robert Tear (tenor) Philip Ledger (piano)
Schumann – Liederkreis Op 24, Liederkreis Op 39
Sep 1973
ZRG 719
Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields dir Neville Marriner
Prokofiev – Symphony No 1 Bizet – Symphony in C
Dec 1973
ZRG 720
Christ Church Cathedral Choir, dir Simon Preston with a) London Sinfonietta
Stravinsky – Mass, Poulenc – Quatre motets pour le temps de Noel, Quatre Motets pour un temps de Penitence
Dec 1973
ZRG 721
John Ogdon (piano) Brenda Lucas (piano)
Liszt _ Concerto Pathetique Schumann – Andante and Variations in B flat, Six Canons
Jan 1973
ZRG 722
Magdalen College Choir dir. Bernard Rose, Jeremy Suter (organ)
St John’s College Choir dir. George Guest a) English Chamber Orchestra, James Bowman (counter-tenor) Charles Brett (counter-tenor) Forbes Robinson (bass), Stephen Celobury (organ) b) Symphoniae Sacrae, Stephen Cleobury (organ) Jane Ryan (viol) dir. George Guest
a) Purcell – Te Deum & Jubilate b) Funeral Music
Nov 1972
ZRG 725
Christ Church Cathedral Choir, dir. Simon Preston, Stephen Darlington (organ)
William Walton – Choral works
Nov 1972
ZRG 726
a) Gervase de Peyer (clarinet) London Symphony Orchestra cond. Norman del Mar. b) c) Barry Tuckwell (horn) New Philharmonia Orchestra cond. Norman del Mar. Rec in assoc with by British Council
a) Thea Musgrave – Clarinet Concerto b) Humphrey Searle – Aubade c) Don Banks – Horn Concerto
Aug 1975
ZRG 727
George Isaac (cello) Martin Jones (piano)
Delius – Cello Sonata. Three Preludes for piano. Five Piano Pieces Prokofiev – Cello Sonata Op 119
Jan 1973
ZRG 728
Early Music Consort of London, dir. David Munrow
"’The Triumphs of Maximilian I’
Sep 1973
ZRG 729
Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, dir. Neville Marriner, with a) Alan Loveday (violin) b) Iona Brown & Carmel Kaine (viiolins)
Mozart – a) Violin Concerto No 3 b) Concertone in C
Jan 1973
ZRG 730
Robert Tear (tenor) Philip Ledger (piano)
Rachmaninov – Seventeen Songs
Oct 1974
ZRG 731
Philip Jones Brass Ensemble – titles marked * conducted by Elgar Howarth
‘Classics for Brass’ Grieg – Funeral March Strauss – Fanfare der Stadt Wien* Schuller – Symphony for brass and percussion* Dukas – La Peri fanfare* Jolivet – Fanfares Narcisse Poulenc – Sonata for brass Bozza – Sonatine
Jun 1973
ZRG 732
Robert Tear (tenor) a) Neil Black (oboe) b-e) Philip Ledger (piano)
Vaughan Williams – a) Ten Blake Songs b) Songs of Travel c) Linden Lea d) Orpheus with his lute e) The Water Mill
Feb 1973
ZRG 733-4
Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields dir. Neville Marriner
Vivaldi – Twelve Concertos (‘L’Estro Armonico’)
Apr 1973
ZRG 735
Christ Church Cathedral Choir, cond. Simon Preston
Lassus – Bell’ Amfitrit’ altera, Psalmus Poenitentialis VII
Jul 1974
ZRG 737
Robert Tear (tenor) Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields dir Neville Marriner
Mahler – Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen Britten – Nocturne
Feb 1974
ZRG 738
Purcell Consort of Voices, dir. Grayston Burgess
‘Elizabethan on Stage’
never issued
ZRG 739
Felicity Palmer (soprano) Helen Watts (contralto) Robert Tear (tenor) Christopher Keyte (bass) St John’s College Choir, Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, dir. George Guest
Beethoven – Mass in C
May 1974
ZRG 740
King’s College Choir, dir. David Willcocks
Tye – Mass ‘Euge Bone’, Mass ‘Western Wind’
Oct 1973
ZRG 741
Martin Jones (piano) Rec in assoc with Music Department, Univ College, Cardiff
Busoni – Seven Elegies, Ballet Scene No 4
Dec 1973
ZRG 742
Gillian Weir (organ), recorded at Leonhardkirche, Basel, Switzerland
Clerambault – Livre d’orgue, Suites du premier et deuxieme ton
1974
ZRG 743
Cardiff Festival Ensemble, a) b) James Barton (violin) a) George Isaac (cello) Martin Jones (piano) Rec in assoc with Music Department, Univ College, Cardiff
Rawsthorne – a) Piano Trio b) concertante No 2 c) Theme and Four Studies d) Sonatina e) Four Romantic Pieces
May 1973
ZRG 744
Gillian Weir (organ) recorded at Leonhardkirche, Basel, Switzerland
Roberday – Fugues and Caperices for Organ
1974
ZRG 745
Richard Elfyn Jones (organ) Rec in assoc with Music Department, Univ College, Cardiff
John Stanley – Eight Organ Voluntaries
Feb 1974
ZRG 746
David Munrow (recorder, flageolet) Oliver Brookes (bass viol, cello) Robert Spencer (theorbo, guitar) Christopher Hogwood (harpsichord
a) Philip Jones Brass Ensemble b) Jane Manning (soprano) Nash Ensemble, dir. Justin Connolly, c) Vesuvius Ensemble, d) John Alldis Choir. Rec in assoc with British Council
Justin Connolly – a) Cinquepaces Op 5 b) Poems of Wallace Stevens c) Triad III Op 8 d) Verse for eight solo voices
Dec 1973
ZRG 748
a) Orion Piano Trio – Peter Thomas, Sharon McKinley, Ian Brown b) Allegri String Quartet – Hugh Maguire (violin) David Roth (violin) Patrick Ireland (viola) Bruno Schrecker (cello) Rec in assoc with British Council
Alexander Goehr – a) Piano Trio Op 20 b) String Quartet No 2
Oct 1973
ZRG 749
Music Group of London: a) Hugh Bean (violin) David Parkhouse (piano) b) Jack Brymer (clarinet) Alan Civil (horn) Hugh Bean & Francis Routh (violins) Christopher Wellington (viola) Eileen Croxford (cello) c) Hugh Bean (violin) Eileen Croxford (cello) David Parkhouse (piano) d) Alan Bush (piano). Rec in assoc with British Council
Lennox Berkeley – a) Sonatina for violin and piano b) Sextet Op 47 Alan Bush – c) Three Concert Studies for Piano Trio d) Piano solos
Oct 1974
ZRG 750
a) Dartington String Quartet: Colin Sauer, Malcolm Latchem, Keith Lovell, Michael Evans, b) April Cantelo (soprano) Paul Hamburger (piano), spons. Rec in assoc with British Council
Hugh Wood – a) String Quartet Nos 1 & 2 b) The Horses Op 10, The Rider Victory Op 11
Sep 1974
ZRG 751 (ZK 36 1978)
Ralph Holmes (violin)
Bartok – Solo violin sonata Porokofiev – Solo violin sonata Reger – Chaconne
1974 (not released as ZRG)
ZRG 752
re-rel of HMV ASD613
BBC Symphony Orchestra, cond Antal Dorati EMI recording under auspices of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Gerhard – Dances from Don Quixote, Symphony No 1
ZRG 753 re-rel of HMV ASD2289
a) Melos Ensemble b) Robert Masters (violin) Derek Simpson (cello) Marcel Gazelle (piano) c) Dartington String Quartet – Colin Sauer (violin) Peter Carter (violin) Keith Lovell (viola) Michael Evans (cello) EMI recording under auspices of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Skalkottas – a) Octet b) Eight Variations on a Greek folk tune c) String Quartet No 3
1974
ZRG 754
re-rel HMV ASD612
Marilyn Tyler (soprano) Royal Philharmonic Orchestra cond. Norman del Mar1974. EMI recording under auspices of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Schoenberg – Suite for String Orchestra Lutyens – O Saisons, O Chateaux Britten – Prelude and Fugue
1974
ZRG 755
re-rel HMV ASD2390
BBC Symphony Orchestra cond Gary Bertini. EMI recording under auspices of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Kurt Weill – Symphonies Nos 1 and 2
1974
ZRG 756
re-rel HMV ASD639
a) c) BBC Symphony Orchestra cond Antal Dorati b) Josephine Nendick (soprano) Barry McDaniel (tenor) Louis Devos (bass) BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus cond Pierre Boulez. EMI recording under auspices of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
a) Messiaen – Chronochromie b) Boulez – Soleil des Eaux c) Koechlin – Les Bandar-Log
1976
ZRG 757
re-rel HMV ASD2388
a) Heather Harper (soprano) b) New Philharmonia Orchestra cond Frederik Prausnitz c) Barry McDaniel (baritone) a) c) d) English Chamber Orchestra cond Frederik Prausnitz e) Henry Datyner (violin) Charles Tunnell (cello) Colin Bradbury (clarinet) David Mason (trumpet) Michael Jefferies (harp) Katharina Wolpe (piano). EMI recording under auspices of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Dallapiccola – a) Sex Carmina Alcaei b) Piccola Musica Notturna c) Preghiere Busoni – d) Berceuse elegiaque Wolpe – e) Piece in two parts for six players
1976
ZRG 758
re-rel HMV ASD 640
a) Geoffrey Shaw (baritone) John Alldis Choir b) Mary Thomas (soprano) Rosemary Phillips (contralto) b-c) Melos Ensemble cond John Carewe d) Pauline Stevens (contralto) John Alldis Choir. EMI recording under auspices of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
a) Goehr – Two Choruses b) Maxwell Davies – Leopardi Fragments c) Richard Rodney Bennett – Calendar d) Malcolm Williamson – Symphony for Voices
1975
ZRG 759
re-rel HMV ASD2333
a) Manoug Parikian (violin) Melos Ensemble cond Edward Downes b) Susan McGaw c) Melos Ensemble cond Lawrence Foster. EMI recording under auspices of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
a) Gordon Crosse – Concerto da Camera b) Hugh Wood – Three Piano Pieces c) Harrison Birtwistle – Tragoedia
1976
ZRG 760
St John’s College Choir, dir. George Guest
Liszt – Missa Choralis Bruckner – Five motets
Sep 1973
ZRG 761
a) Martin Jones (piano), b) James Barton (violin) c) Cardiff Ensemble – James Barton (violin) Stephen Broadbent (viola) George Isaac (cello)
Hoddinott – a) Piano Sonata No 6, b) Violin Sonata No 3 c) McCabe – String Trio Op 37
Mar 1974
ZRG 762
George Isaac (cello) Martin Jones (piano)
Hindemith – Cello Sonata Kodaly – Cello Sonata
Mar 1975
ZRG 763
Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields dir. Neville Marriner
Bruhns – Three Preludes, Nun komm der Heiden Heiland Scheidt – Passamezzo
1975 (no release as ZRG)
ZRG 765
The Martin Best Consort
The Warwickshire Lad
1974
ZRG 766
a) b) Philip Ledger (tenor) b) Caroline Friend (soprano) King’s College Choir, Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields dir David Willcocks
Handel – Chandos Anthems a) No 2 b) No 5
Feb 1975
ZRG 767
King’s College Choir, Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields dir David Willcocks. Charles Brett (counter-tenor) Philip Langridge (tenor) James Lancelot (organ continuo) Kenneth Heath (cello continuo)
John Blow – Coronation Anthems. Symphony Anthems
Apr 1975
ZRG 768
Schutz Choir of London dir Roger Norrington
Domenico Scarlatti – Stabat Mater Alessandro Scarlatti – O Magnum Mysterium/Domine, refugium factus es nobis
July 1974
ZRG 769
Janet Price (soprano) Kenneth Bowen (tenor) Elinor Bennett (harp) Anthony Saunders (piano) Rec in assoc Welsh Arts Council
“Welsh Songs” – songs by M. Owen, M. Thomas, D. Wynne, D. Vaughan Thomas, M. Williams, D. Elwyn-Edwards
May 1975
ZRG 770
a) Clarence Myerscough (violin) Martin Jones (piano) b) Nash Ensemble, Anthony Camden (oboe) Anthony Pay (clarinet) Brian Wightman (bassoon) John Pigneguy (horn) c) Nash Ensemble, Anthony Pay (clarinet) Brian Wightman (bassoon) John Pigneguy (horn)
Hoddinott – a) Violin Sonata No 1 Op 63 b) Divertimento Op 32 c) Septet Op 10
Jun 1975
ZRG 771
a) William Bennett (flute) Anthony Camden (oboe) Martin Jones (piano) b) Gabrieli Quartet – Kenneth Sillito (violin) Brendan O’Reilly (violin) Ian Jewel (viola) Keith Harvey (cello) c) Levon Chilingirian (violin) Clifford Benson (piano) d) Nash Ensemble with William Bennett (flute) Anthony Camden (oboe). Rec in assoc with Welsh Arts Council
William Mathias – a) Divertimento for flute, oboe and piano b) String Quartet Op 38 c) Violin Sonata Op 15 d)Quintet for flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon
Jun 1976
ZRG 772
Gabrieli String Quartet – Kenneth Sillito (violin) Brendan O’Reilly (violin) Ian Jewel (viola) Keith Harvey (cello) Tristan Fry (kettledrum). Rec in assoc with Welsh Arts Council
Daniel Jones – String Quartet, String Trio, Sonata for three unaccompanied kettledrums
Jun 1976
ZRG 773 -775
Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields dir Neville Marriner
Corelli – Twelve Concerti Grossi Op 6
Sep 1974
ZRG 776 -778
Alban singers, Peter Hurford (organ)
Bach – Chorale Preludes
Oct 1974
ZRG 780
Colin Tilney (harpsichord). Licensed from Riverside Recordings
“German Harpsichord Music 1685-1730” – Bach, Bohm, Pachelbel, J.C.F. Fischer
Feb 1975
ZRG 781
Christ Church Cathedral Choir, Simon Preston (organ)
Dvorak – Mass in D Op 86
Nov 1974
ZRG 782
St John’s College Choir (soloists incl Robert King, Simon Keenlyside) dir George Guest, Stephen Cleobury (organ)
“Christmas at St John’s”
Dec 1974
ZRG 783
Peter Hurford (organ)
Bach – Organ Concerto No 6 Buxtehude, Cabezon, Carvalho, Dandrieu Heron, Pescetti, Ritter, Sweelinck,
Feb 1975
ZRG 784
Peter Planyavsky (organ). Played on organ of Melk Monastery, Austria
Liszt – Organ Works
Sep 1976
ZRG 785
Choir of the School of St Mary and St Anne, Abbots Bromley, Barry Draycott (organ), cond Llywela Harris
“Choral Works – Day by Day”
1975
ZRG 786
Rhonda Gillespie (piano). Licensed from the artist
Arthur Bliss – Piano Sonata Constant Lambert – Piano Sonata, Elegaic Blues
Feb 1975
ZRG 787 (re-release of ZRG 5363)
a) Stephen Cleobury (organ) b) Robert King (treble) Christopher Keyte (bass) Stephen Cleobury (organ) St John’s College Choir dir George Guest
Durufle – a) Prelude et fugue sur le nom d’Alain, b) Requiem Op 9
May 1975
ZRG 788
Meriel Dickinson (mezzo-soprano) Peter Dickinson (piano)
Gordon Crosse – The New World Lennox Berkeley – Eight Songs Peter Dickinson – Extravaganzas
Aug 1975
ZRG 789
Simon Morris (treble) Lester Gray (treble) Timothy Rowe (baritone) Choir of St George’s Chapel, Windsor, John Porter (organ) cond Dr Sidney Campbell
“Five Centuries at St George’s” – titles by Baintois, Batten, Britten, Byrd, Campbell, Farrant, Gibbons, Greene, Harris, Marbeck, Mundy, Walker, Vaughan Williams
Apr 1975
ZRG 790
a) BBC Symphony Orchestra dir Pierre Boulez b) Electronic tape realised by Peter Zinovieff. Rec under auspices of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Harrison Birtwistle – a) The Triumph of Time b) Chronometer
June 1975
ZRG 791
a) Sybil Michelow (contralto) London Sinfonietta cond Gary Bertini b) c) BBC Singers cond John Poole d) Alexander Young (tenor) John Noble (baritone) BBC Singers, BBC Symphony Orchestra dir Colin Davis. Rec under auspices of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Licensed from BBC in 1975
Dallapiccola – a) Sicut Umbra b) Tempus destruendi, tempus aedificandi Christopher Shaw – c) A Lesson from Ecclesiastes. Music, when soft voices die. To the Bandusian Spring d) Peter and the Lame Man
Aug 1975
ZRG 792
Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra cond Neville Marriner
Janacek – Suite for Strings R. Strauss – Capriccio Suk – Serenade in E Flat
Cardiff Festival Ensemble – James Barton (violin) Stephen Broadbent (viola) George Isaac (cello) Martin Jones (piano). Rec in assoc with Music Dept, Univ College, Cardiff
a) Aaron Copland – Piano Quartet b) Charles Ives – Piano Trio
Aug 1975
ZRG 795
Christ Church Cathedral Choir, Simon Preston (organ)
Roland de Lassus – Four Motets, Two Antiphons
July 1976
ZRG 799
Christ Church Cathedral Choir, Philip Jones Ensemble cond Simon Preston b) with Richard Morton (tenor) Marcus Creed (baritone)
Stravinsky – a) Symphony of Psalms b) Canticum Sacrum
I’d been meaning for ages to write an entry about Kevin Daly, Decca recording engineer, Formby-fanatic (George, that is), restorer and reissuer of 78s, ukelele player, production mainstay of the ‘seventies Argo folk catalogue, sometime general manager of Argo records, co-founder of the ASV/Living Era label and, by all accounts, a good egg.
But his son Michael beat me to it. And he’s done his father proud.
Availability issued on tape (Argo CSP/A 165), but never issued on CD
Singers,musicians Choir of Hampstead Garden Suburb Junior School (CHGSJS) Joan Rimmer (JR) – instruments incl piano Mary Rowland (MR) – mezzo-soprano Pat Shaw (PS) – vocal James Blades (JB) – drums, percussion, xylophone Cyril Tawney (CT) – vocals Tom Paley (TP) – guitar Trevor Crozier (TCr) – mandolin Esme Lewis (EL) – vocal Alf Edwards (AE) – ocarina, accordion
Poetry Readers Tony Church (TC) Michael Hordern (MH) Gary Watson (GW) Patrick Wymark (PW) Margaretta Scott (MS) Janette Richer (JaRi) Prunella Scales (PSc)
TRACKS
Songs in italics
Songs and poems taken from Rhyme and Rhythm marked (1) Songs taken from Songs for Children marked (2) Songs taken from Children’s Songs from Devon and Cornwall marked (3)
Musical arrangements for (1) and (2) Anne Mendoza and Joan Rimmer
SIDE ONE Band One Soldier Soldier (trad arr Sharp) – CHGSJS, JR piano, JB drums (1) The King’s High Drummer (Carol Barnes) – read by TC (1) John and his Mare – read by TC (1) Aiken Drum (trad arr Mendoza/Rimmer) – MR and PS vocals, JB, JR (2)
Band Two Fire Down Below (trad arr Terry) PS vocals, with CHGSJS (1) The Waves of the Sea (Eleanor Farjeon) – read by MS and JaRi (1) Numbers (Eleanor Farjeon) – read by MH (1) This Old Man (trad arr Sharp/Baring Gould) – CHGSJS (1)
Band Three The Three Huntsmen (trad) – CT vocals, TP guitar, TCr mandolin (3) Dobbin (Alfred Noyes) – read by GW (1) Nicholas Nye (Walter de la Mare) – read by PW (1) Jinny Crack Corn (trad arr Mendoza Rimmer) – PS vocals, JB, JR (2)
Band Four Oats and Beans and Barley (trad arr Sharp) – CHGSJS , AE accordion (1) Two Little Kittens (unknown) – read by MS (1) Cats (Eleanor Farjeon) – read by MH (1) The Tale of Custard the Dragon (Ogden Nash) – read by TC (1) Yankee Doodle (trad arr Rimmer) – PS vocals with CHGSJS, JB xylophone (1)
SIDE TWO
Band One The Snail (Reeves) – CT vocal, TP guitar (3) A Dog and a Bee (unknown) – read by TC (1) The Plaint of the Camel (Charles Carryl) – read by PW (1) The Owl and the Pussy Cat (Lear) – EL vocal, JR piano (1)
Band Two Mister Banjo (trad arr Mendoza/Rimmer) – PS vocal (2) The Windmill (Longfellow) – read by TC (1) Bell-ringing (Clive Sansom) – read by GW (1) Song of the Pop-bottlers (Morris Bishop) – read by TC (1) Peanuts (trad arr Mendoza/Rimmer) – PS vocal (2)
Band Three The Brave Old Duke of York (trad) – CHGSJS, with AE occarina, JB drums & piano (1) Mr Tom Narrow (James Reeves) – read by PW (1) My Sister Jane (Ted Hughes) – read by PSc (1) Old Daddy Fox (trad) – CT vocals, TP guitar (3)
Band Four I Had a Little Cock (trad) – CT vocals, TP guitar (3) This is the Key (unknown) – read by TC (1) The Chimney Sweeper (William Blake) – read by PSc (1) The Robin’s Song (unknown) – read by TC (1) One More River (trad) – CHGSJS with PS (1)
NOTES
The readers Quite a star-studded cast of readers for the poems, all heavily involved in the Argo recordings of Shakespeare plays, directed by George Rylands. Was that how Argo’s Harley Usill planned the label’s poetry recordings – around the Shakespeare? All eight of the readers appearing on this compilation were in the Argo studios in 1964 (the year these recordings were made) for the Shakespeare, so it made sense to use them for other projects while they were there.
The cassette This must have been among the first of Argo’s cassettes to be issued. Until Dolby B came out, Argo’s parent company Decca had been a bit snooty about the whole idea of cassettes (compromised quality, they believed) and only got into the market in late 1970.
Remember the pain of cassettes? You get to the end of side A, take it out, turn it over, put it in, press play…and you’re already half way through track one of side B. To ease the pain, record/cassette producers rejigged the track order to get something approaching equal lengths on the two sides.
So, here, the running order will have been conceived (one guesses) with some sort of coherence in mind, but got re-sequenced to suit the medium: so band 1, side 2 of the vinyl swaps with band 2, side 1 for the cassette. Did anyone care? Probably not.
(Thanks to Martin Davis for info about the cassette)
The World of… You could be forgiven for thinking that the whole idea of Argo parent company Decca’s “World of…” series was just a cynical attempt by the company to make a bit of cash out of cannibalising product of artists that had stopped recording, gone on to other labels or died. You see them cluttering up the record bins in charity shops and think ‘who could have bought this shite?’…
(Having said that, I’ve never listened to Charlie Kunz. He may well be fantastic)
They did make some cash. For a little while at least. The series started in late 1968. In June 1969 there were no less than six of the series in the UK album charts: Val Doonican (at No 2), Mantovani (No 6), The Bachelors (No 8), Charlie Kunz (No 9), Kenneth McKellar (No 27) and Joseph Locke (No 29). Were they on some cheap-as-chips offer? Whatever, the buyers have all seen the light since and given them away in vanloads to The British Heart Foundation and Mind.
OK, so ‘The World of Val Doonican Vol 5’ may not have been to your taste (it existed, I swear!) but in its defence the series was a way of getting some interesting stuff out there cheap – and what better way to get a flavour of Early Music (SPA 547), Johann Strauss (SPA 73), Brit-prog (SPA 34) or Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger (SPA 102) than by buying a sampler ‘World of…” album for less than a quid (19s/11d) when most records cost over two.
Don’t know if there was any pressure from Decca on its subsidiaries, but Argo took to the ‘World of …” enterprise more wholeheartedly than sister labels L’Oiseau Lyre or Deram, and was rewarded at least on one occasion. After the June 1969 flurry of consumer interest, the only other ‘World of’ album to dent the UK LP charts was an Argo sampler of Christmas songs by the choir of St John’s College Cambridge, dug out of the vaults in time for the seasonal spending spree in December 1971.
From 1953 to 1957, artist Olga Lehmann designed a fair few LP covers for the Argo label. I thought they deserved to be gathered together in one place – so below are the ones I’ve come across. There may be a couple missing.
(At the very bottom of the page there are watercolour sketches for five of the album covers that I was put onto by someone who happened across this post.)
There’s plenty of information around about the Chilean-born artist and her remarkable, broad-ranging career as a portrait artist, costume and set designer, illustrator, and painter of murals. If you’re interested in finding out more, there are some links at the bottom of the page.
Her work for Argo was a sideline, coming at a time when she was pretty flat out doing stuff for films. When she did her first LP cover for the label, she’d just finished doing the costume design and a set portrait for the Errol Flynn film The Master of Ballantrae (released in 1953). Here’s what else she was involved with in those Argo years.
1953 Presumably because he was impressed by her work on The Master of Ballantrae, Flynn commissioned her in 1953 to paint a swashbuckling mural – Captain Bligh and all – for the entrance lobby of his Tichfield Hotel in Port Antonio, Jamaica.
And, I guess, (how far ahead of a film’s release does the storyboard get written/drawn?) she was already at work on the storyboard for 44-year-old Errol’s next film, the 1955 medaeval pot-boiler ‘The Dark Avenger’.
What else in 1953? One of many collaborations over the years with herbalist, holistic vet and poetess Juliette de Bairacli Levy, illustrating her novel ‘The Bride of Llew’.
1954 The following year’s work included the cover illustration for Mary Elwyn Patchett’s kids’ book ‘Evening Star’ and the costume design for the 1956 rampaging-Mau-Mau-and-elephants romp ‘Safari’, putting Vivien Leigh into some body-hugging, daytime jungle wear and something suitably elegant for night-time clinches with Victor Mature.
1955 More storyboard work (and assistant art director) for the 1956 film Around the World in 80 Days, the credits sequence for ‘Safari’ and costume design for ‘The Big Money’ and ‘Gamma People’ (kitting out gamma-ray-fried goons, brainwashed commie kids and Leslie Phillips for the latter).
1956 Lehmann did the set design and the costumes, and devised and designed the ‘house of cards’ dance sequence for the ‘rocking and rolling romance’ film Let’s be Happy – the lovely (and now ageing) Vera-Ellen’s last film – a box office flop. She also designed the costumes for the Australian pioneer days adventure film ‘Robbery under Arms’.
1957 Work on two classics: The Adventures of Tom Thumb, for which Lehmann designed the costumes and the credit titles, and the Inn of the Sixth Happiness, for which she did the storyboard. Click on the Tom Thumb poster for the credits sequence.
Throughout the 1953-57 period she was also doing illustrations for BBC publications like London Calling, Radio Times and the schools music programme Singing Together.
The connection with Argo became a family one in 1955, when Lehmann’s husband, writer and broadcaster Richard Carl Huson, joined the label as Director of Public Relations.
Another little footnote: it was Lehmann’s sister (then editor of Architectural Design Monica Pidgeon) who introduced Argo founder Harley Usill to would-be field recordist Deben Bhattacharya in 1953. A good move for both Argo and ‘world’ music.
Lehmann sources Some interesting stuff from the British Film Institute. Click here. A nice tribute page by Mandie Stone with a promise of a whole lot more. Here. The Olga Lehmann Wikipedia page. Here.
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THE OLGA LEHMANN ALBUM COVERS FOR ARGO
1953 T. S. Eliot – The Waste Land
read by Robert Speaight (Argo RG 10)
1954
Dylan Thomas – Under Milk Wood
BBC Cast, including Richard Burton
(Argo RG 21-22)
1954
Edric Connor and The Caribbeans – Songs from Jamaica
(Argo RG 33)
1955
Eric Robinson – Music For You
(Argo RG 40)
1957?
Renaissance Singers – William Byrd Mass for Four Voices
(Argo RG 42)
1955
Various artists – Constant Lambert Concerto for solo piano & Poems by Li Po
(Argo RG 50)
1955
Robert Masters Piano Quartet – Faure Quartet for piano & strings
(Argo RG 55)
1955
Edric Connor and The Southlanders – Songs from Trinidad
(Argo RG 57)
1955
Edric Connor – Calypso
(Argo RG 58)
1956
Carmen Prietto with Bert Weedon – Songs from Mexico
(Argo RG 70)
1956
Various Artists – Robert Still Quintet for 3 flutes & Sonata for viola and cello
(Argo RG 74)
1955
Various artists – John Gay The Beggar’s Opera
(Argo RG 76-8)
1956
Various artists – Bela Bartok Sonata for two pianos & Contrasts
(Argo RG 89)
1957
Max Rostal & Colin Horsley – Elgar Sonata for violin and pianoforte
Argo issue number: ZFB 31
Side One
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