George Weldon / London Symphony Orchestra: German -&- Elgar - Columbia 1952-54

Edward German:
'Nell Gwyn'  Dances: Country Dance ~ Pastoral Dance ~ Merrymakers' Dance        http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0SZS3V5Z
 

'Henry VIII'  Dances:, Morris Dance ~ Shepherds' Dance ~ Torch Dance       http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XSBR5HKH
 

'Tom Jones'  Dances: Morris Dance ~ Gavotte ~ Jig       http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SSRUTHRS
 

'Merrie England'  Dances: Hornpipe ~ Minuet ~ Rustic Dance ~ Jig      http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Z8E6CL8T
 

Recorded: 13 April 1953 / 17 October 1952 // 11 December 1953 / 13 April 1953.
Columbia 33S 1022 (10").  1954 matrices: XA 468 -3N / XA 469 - 3N   Abbey Rd Studio No.1.
The EMI transfer has some 'fuzziness/blurring'  + a limited dynamic-range. Don't expect 'Highest-Fi' sound!  mint 1959 LP    '320' mp3 files

Edward Elgar: "In the South" (Alassio).  
http://www.mediafire.com/?ujs6ulfkw0u8tzb
 
HMV XLP 30008.  Matrix: XAX 527 -3N  First issued as Columbia 33SX 1028. Reissued 1962 - Original pressing - Dec.2009 file newly re-edited. 


Handel arr: Elgar - Overture in D minor    
http://www.mediafire.com/?lpp3qe1u0yam9yu

Columbia SED 5516 (45rpm EP - 1954  - 1958 pressing). Matrix: 7TCA 215 -3N
Both recorded: 19 Feb.1954. Abbey Road Studio No.1.    FLAC files     33S 1022  sleevenote + SED 5516 scan >>>


Young people and elderly alike have been listening to Edward German's dance music since cradle or prep school. For as far back as most of us can remember, it has been an essential part of the English scene, like muffins, county cricket, bowler hats and the black-and-silver of Portland stone.

To write a solemn technical analysis of light music which is so intimately known and loved would he as silly as parsing a page of Lewis Carroll nonsense or putting a stag by Landseer under the spectroscope. The only fitting commentary of Edward German's music at this time of day is a note about the man who wrote it.

For millions of hearers, these four sets of dances have opened portals to history. The span is from Tudor days to Fielding's century. There are doublets, ruffs, rapiers, beauty patches and sedan chairs in every bar. These agreeable illusions were conjured up by a typical Victorian-cum-Edwardian. Edward German dressed with sober neatness, invariably carrying an umbrella and, over the other arm, an exactly folded overcoat. A stranger seeing him go in at the stage door of some theatre where he had an operetta running might have mistaken him for an auditor who had called to scrutinise the managerial accounts, or. perhaps, an exceptionally staid doctor on his way to inspect a contralto's larynx.

With prosaic externals went a certain diffidence as to his talents. He composed the incidental music to Richard III (his first 'hit', 1889) under difficulties, chivvied by a stage director who spoke of music "as though it could be turned on and off like a waterworks." He was dismally sure that the overture would take far too long to write, probably three weeks. Actually he wrote it in one.

Two years later his sister Rachel heard that Henry Irving was going to put on Shakespeare's Henry VIII at the Lyceum. "Ask him to let you write the music" she urged. German replied in effect, "It wouldn't
be any use. I'm a nobody. In any case, Sullivan wrote some Henry VIII music, Irving's sure to use that." Rachel persisted. German reluctantly went to see Irving who, having heard the Richard III music with
pleasure, commissioned him on the spot at a fee of 200 guineas and all publishing rights. Two days later Irving's manager casually told German there had been a mistake about the fee. German said to himself pessimistically, "I thought at the time it was too good to be true." 'Yes," resumed the manager, "I find that Alexander Mackenzie received 300 guineas for the incidental music to Ravenswood, so Mr. Irving hopes you will accept that figure.". The Henry VIII music had a wildfire vogue at once. When 'English Nell' was written for Marie Tempest she insisted that none but Edward German should write the incidental score. The Nell Gwyn dances caught the public fancy almost as much as the Henry VIII set. But German was not in the least reassured about himself. He sat down to work on Merrie England, the work which scaled his fame, in a state of glum panic.

"I am now in for four or five months' hard labour, absolutely the hardest and most awful labour of my life," he wrote to his sister. "I feel it is not possible for me to get through it ... Composing looks like bringing me nothing but incessant work and worry." Later in life he said that he had never been happier than when writing Merrie England: but time throws a romantic, reconciling haze over everything, even over 'hard labour'.

All who knew him agree that Edward German was a shrewd little man, as well as lovable and talented. Perhaps it was his shrewdness that bred self-distrust. On second thoughts, self-criticism is the juster phrase. No composer can achieve much without regular doses of self-criticism. As a writer of high-quality popular music, German had such technical facility that it would have been a very bad thing for all of us if he had been satisfied with the first idea that came into his head. Like Merrie England, the Tom Jones music, which came rather later (1907), sounds as though it flowed from German's pen as freely as claret cup at a theatrical garden party. We know that, in fact, it was the product of congenital misgivings and second thoughts.

A thing that helped him over the stiles was that he had his heart in the lyric theatre. Taking his first operetta (The Two Poets) on tour as a 24-year-old, he used to pile the scenery (an old backcloth and a set of curtains, all borrowed) on a handcart at the station, push it to the local theatre, and set the stage with his own hands if necessary. This anecdote tells us more about German's character than any other. He was modest, often hopeless, always dogged. And the theatre infatuated him. It is not surprising that he wrote one or two minor masterpieces. He could hardly have helped it.