Liner Notes

State Fair and the 20th Century-Fox Songbook; Dutton Epoch 2CDLX 7408 (March 2024)

As unbelievable as it may seem, many scores composed for films in the Golden Age of Hollywood – some of the most important and recognizable American orchestral music of the twentieth century – have been lost due to neglect and deliberate purging by the very studios that commissioned them. This is especially tragic when one considers that movies were responsible for introducing many songs now considered “standards” in the Great American Songbook. The original film arrangements for these songs represent the pinnacle of artistic achievement in American popular song, blending wonderful melodies and lyrics with brilliant orchestration.

The most heinous example of such destruction occurred at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the late 1960s, when the studio purposely discarded most of its music manuscripts, relegating masterpieces such as The Wizard of Oz and Singin’ in the Rain to a landfill. A similar story nearly played out at 20th Century-Fox; however, JoAnn Kane (founder of music preparation company JoAnn Kane Music Service) made a last-minute deal with the studio to house the scores at her office facility, thereby preserving a priceless music archive. Yet even for those films where handwritten manuscripts survive, the orchestral parts do not; in other words, the music has been impossible to perform … until now.

As a musicologist specializing in the restoration and reconstruction of classic film scores, I have spent innumerable hours creating new scholarly editions of these works so that an orchestra can play them today. Due to limitations in recording technology of the 1940s, most of these gorgeous arrangements have never before been heard in stereo, the low-fidelity monaural soundtracks offering only a pale impression of the range of orchestral detail that was heard on the soundstage during the original recording sessions. Standing in Watford Colosseum in October 2021, listening to such iconic music coming to life again after many decades was beyond thrilling.

In the 1940s, Hollywood was flush with talented musicians fleeing Nazi persecution in Europe, and studio music departments flourished as a result. 20th Century-Fox employed some of the best orchestrators in the business as well as an elite in-house studio orchestra. As head of the Fox music department for 20 years, Alfred Newman (1900–1970) led his staff to create some of Hollywood’s finest musical moments. And because the songs themselves were designed to be the primary focus of the audience’s attention (not merely as underscore for a dramatic scene), both they and the arrangements that “sold” them needed to be special. Even when a film was lousy – which, frankly, was not unusual – the high quality of the music often shone through. As composer Burton Lane mused about Fox staff songwriter Harry Warren to author Max Wilk in They’re Playing Our Song: Conversations With America’s Classic Songwriters: “How I used to admire guys like Harry Warren! No matter what piece of junk he was working on, whatever picture, with those meaningless plots and ridiculous subjects – backstage, Argentina, whatever – Harry would always come up with some wonderful tunes.” Although his name is not as familiar to the public as George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, or Richard Rodgers, three-time Oscar-winner Warren was one of the most prolific Hollywood songwriters, and eleven of his best songs are included here.

Among the arranger-orchestrators represented on this recording are Maurice De Packh (1896–1960), Edward Powell (1909–1984), Conrad Salinger (1901–1962), and Herbert Spencer (1905–1992). Powell worked closely with George Gershwin in New York before becoming Alfred Newman’s right-hand man at Fox, and though quite a bit of his work focused on dramatic scores, he also contributed to a number of musicals. A large portion of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s State Fair is his work, and though he was the only orchestrator to receive a credit in the film – and an Oscar nomination for scoring – extensive contributions had also been made by De Packh and his colleague Arthur Morton. De Packh came to Hollywood after arranging assignments on several Broadway musicals – including some work for Gershwin, Kern, and the Ziegfeld Follies – and he went on to write numerous arrangements at Fox and MGM; he even orchestrated parts of Gone With the Wind.

Originally a clarinet and saxophone player, Herbert Spencer began his career at Fox in the 1930s and continued working as an orchestrator in Hollywood all the way through 1990’s Home Alone. Although he is best known for his close collaboration with John Williams, for whom he orchestrated the original Star Wars and Indiana Jones film trilogies among others, these assignments came after decades of sterling work on some of Hollywood’s greatest films.

Conrad Salinger’s revered body of work in Hollywood – where his distinctive orchestrations defined the sound of MGM’s musicals from Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) onward – is almost completely lost today. With most of his scores landfilled by MGM and his personal effects destroyed in a fire near the end of his life, Salinger’s handwritten manuscripts are thus incredibly rare. Indeed, the selections included here are among only a handful of his surviving song arrangements.

Salinger’s manuscripts seem to reflect his personality as a flamboyantly gay man, with sweeping penmanship and ultra-emotive indications throughout: “rapturously” and “poco hysterico” are two such markings in “You’ll Never Know.” And when preparing Arthur Morton’s orchestration of “Cinderella Sue” from Centennial Summer – a project on which Morton worked with Salinger – I noticed some amusingly over-the-top interpretive indications, such as “jocosely and with gaminerie,” “grazioso and naively,” “a shade of sophistication,” and “blithesomely, you big camp,” which are unique among what I have seen of Morton’s work. It occurs to me that Morton may have written these as an inside joke for Salinger (perhaps Salinger was the “big camp”), especially as almost none of the notations found their way into the conductor score. (For an in-depth discussion of Salinger’s music and how his gay identity manifests itself in his work, seek out Stephen Pysnik’s dissertation Camp Identities: Conrad Salinger and the Aesthetics of MGM Musicals.) It should also be noted that the longevity of Arthur Morton’s career in Hollywood is comparable to that of Herbert Spencer: Morton spent six decades scoring for film and television, enjoying a fruitful collaboration in later life with Jerry Goldsmith.

Although a number of great songs in Fox movies derive from stage works (the post-State Fair Rodgers & Hammerstein films, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Call Me Madam, etc.), all the songs on this recording were written specifically for 20th Century-Fox projects. Because manuscripts containing the complete orchestrations (“partiturs”) are known to survive only for films released after mid-1942, there are some notable omissions: Irving Berlin’s On the Avenue (1937) and Judy Garland’s debut Pigskin Parade (1936) spring to mind. Yet we have endeavored to include every worthwhile song – and some interesting, lesser-known selections – for which partiturs exist. (The lone omission in this regard is the Oscar-nominated “Something’s Gotta Give” from Daddy Long Legs (1955), which was restored by me and performed by Sir Simon Keenlyside with the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by David Charles Abell on the Chandos release Something’s Gotta Give.)

A partitur reflected the orchestrator’s original intent, but was rarely the final word on what was presented in the film. Frequently, adjustments made during the rehearsal and recording were included in the orchestral parts (which no longer exist), but rarely noted in the partiturs. Because of this, I – with invaluable assistance from collaborators David Charles Abell and Seann Alderking – meticulously compared all the scores against the film soundtracks, making adjustments where they seemed appropriate. Piano-conductor scores were referenced for the solo vocal lines. With a few exceptions, the chorus parts do not appear in the partiturs, so if not notated there or in a piano-conductor score, I reconstructed them using the film soundtracks as a guide. Luckily, some of the more complex vocal arrangements were preserved in one or the other source, so we can be confident that we have recorded exactly what was sung at the film recording sessions. And now to the program…

State Fair

State Fair (1945) is one of Fox’s most charming musicals and the only score Rodgers & Hammerstein composed especially for the screen. Following their monumental Broadway success Oklahoma!, the team agreed to write a musical remake of Fox’s 1933 drama State Fair, with the stipulation that they be allowed to work exclusively from the East Coast. Although the resulting score was short by Broadway’s standards, Rodgers’s delightful melodies and Hammerstein’s winsome lyrics yielded two big hits, “It’s a Grand Night for Singing” and the Oscar-winning “It Might as Well Be Spring.”

Hammerstein himself provided the script – a reworking of Sonya Levien and Paul Green’s 1933 screenplay, which was based on Phil Stong’s bestselling 1932 novel – tailoring the project to the team’s dramatic sensibilities and ensuring that the songs would emerge naturally from the film’s story and situations. Some of Hammerstein’s most crucial alterations involved the character of Emily: not only did he change her from a trapeze artist to a band singer (thus providing a number of believable opportunities for songs), but also made her noble and likeable – two traits missing from the 1933 character. As Hammerstein noted in a letter to producer William Perlberg on 20 May 1944: “[Emily] is a very good part and might even turn out to be the best part in the picture.” The nature of Emily’s relationship with Wayne was also toned down. Whereas it was explicitly sexual in 1933 (before the advent of censorship brought about by the Hays Code), with Emily actively pursuing Wayne despite knowing that he has a girlfriend back home, Hammerstein’s Emily does not want to strike up anything. This time it is Wayne who pursues the friendship, causing a romance to unfold, which is due in no small part to the film’s songs.

The first boisterous strains of the “Main Title” combine a joyous fanfare with “That’s for Me,” the lilting ballad that will be heard later at the fairground. (Interestingly, “It Might as Well Be Spring” is not heard here, though it is played continually as underscore for much of the rest of the film.) The cue then segues into “Our State Fair,” a homespun ditty that introduces parents Abel and Melissa Frake (Charles Winninger and Fay Bainter) as well as their neighbor Dave Miller (Percy Kilbride), and illustrates the excitement all are feeling about the upcoming Iowa State Fair. (Ironically, the real Iowa State Fair did not run from 1942 to 1945 because of World War II.) Abel makes a bet with Dave that his prize hog, Blue Boy, will win the Grand Champion prize and that nothing will go wrong for anyone in the family during the trip to the Fair.

In her bedroom, Margy Frake (Jeanne Crain, dubbed by Louanne Hogan) yearns to experience life away from the farm and her dependable-but-boring suitor, Harry (“It Might as Well Be Spring”). (Conrad Salinger wrote a lovely, alternative arrangement of this song for the film, which I restored; Scarlett Strallen gave its premiere performance on the aforementioned Chandos release, Something’s Gotta Give.) Margy’s brother, Wayne (crooner Dick Haymes), has been practicing all year to perfect his accuracy in a ring-toss game after being defrauded and humiliated at the Fair the year before. He learns that his girlfriend, Eleanor, will be unable to accompany the family on the trip due to her mother’s illness.

At the fairground, Wayne meets Emily, a dazzling band singer (Vivian Blaine, in one of her best film roles). She serenades the audience – and the enamored Wayne – under the summer stars (“That’s for Me”) and then dances with him as the band strikes up one of its specialty numbers (“It’s a Grand Night for Singing”). Her eyes widen in admiration when he begins to sing, and she is clearly smitten. Elsewhere on the midway, Margy has found an admirer of her own—newspaperman Pat (Dana Andrews)—and they join in the song along with the chorus.

The next morning, lovestruck Margy sings an up-tempo reprise of “That’s for Me,” joined by the equally chipper Wayne. Wayne later attends a party thrown by Emily in her hotel suite, and the two share a duet (“Isn’t It Kinda Fun”), whose playful lyrics suggest there is more than mere “fun” involved despite what the characters call it. (This set-up is similar to “People Will Say We’re in Love” from Oklahoma!, in which Laurey and Curly sing coyly about what friends might claim about them, ultimately admitting that the rumor would be true.) Meanwhile, on a hilltop overlooking the fairground, Margy and Pat are chastely canoodling while trying to determine if their relationship is serious or just a fling. The underscore (a sublime instrumental version of “It Might as Well Be Spring”) supports the notion that it is the real deal.

The final day of the Fair arrives, and the romantic situations begin to unravel when Wayne learns that Emily is married (though separated), and she refuses to return home with him. In contrast to this emotional scene is a sprightly production number (“All I Owe Iowa”) in which Emily, her fellow band singer Marty, a male quartet (who also play ocarinas and harmonicas), the Frake parents, and chorus all celebrate the greatness of Iowa. At the same time, Margy waits on the midway for Pat, who never materializes as he has been sent suddenly on assignment to Chicago. Margy returns to the family trailer with tears in her eyes as the fairground lights are extinguished for the last time.

Back on the farm, neighbor Dave Miller arrives, and Wayne drives off to visit Eleanor. Dave asks the deflated Margy if she enjoyed the Fair (hoping he won’t have to pay out on the bet), but is interrupted by the phone ringing. Picking up the receiver, Margy hears Pat on the other end of the line, telling her that he has been awarded his dream job in Chicago and wants her to be his wife. Overjoyed, she jumps into Dave Miller’s car and races off to meet Pat (“Finale”), who is nearby. The two run into each other’s arms in the middle of the road, just as Wayne drives by with his arm around Eleanor. As he sings a reprise of “It’s a Grand Night for Singing” (this time with a different orchestration and an all-stops-out ending that incorporates the “Our State Fair” motive), we see that everything has worked out perfectly.

Fox before and after State Fair

20th Century-Fox had produced a number of successful musicals prior to State Fair, several of which are represented here by song highlights. Most famous among these is the Harry Warren-Mack Gordon standard “You’ll Never Know,” introduced by Alice Faye in Hello, Frisco, Hello (1943). In an arrangement by Conrad Salinger and Herbert Spencer—Salinger scored the entire song without using his customary French horn, though Spencer later revised the opening section—it went on to win the Academy Award for Best Song and thereafter was used as dramatic underscore in countless Fox films. (The song was even reprised the following year in Four Jills in a Jeep, using Faye’s original film recording but with a new orchestral introduction.) In Hello, Frisco, Hello, “You’ll Never Know” is performed twice by Faye, in a formula often employed at Fox where ballads were concerned: a character sings the new “hit” song early in the film and then reprises it at least once more as the lyrics take on dramatic relevance to the unfolding story. The fully orchestrated version presented here occurs near the end of the film, but I have appended the verse (with piano accompaniment only) as heard at the film’s beginning, so as to present the complete song.

Faye had another musical success in 1943 with two numbers in The Gang’s All Here: “A Journey to a Star” and “No Love, No Nothin’.” The first takes place at night aboard the Staten Island Ferry, where Faye – assisted by a celestial female chorus – serenades her prospective new beau. Later, she croons “No Love, No Nothin’” in her trademark contralto as part of the rehearsal for a show. This orchestration was by renowned saxophonist and bandleader Benny Carter, the only African American arranger represented here and one of very few working in the studio system at the time. (“Journey” and “No Love” found success as the flipside of a Decca single performed not by Faye or Betty Grable – neither of whom was allowed to record outside Fox’s studio – but Judy Garland.)

Whereas Alice Faye retired from the screen in 1944 to focus on family and home life – she turned down the role of Emily in State Fair and made just one more film appearance, ironically in the abysmal 1962 remake – the popularity of Betty Grable and her “million-dollar gams” peaked during the war years and continued into the 1950s. Springtime in the Rockies (1942) saw Grable duetting with John Payne during an on-stage downpour in the whimsical “Run, Little Raindrop, Run,” accompanied by a three-part chorus of whistlers (for logistical reasons, here we have substituted piccolos and flute for the whistlers). David Raksin, composer of the haunting score for Fox’s Laura and many others, contributed this number’s large-scale orchestral verse, while Gene Rose provided a jazzy arrangement for the choruses.

An even wetter Grable sang Harry Warren and Mack Gordon’s “My Heart Tells Me” while taking a bubble bath in 1943’s Sweet Rosie O’Grady, which indulged Fox’s penchant for rehashing old songs while a staff composer – often Warren – contributed a new one. In this film, the new ballad is sung three times in similar arrangements; we have presented the most opulently scored “bubble bath” version (arr. Spencer), preceded by the verse as heard in the film’s “Beer Garden” sequence (arr. Salinger). Although “My Heart Tells Me” is largely forgotten today, it was a hit in its time, and Michael Feinstein recalls that it was the last song Harry Warren ever asked him to play during their final visit together, shortly before Warren’s death in 1981.

Four Jills in a Jeep (1944) loosely chronicled the USO (United Service Organizations) tour exploits of Kay Francis, Martha Raye, Mitzi Mayfair, and Carole Landis. Unfortunately, the film isn’t very good, though Jimmy McHugh and Harold Adamson’s “How Blue the Night” and “Crazy Me” are both enjoyable songs. “How Blue” is performed by Dick Haymes (in his first credited film appearance) with a female chorus, and includes a fabulous orchestral dance break in varying styles. “Crazy Me” showed off Landis’s deep tones in a bluesy arrangement by Paul Weston, who was then still known by his birth name of Paul Wetstein

Haymes introduced two more gorgeous Harry Warren-Mack Gordon songs while serenading Betty Grable in Diamond Horseshoe (1945): “I Wish I Knew” and “The More I See You.” The latter is one of the most famous ballads to have come out of Hollywood and has been recorded hundreds of times by major artists. Yet this is the premiere recording of Spencer’s original film arrangement, and the film itself has never been released on home video in the United States. “I Wish I Knew,” also arranged by Spencer and featuring a quartet of clarinet, alto sax, tenor sax, and muted trumpet, shares thematic content in its lyrics with “My Heart Tells Me”: both are essentially about mistrust, with the singer confessing doubts about a romantic relationship while expressing hope that the warning signs are being misinterpreted. The resulting emotional confusion and vulnerability lends a darker quality to each number that belies their genesis in such otherwise frothy films.

Besides Haymes, another crooner, Perry Como, was being groomed for stardom by Fox, and songs from two of the four films he made at the studio – Something for the Boys (1944) and Doll Face (1945), both co-starring Vivian Blaine – are featured here. Como never made much of an impression in films, his easy-going delivery and blandness falling flat even though his voice was lovely. The two ballads on this recording (“In the Middle of Nowhere” and “Here Comes Heaven Again”) showcased Como’s lilting, almost droopy, delivery; they fared best when Blaine sang them. Maurice De Packh’s beautiful arrangement of the latter was split into two parts in the film: Como sang the first chorus early on, while Blaine’s version was paired with a newly devised first chorus for Como arranged by Herbert Spencer and performed near the end of the movie. We present here the complete arrangement as De Packh originally conceived it.

Following in the footsteps of MGM’s blockbuster Meet Me in St. Louis, Fox produced a historical musical about a family during the Centennial Exhibition of 1876 – Centennial Summer (1946) – though the end result paled in comparison. Jerome Kern supplied what would be his final film score before dying in November 1945 at the age of 60. According to historian Miles Kreuger’s conversations with lyricist Leo Robin, Robin originally had been slated to write lyrics for all the songs, but found himself artistically “paralyzed” with fear that his contribution would not measure up to Kern’s standard. As a result, Kern worked with former collaborators Oscar Hammerstein II, E. Y. Harburg, and Johnny Mercer to finish the project on schedule.

In the film, the Oscar-nominated “All Through the Day” is sung by a tenor during a magic lantern show, with the audience joining in, singalong style, for the second chorus. Orchestrated by De Packh, a former colleague of Kern, it is one of the few songs in the film with a clearly defined beginning and ending, as many of the other songs come and go in a seamless fashion within the action. Although the concept of integrating the songs is an interesting one, in practice it proves unsatisfying and limits the potential to fully develop the material. “Up With the Lark,” as edited in the film, works in such a way, introducing the family members and then flowing into the next scene without a definite stopping point. However, the original partitur, as scored by Salinger, featured an ending that has been restored and is the version recorded here.

“Cinderella Sue” is problematic in that it is racially insensitive: sung and danced in the film by Avon Long – an African American performer – and a chorus of (adorable) African American children as a means of begging money from patrons at an all-white bar, it has no relevance to the plot and functions purely as entertainment. Musically, it may also be the high point of the film: the tune is infectious, especially as presented in the dance break portion of Arthur Morton’s delightful arrangement, and the combination of Kern’s melodic twist with E. Y. Harburg’s lyric (“and oh, my!”) is both surprising and whimsical. Sadly, nothing is acceptable about Hollywood’s portrayal of African American artists during that period.

No partitur survives for Centennial Summer’s “In Love in Vain,” one of two ballads written for Jeanne Crain’s character, Julia. However, Salinger’s arrangement of Julia’s other ballad, “The Right Romance” (which, strangely, was not published as sheet music at the time), not only exists as heard in the film, but in an extended version recorded on a 78rpm disc by Louanne Hogan (again dubbing for Crain as she did in State Fair) accompanied by Alfred Newman and the Fox Studio Orchestra. The song appears in two places in the film, so Salinger combined the two sections—whose lyrics each have different emotional meanings—to lengthen the song, adding an orchestral bridge to glue them together. The result is a little odd given the sudden shift in tone, but is more satisfying than the short versions heard in the film.

Published as sheet music along with the film’s other songs, but cut before release, “Two Hearts Are Better Than One” is an anomaly in the Centennial Summer score. The song—referred to as “Duettino” in the conductor score—comprised two parts, each a contrasting “he said/she said” verse and chorus. The first section was to be sung by Cornel Wilde, the second by Crain/Hogan, with each in a different key. The soundtrack recording features two weak voices (the second is not Hogan’s), and no introduction or connective material between the sections, which makes the juxtaposition of different keys jarring. As with “The Right Romance,” Hogan recorded the song accompanied by Alfred Newman on a 78rpm disc, but this extended arrangement, which interpolated the chorus used in the film, is lost, with only the verse surviving in manuscript form. Happily, both the verse and chorus for Wilde’s section are extant, providing the source for the version heard here. Salinger devised the arrangement (his unmistakable style is evident throughout), and Arthur Morton orchestrated it. To lengthen the arrangement, I added a four-bar introduction from one of the film’s underscoring cues and reprised the chorus, employing orchestral solos instead of the vocal.

With a score by Josef Myrow and producer Mack Gordon, Three Little Girls in Blue (1946) was a remake of Moon Over Miami (1941), which had starred Betty Grable. In the remake, June Haver (whom Fox was grooming as the “new” Grable), Vivian Blaine, and dancer Vera-Ellen (at the beginning of her illustrious film career) played the leads. Also given a featured role was Hollywood newcomer Celeste Holm, fresh from her Broadway successes in Harold Arlen and E. Y. Harburg’s Bloomer Girl and as the original Ado Annie in Oklahoma!

“On the Boardwalk (in Atlantic City)” reveals the catalyst of the film’s plot: three young women inherit a small bequest and use the money to travel to Atlantic City, where they believe they will meet and marry millionaires. This irresistible waltz is the only selection not derived from the original partitur, which has been lost. However, I was able to reconstruct Maurice De Packh’s orchestration using the piano-conductor score and the surviving partitur of a cue from another scene, which clearly includes sections of material copied from De Packh’s original vocal arrangement. Because film arrangers were working to tight deadlines, material was sometimes recycled to save time; thankfully, such was the case here so that the arrangement could be authentically reconstructed.

Blaine and Holm are given solo numbers later in the film. Blaine’s wistful “Somewhere in the Night” is the singer at her best, backed by De Packh’s exquisite arrangement. The song begins with an off-screen chorus recalling “On the Boardwalk” in a soft haze of harmony, inspiring Blaine to look out of her hotel window at the passers-by and deliver the first chorus. An instrumental interlude illustrates a breeze catching the window’s sheer drapes, blowing them caressingly across her face as she daydreams. She then comes back down to Earth to restate her conviction that “there must be someone somewhere in the night.”

Holm’s “Always the Lady,” a specialty number, is in the same vein as Ado Annie’s “I Cain’t Say No” from Oklahoma! (A similar song, “Why Do Men Bring Out the Mother in Me,” written for Holm by Harry Ruby for the 1947 Fox musical Carnival in Costa Rica, was ultimately cut.) Fox had typecast Holm, even before she arrived in Hollywood, though eventually she escaped the Ado Annie persona and appeared in straight dramatic films (All About Eve, etc.). In “Always the Lady,” Holm recounts – in both French and English – how, when succumbing to romantic situations, she maintains ladylike manners and the appearance of good breeding. It is a charming and unusual number for a film musical – as David Charles Abell notes, rather like an operatic recitative/aria in its construction – and historically significant as the standout moment in Holm’s film debut.

Although she was a wonderful dancer and screen presence, Vera-Ellen did not sing and was dubbed in every film she made. While her face introduced “You Make Me Feel So Young,” which Frank Sinatra would make famous a decade later, Carol Stewart’s voice was heard on the soundtrack. The song evolves into an all-out dream ballet, with De Packh’s orchestration making it obvious when the line between reality and fantasy is being blurred: two harps, two celestas, vibraphone “haze,” and chorus clearly signal a dream sequence! However, the full-length ballet as scored for the film is musically incoherent, composed as it was in fragments to accompany the dancer tapping and twirling her way through a collage of surrealist scenes of childhood. In restoring the orchestration for this recording, I opted to retain the portions of the arrangement that worked best in purely musical terms, dispensing with the sections that merely accompanied the on-screen action.

The only song written by Harry Warren for Three Little Girls in Blue (as a favor to Fox after he had departed for MGM), “This Is Always” was cut from the film in its vocal version, but published as sheet music and heard in the dramatic underscore. It is a lovely, lilting tune enhanced by Maurice De Packh’s arrangement. This orchestration in particular demonstrates his ability to create a sense of motion in a slow ballad: two harps and a celesta ripple away beneath the string parts, lending a flowing texture to what might otherwise have seemed rather static. As Seann Alderking remarked while we were preparing the scores: “It’s Richard Strauss!”

Do You Love Me (1946) starred Dick Haymes and Technicolor goddess Maureen O’Hara in a rare musical role. Although it did not include many great musical moments—Harry Ruby’s title song had potential, but was saddled with a mediocre lyric—the film did introduce one bona fide hit: “As if I Didn’t Have Enough on My Mind.” The tune was a collaboration between Harry James (who appeared as himself in the film) and Alfred Newman’s brother, Lionel (a major force in Fox’s music department, he would become its head when Alfred left the studio during the 1960s), while staff vocal arranger Charles Henderson contributed the lyric. As with “I Wish I Knew,” Herbert Spencer’s big band orchestration shows the jazzier side of an arranger who more frequently worked in a symphonic idiom.

Although George Gershwin had died in 1937, a decade later Fox produced The Shocking Miss Pilgrim (1947), its “new” songs fashioned from some of Gershwin’s unused melodies set to lyrics by his brother, Ira, with assistance from composer and close friend Kay Swift. The score included two strong ballads, “Changing My Tune” and “For You, For Me, For Evermore,” both of which are featured here in their original arrangements by Herbert Spencer. According to Michael Feinstein’s conversations with Ira Gershwin, the film originally had been conceived as a vehicle for Judy Garland, though ultimately MGM did not make her available and Betty Grable was cast instead. However, as with Alice Faye’s songs from The Gang’s All Here, it was Garland who recorded the score for Decca Records, alongside Dick Haymes, who was then also under contract to the label.

Josef Myrow and Mack Gordon wrote the Oscar-nominated ballad “You Do” for the Betty Grable-Dan Dailey vehicle Mother Wore Tights (1947). The song is heard multiple times throughout the film, with each rendition serving a different dramatic purpose. The first time, Dailey sings an up-tempo version as part of his solo Vaudeville act; Grable then performs it with a male quartet as part of her act. Finally, it is sung by Imogene Lynn (dubbing Mona Freeman as Grable and Dailey’s daughter Iris) as she graduates from high school. A brat who is dismissive of her parents’ Vaudeville background, Iris delivers a heartfelt reprise of “their song” with full orchestra and women’s chorus provided by the other graduating girls. A touching moment, it is interesting to see how the studio’s music department developed the song dramatically and musically over the course of the film.

The gorgeous Harry Warren-Mack Gordon standard “There Will Never Be Another You” had an interesting history at Fox. Originally written for the Sonja Henie film Iceland (1942), Joan Merrill introduced the song accompanied by Sammy Kaye and His Orchestra in a rather vulgar arrangement for which the partitur no longer exists. However, the studio revisited the song in I’ll Get By (1950), where it was given a sumptuous new arrangement by Maurice De Packh and sung by Irish tenor Dennis Day. Unfortunately, the beauty of De Packh’s work was diminished by the song’s setting: Day performed it in a small room containing only a piano, with the orchestra barely audible on the soundtrack. We present the arrangement here in its full glory, with Clare Teal’s rich vocals more seductive than Day’s high crooning.

In 1953, movies suddenly became larger and wider thanks to the advent of CinemaScope. To match the visual grandeur, magnetic stereo sound recording and reproduction techniques were employed, resulting in a richer sonic experience. While the Fox studio continued to produce musicals, some of the most memorable songs of the era were written as themes for dramatic films: “Three Coins in the Fountain,” “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing,” and “An Affair to Remember (Our Love Affair).” The first two of these received the Academy Award for Best Song, while the last was nominated; this was likely due not only to the quality of the tunes, but because they functioned as title music for and shared titles with prestige movies. Interestingly, all three songs were performed by off-screen voices (Frank Sinatra, chorus, and Vic Damone respectively) that did not belong to the films’ characters. Unlike an integrated musical score such as that of State Fair, this style of presentation gave the songs pop appeal by removing them from the dramatic action. Hollywood quickly learned that the film and the song could sell each other, leading to wider appeal and greater profits.

“Three Coins in the Fountain” is the most elaborately presented of the three: Sinatra sings over Bernard Mayers’s exquisite orchestral arrangement while footage of Rome’s fountains immerses the viewer in the wonders of the Eternal City. The soundtrack recording of the song was never issued commercially, though Sinatra had a big hit around the same time with his Nelson Riddle-arranged version. For some reason, Sinatra recorded the film’s opening in two versions: the first with orchestra (no chorus) and a return of the soloist halfway through the melody’s instrumental reprise, capped by a fortissimo ending; the second featuring a wordless chorus accompanying the orchestra with a pianissimo ending minus Sinatra. Minor changes were made to the orchestration of each version. My restoration uses elements of both: while the orchestration is primarily that of the revised version, the rather tacky chorus has been dropped and instead the soloist returns as Sinatra did in the original version, but with the magical pianissimo ending. The vocal solo on this recording is by special guest Michael Feinstein, who knew several of the songwriters and arrangers represented here. Michael’s knowledge and enthusiasm, and his generosity in providing ultra-rare studio recordings from his private collection, were invaluable to me throughout the restoration process.

In Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955), the title melody dominates the soundtrack, but only at the very end of the film are the pedestrian lyrics sung by an off-screen chorus. The version presented here is the majestic “Main Title,” with the addition of a final chord to bring the cue to a satisfying conclusion. Contrastingly, An Affair to Remember (1957) includes some sung music—Deborah Kerr in the role of Terry McKay is dubbed by Marni Nixon, following their collaboration on The King and I—yet it is not technically a musical. The film’s famous theme song, “Our Love Affair” (not to be confused with the Arthur Freed-Roger Edens song performed by Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney in MGM’s Strike Up the Band), is sung over the main title by Vic Damone with full orchestral and choral backing, while Kerr/Nixon reprise it later in a nightclub over a more modest orchestration. A snippet of the song “Tomorrowland” is also heard in that setting, but Columbia’s soundtrack album omitted the film version in favor of Bernard Mayers’s specially commissioned full-length arrangement. Here, we present the main-title version of “Our Love Affair” along with the extended LP rendition of “Tomorrowland.”

April Love (1957) also introduced an Oscar-nominated title song, though on this occasion the film was a musical and starred Shirley Jones and Pat Boone. Pete King’s arrangement of “April Love” is performed by Boone at a party-cum-talent-show; the emcee asks Boone what he can do, and Boone asks if the orchestra can play “April Love” (of course they can!). It is a beautiful song even though, as with “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing,” it is played to death throughout the remainder of the film. The rest of the score is pleasant yet unexceptional and fails to make much use of Jones, who is perhaps the film’s greatest asset.

The only track on this recording not rooted in a particular song is “Wedding Music/ Vera-Ellen’s Dance” from Carnival in Costa Rica (1947). Fox contracted Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona – once called the Gershwin of Cuba – to write the score for the film, which featured Dick Haymes, Vera-Ellen, and Celeste Holm. As with Centennial Summer, the songs were integrated into the dramatic scenes, having no definite beginning or ending, and were shorter than what would usually be found in fully developed arrangements. Consequently, they have not been included here. Instead, we present Lecuona’s Brazilian-flavored dance music, arranged and orchestrated by Herbert Spencer and Maurice De Packh for the scene in which Vera-Ellen dreams of her wedding to Haymes. The brief introduction differs from that which is in the film (but is the score in the archive), and is followed by a sprightly number for the dance corps. The waltz, absent from the film but heard next, is part of De Packh’s original orchestration, contrasting elegantly with the preceding music. The final section, danced by Vera-Ellen and based on the song “Carnival in Costa Rica,” is scored for large orchestra, including guitar, mandolin, and a large Brazilian percussion section. Here, the BBC Concert Orchestra is let loose in its very own showstopper.

The program concludes with “You’ll Never Know,” for two reasons. First, it is among Fox’s best-known songs as well as an Oscar-winner, finishing here on a literal high note courtesy of concertmaster Nathaniel Anderson-Frank. Second, its lyrics sum up my feelings for this repertoire. Since childhood, I have had a close affinity with the films and music of this period. Breathing new life into these songs through my restorations, hearing them played by the BBC Concert Orchestra, and having the opportunity to sing some of them myself has been one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life. Although I never met any of the songwriters or orchestrators represented here, it is gratifying to think that our efforts to preserve their work would have pleased them.

As Harry Warren commented in They’re Playing Our Song: “Oh sure, the pictures may be old pieces of junk, but, damn it, the songs still go on. They have a sort of life of their own.” This album is a testament to just how right he was. We hope you will enjoy these rare musical gems, newly polished and as vibrant as the day they were first heard on Fox’s legendary scoring stage.

Something's Gotta Give; Chandos 10838 (November 2014)

Music from classic Broadway and Hollywood musicals continues to enjoy immense popularity with audiences and performers around the globe. Opera singers in particular have an interesting history with this beloved repertoire; some of the most successful to cross over to the popular idiom include Eileen Farrell, Dorothy Kirsten, Patrice Munsel, Risë Stevens, Helen Traubel, Ezio Pinza, and Robert Weede. It is therefore not surprising that the baritone Simon Keenlyside was the catalyst to record this album devoted to great songs from musicals – songs that require every bit as much attention to text and interpretation as Lieder, and often the same mastery of vocal technique as opera arias.

As we developed the programme, it became clear that songs from iconic shows such as Carousel, My Fair Lady, and Oklahoma! should be included; however, as Simon and the conductor, David Charles Abell, wanted to offer more than a revisiting of familiar baritone solos, they invited the actress-singer Scarlett Strallen to join the team, both to partner Simon in duets and to sing two numbers on her own. It was also decided deliberately to focus on musicological scholarship and record a number of songs in newly restored original arrangements by some of the finest orchestrators of the 1930s – '60s; these remarkable creations are recorded here for the first time for decades, some receiving their stereo premieres. Because our collective restoration effort is one of the most unique and significant aspects of this project – aside from the tremendous contributions by the artists themselves – a glimpse of what went on "behind the scenes" in order to revive this repertoire will perhaps be of interest to the listener.

One could be easily forgiven for assuming that songs from famous musicals are in no danger of being lost forever; however, while the melody and lyrics of a given song are usually published in a popular sheet music edition with piano accompaniment, the orchestral arrangement as originally performed in a show or film is an entirely different matter. In the case of Broadway scores, there may be major hurdles to overcome if one wishes to perform a song precisely as it was first heard in New York. Because the show from which the song derives was considered a work in progress up until its Broadway opening, changes were constantly being made during rehearsals and out-of-town tryouts – occasionally even during the New York run itself – but these changes were not always noted in the scores. If a show was successful, it would often go on tour with a reduced orchestra, and the instrumental pit parts might be reused and / or altered to suit the players who were available "on the road." For example, although Broadway reed players were expected to perform on any number of different woodwind instruments and to switch among them accordingly, this facility could not be expected of musicians outside New York; therefore, the scores were altered so that they could be played by a limited grouping of instruments. This altered set of parts would likely then be hired in perpetuity to companies wishing to mount productions of the show. Later, if the show was given a major revival, these same "corrupted" parts might be called upon yet again, or else an entirely different orchestration created. The crucial issue to note is that ‘final’ versions of a show’s original orchestrations were not commercially published at the time of the production, so it can be difficult – if not impossible – to perform the score as it was heard on the night of the show’s Broadway opening.

With regard to film music, the situation can be even more dire, no matter how famous or beloved a given film may be. For example, although The Wizard of Oz is known internationally to generations of movie lovers and boasts an Oscar-winning score, the orchestral materials for the film, disastrously, were dumped in a landfill long ago by Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer (once one of the most revered makers of film musicals) alongside the scores of practically every other film made by the studio. Luckily, some of the other studios acted with greater forethought when it came to preserving their priceless music libraries: Warner Brothers, for example, retained its complete orchestration manuscripts as well as sets of instrumental parts used in the original scoring sessions – materials that were eventually donated to the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. As in the case of Broadway scores, however, film orchestrations from the Golden Age were never commercially published; if a song or underscoring cue exists today, it is likely that only a single, fragile paper copy remains.

The process of restoring show and film music can range from fairly straightforward to maddeningly tedious, but it is always painstaking, time-consuming, and a labour of love. It all begins with research to find as many primary sources as possible in order to produce the most accurate result:

1. The complete original manuscript as drafted by the orchestrator (also called a "partitur") is the master document from which the individual instrumental parts were copied, but it may not reflect musical changes that were made during rehearsals or recording sessions.

2. If a complete set of instrumental parts exists, it likely will contain important markings such as tacets, note changes, and bowings for the strings.

3. In many cases, reductions of the full scores – commonly called piano/conductor scores – were created for use by the conductor and / or producers and engineers in the recording booth. Not all such scores are created equal; depending on the amount of information captured by the copyist when he created the reduction, these can vary from a two- or three-staff piano score with no instrumentation indications up to a six-staff score with extensive instrumental markings (truly the Holy Grail if the partitur and parts are lost).

4. The final element – and a very important one – is a recording of the score as first performed. For a Broadway show, this would be the original cast album, if one was made. In the case of a film, the final soundtrack is helpful, but a first-generation master (before sound effects and dialogue were added) is best.

Once the surviving elements have been gathered together, the real work commences: many hours of meticulous deciphering, transcribing, listening, comparing, and reconstructing (as necessary) to create a new edition of the score, which can be used in performance.

One might reasonably ask: why go to all this fuss for such "light" music? This is a crucial question for any restorer to answer, and several responses occur to me. First and foremost, this repertoire has great historical value: some of the finest composers and arrangers of the twentieth century wrote scores for Broadway and Hollywood, and these masterworks are a significant part of our musical heritage and should be passed on to future generations. It is also critically important from a musicological perspective to preserve a song's original arrangement, as it is the arrangement's countermelodies, instrumental sonorities, and harmonic structure that fundamentally shaped the "sound" of the song when it was first presented.

On a more basic level, by restoring these delightful arrangements we are able to recreate and savour the full range of their lush orchestral detail in a concert hall or at home on a modern digital recording. Such an experience can prove revelatory and quite powerful; when participating in the recording sessions for this album, I found myself utterly exhilarated and deeply moved to hear such exquisite music springing back to life again after so many decades. It was as if we had all somehow travelled back in time, walked onto a scoring stage in Hollywood, and Fred Astaire and Doris Day were stepping up to the mike to lay down their tracks – in other words, it was pure magic. We hope some of that magic was captured by our recording, and that you, too, will find yourself enchanted by the spell.

On the Street Where You Live

It seems fitting for the album to begin with an arrangement by Robert Russell Bennett, who was the most prolific of Broadway orchestrators and shaped the sound of many of the greatest musicals. Although "On the Street Where You Live" from Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady (1956) was originally orchestrated primarily by Philip J. Lang (Bennett provided only the verse), the version recorded here was written by Bennett for Chappell Music as part of a series of concert selections to be hired to symphony orchestras.

Night and Day / All the Things You Are / Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’

Three other Bennett / Chappell arrangements are also featured on this album: "Night and Day" from Cole Porter's Gay Divorce (1932), "All the Things You Are" from Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's Very Warm for May (1939), and "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! (1943). According to Steven Suskin's The Sound of Broadway Music (Oxford University Press, 2009), all three of these songs were orchestrated by Bennett in their original Broadway incarnations; in the case of "Night and Day," Bennett's arrangement replaced an earlier version by Hans Spialek during the show's Boston tryout. Bennett was also responsible for both the stage and film orchestrations of "People Will Say We’re in Love" from Oklahoma!; we present the more opulent film arrangement here.

So in Love

"So in Love"is excerpted from David Charles Abell and Seann Alderking's recent restoration of the complete score to Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate (1948). The song appears twice in the show: first in Act I when sung by Lilli Vanessi, and scored by Bennett, and then again in Act II sung by Fred Graham, and orchestrated by Don Walker. The Walker version, heard here, illustrates the type of change that was often made during rehearsals: at the conclusion of the song, Walker’s partitur shows the Rosenkavalier-ish chords played smoothly (slurred) by the strings. However, in the orchestral parts used during the 1948–'51 run the slurs have been removed in favour of a shimmering tremolo, which can also be heard on the original Broadway cast album. The BBC Concert Orchestra faithfully reproduces the musicologically sanctioned (and magical) tremolo.

When Did I Fall in Love?

"When Did I Fall in Love?"originated in Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick's Pulitzer Prizewinning Broadway musical Fiorello! (1959). The show was orchestrated by Irwin Kostal, who had co-orchestrated Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story on Broadway and would later earn Oscars for the film versions of West Side Story and Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music. Abell and Alderking sought to restore the song's orchestration, which was never published in its original state (the alto flute part was omitted from hire scores, woodwind voicings altered, and the piano and harp parts combined into one). Initially no partitur could be found, so the two used the original Broadway cast recording as a guide. Miraculously, however, a copy of Kostal's manuscript was located at the American Heritage Center of the University of Wyoming a mere three days before the recording sessions, allowing just enough time to check the restoration and make minor revisions in time for the recording.

Reviewing the Situation

Among the many fine songs from Lionel Bart's Oliver!, "Reviewing the Situation" is a delightful character song for the criminal Fagin that is not so often heard as the rest of the score. The musical first opened in London in 1960 and was orchestrated for thirteen players by Eric Rogers; when David Merrick produced the Broadway version, however, the orchestrations were expanded to twenty-five players. Rogers re-orchestrated the score himself, and it is the Broadway (1963) version that is performed here. Abell and Alderking restored the number, using the original partitur, and the BBC Concert Orchestra’s leader, Charles Mutter, provided violin solos inspired by the Broadway cast recording. When selecting an appropriate accent for Fagin, Simon considered that Dickens's character was a London East End Jew who would have spoken in some kind of a cockney:

I chose to sing with a cockney accent and include only two words to give his roots away: 'the money.' And for my own fun, I decided to have him sing with the 'r' at the back of the throat. Not guttural, but rolled from the throat and not the tongue, which is also very common amongst German Jews and may also be a function of speaking Yiddish as a first language – although I couldn’t say for sure, since I personally do not speak it. I didn't want to ham it up, though, and really chose only two very specific things that might indicate the man was a cockney Jew and not just a cockney. Overdoing it is embarrassing and insulting, I feel – and, of course, the character must be believable.

Soliloquy

Perhaps the most overtly operatic selection of the album is Billy Bigelow's "Soliloquy" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel (1945). This lengthy scene allows Billy to explore a range of emotions and culminates in sustained, declamatory singing; it is a true tour de force for an actor who can also tackle its substantial technical demands. Although the partitur for the original Broadway orchestration by Don Walker is lost, the manuscript for his concert arrangement of the song does exist and is nearly identical to the conductor's full score for the Broadway production – a fact which allowed Bruce Pomahac and his team at the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization to restore the number with certainty as part of a complete restoration of Carousel in 2000 (updated and corrected in 2013).

If I Loved You (Bench Scene)

Also from this restoration comes "If I Loved You" (Bench Scene), which closes our programme; it was orchestrated principally by Don Walker, with connecting passages contributed by Hans Spialek.

Something's Gotta Give

Johnny Mercer penned both music and lyrics to the Oscar-nominated "Something's Gotta Give," originally sung and danced by Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron in the 20th Century Fox film Daddy Long Legs (1955). The song played an important role in the film, as it directly addressed the fact that Astaire, nearly fifty-six when the film was released, was a full thirty-two years older than Caron; by recognising and embracing the issue of such a substantial age difference, the lyrics elegantly resolved any possible sense of implausibility. Restored from the original partitur, the masterful arrangement heard here is the film orchestration by Lloyd "Skip" Martin, one of the era’s top arrangers of jazz and swing, and a mainstay at M-G-M throughout the 1950s. In "Something's Gotta Give," Martin's remarkable versatility is on full display; the listener will find sophisticated swing in abundance, but also lush and lyrical string passages, soaring horn solos, and a nightclub montage sequence that reinvents Mercer's tune in Latin, big band, and waltz terms. As the creation of any classic film score was the result of collaboration among a team of arrangers and orchestrators, however, Martin's arrangement did not go unchanged. The last four measures were altered for the final film cut by Edward B. Powell, who composed the underscoring cue which accompanies the dialogue immediately following the song. While Powell retained most of Martin's original idea, he omitted the clarinets from the texture and contributed a dreamy celesta solo – an addition that leaves no doubt that a spell has been cast on the film's would-be lovers.

Stranger in Paradise

Having already enjoyed a smash success on Broadway with Song of Norway – for which they adapted music by Edvard Grieg – Robert Wright and George Forrest created the score for Kismet (1953) using works by Alexander Borodin. The melody of the love duet, "Stranger in Paradise," derives from the "Gliding Dance of the Maidens," one of the "Polovtsian Dances" which Borodin composed for the opera Prince Igor. The version recorded here is an Abell / Alderking restoration of the original Broadway arrangement orchestrated by Arthur Kay. As the hire parts for this song do not match the Broadway recording (they likely derive from a tour or later production) and because no partitur exists, it was necessary to transcribe from the original cast recording. However, the violin solo heard on the cast recording (doubling the voice an octave higher) was omitted from this version as it was likely not done in the theatre; there is no trace of such a line in the printed parts.

It Might as Well Be Spring

20th Century Fox's State Fair (1945) featured the only score written by Rodgers and Hammerstein specially for a film, and provided the team with their only Oscar, for the lilting ballad "It Might as Well Be Spring." The arrangement heard here derives from a complete restoration of State Fair, which I am preparing for the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization to commemorate the film’s seventieth anniversary, and includes material that has never been heard by the public. Although Edward B. Powell was the lead orchestrator on State Fair and scored nearly all the film's songs – including the version of "Spring" used in the film – Conrad Salinger moonlighted from M-G-M to provide a "new revised" arrangement of the song’s chorus, which ultimately went unused. Although no documentation appears to have survived regarding the reason for the existence of this alternative version, my own theory is that it was created to placate Richard Rodgers, who wanted the song performed at a faster tempo than the musical director, Alfred Newman, envisioned – an issue discussed by Rodgers in his autobiography, Musical Stages. Whereas Powell's version in the film is quite rhythmically free and languid, Salinger's arrangement incorporates a drum kit part to provide a rhythmic drive to the song, implying a quicker tempo. Salinger's work was designed to flow out of Powell's arrangement of the song's introductory verse; this itself emerged from an underscoring cue arranged by Powell, which introduced elements of the song's melody in innovative textural and harmonic ways. Presented here are all three cues seamlessly joined as they would have been if Salinger's revision had been used in the film: Powell's intro and verse, segueing into Salinger's arrangement of the chorus. As the majority of Salinger's work was lost when M-G-M discarded its scores, this is one of the relatively few surviving complete arrangements in Salinger's hand. The fact that the song ultimately became an Oscar winner further adds to the arrangement's interest and significance.

The Girl Next Door

"The Girl Next Door" (originally "The Boy Next Door") was first performed by Judy Garland in M-G-M's Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), where it serves as an outlet for Garland's character, Esther Smith, to voice feelings of tenderness toward her new neighbor and express frustration at her inability to attract his attention. When the song was recycled and sung by Vic Damone in Athena (1954), the presentation was altered so that Damone crooned the number in front of an audience of swooning female fans as part of a "live" televised production. Presumably because of this switch in context, the original arrangement by Conrad Salinger was shortened (a significant portion of the opening verse was excised, along with most of the dance interlude), and the key raised a fourth to accommodate Damone's baritone. This substantial change of key meant that the song needed to be completely re-orchestrated, an assignment that fell to Salinger’s colleague Robert Franklyn. While the original partitur no longer exists, in preparing this reconstruction I was exceedingly lucky to have access to several other primary sources from M-G-M's archives (now controlled by Warner Bros.): the piano / conductor score, which contained a number of instrumental indications; a stereo orchestra-only recording from the original recording masters (special thanks to George Feltenstein, who produced the restoration and stereo remixing of the Athena soundtrack, and very generously provided me with this track); and an instrumental breakdown for the original recording session, detailing exactly which instruments played in the session. However, after many hours of meticulously sifting through and combining these materials to create a faithful reconstruction, I sensed that the cuts inherent in the Athena version made the song feel incomplete as an audio-only experience. This conclusion inspired me to return to Salinger's original arrangement for Meet Me in St. Louis, for which I also had a piano / conductor score and orchestra-only recording. Although it was not possible to incorporate the deleted section of Garland's opening verse – the orchestration was simply too different – I found that the St. Louis dance interlude could be reconstructed, transposed, and successfully integrated into the Athena version to create a much more satisfying hybrid.

It's Magic

Doris Day introduced "It's Magic" in her first feature film, Romance on the High Seas (1948), and performed the song twice during the movie: first while sitting at a table in a nightclub, and later, backed by full orchestra, at an elaborate society party. The version recorded here is the latter arrangement, although the two were both crafted by the master arranger at Warner Brothers, Ray Heindorf, and share some of the same music. This is the first time that the complete version of this arrangement has been heard outside the studio, as it was shortened to a single chorus in the final film. Thanks to the good stewardship of the Warner Bros. Music Department, the partitur exists, as does a complete set of instrumental parts used during the recording session, which included bowings for the violins. Because the introductory piano solo was improvised by Oscar Levant and never notated, it was necessary to transcribe this material from the film's soundtrack recording; the solo in the interlude was notated by Heindorf. For this album, the song was transposed up from its original key of F-sharp major to B-flat major; only very minor orchestration changes were required, and these were carried out by the orchestrator Jason Carr.

If I Were a Rich Man

One of the most beloved songs from Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick's Fiddler on the Roof (1964), "If I Were a Rich Man" is a charmingly humorous lament in which the lead character (Tevye) is required not only to sing and act, but also to simulate poultry sound effects – all the while assuming an accent! Simon explains:

I used a central European accent – similar to what many of my own family had – and added in one or two words ("woids") that were New York amongst my generic Yiddish English. I did this as a way of doffing my hat to Zero Mostel: what a wonderful actor he was, and what a wonderful way he sang it!

The partiturs for Fiddler are not currently known to exist, so Abell and Alderking restored the orchestrations using the original cast recording as a guide; the hire parts currently available are for reduced orchestra and lack colours found in the original Broadway version, particularly the richness of woodwind writing.

We can only hope that the original partiturs for Fiddler and other such "lost" musicals will resurface one day. In the meantime, however, it is paramount that we move to preserve the treasures that have survived so that they will not suffer a similar fate. Such glorious music is too wonderful to be lost to the ages.