Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Hyperion Records

Remembering Ronald Corp British Light Music Champion

Although I was certainly familiar with the work of Eric Coates and Albert Ketèlbey, it was Ronald Corp, more than anyone, who introduced me to the wider world of British Light Music, a genre he championed on four albums released on the Hyperion Records label. After all, as an American, how else was I supposed to hear this stuff? This is music of a type that was once played on English radio, in department stores, and by palm court orchestras – by design, undemanding, uplifting, and insistently memorable.

This week on “Sweetness and Light,” we remember – and celebrate – Corp, who died on May 7 at the age of 74. We’ll hear light music classics by Robert Farnon, Clive Richardson, Edmund White, Cecil Armstrong Gibbs, Charles Williams, Ronald Binge, and Trevor Duncan. I imagine generations of Americans might be surprised to learn that one of the pieces was borrowed by children’s show host Bob Keeshan for the theme to his television program “Captain Kangaroo!”

Corp was also an enthusiast of, at best, dimly-recollected English musical comedies dating back to the time of Arthur Sullivan. We’ll hear selections from two of these, Sidney Jones’ “The Geisha” and Harold Fraser-Simson’s “The Maid of the Mountains.”

I’m only sorry I had to cut out so much from this morning’s program. I got a little carried away, between selecting music and my own spoken contributions, and I wound up having to trim a good 15 or 20 minutes off the show! (Alas, Arthur Sullivan’s pre-W.S. Gilbert opera, “The Contrabandista,” had to be jettisoned to the cutting room floor.)

Corp was also a composer himself, and an Anglican priest! He recorded much else besides, including albums devoted to European and American Light Music classics; also more substantial – some would say “more serious” – fare. Most of these were issued on Hyperion and Dutton Vocalion Records.

Personally, I feel like I owe Corp a lot, as it only occurs to me now, that he was probably the single greatest influence on my creation of this show. Now I wish there were some way I could tell him.

Music of this sort is often deceptively simple – breezy, carefree, a tad sentimental, and fun – but it takes a special talent to be able to craft miniature masterpieces that, at their best, satisfy through ingratiating melody, imaginative color, and evocative mood.

We’ll trip the light fantastic with light music recordings of Ronald Corp, on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Stream it wherever you are at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

May 17, 2025
Remembering Matthew Best & Ronald Corp

Only days after the death of Ronald Corp (who passed on May 7), another conductor from the Hyperion Records stable, Matthew Best, has died. Best, who founded the Corydon Singers in 1973 (if my math is correct, at the age of 16!), made many cherishable recordings. Over the years, I’ve acquired a number of them. His Villa-Lobos disc that includes the composer’s “Missa São Sebastião” was a revelation.

Of course, Best also recorded plenty of Vaughan Williams. Vaughan Williams had a lifelong fascination with John Bunyan’s “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” laboring at an opera on the subject for decades, finally completing it only later in life. In the process, he assimilated material from some of his earlier settings and inspirations. One such source was incidental music composed for a radio play in 1942, the broadcast of which featured John Gielgud as Christian. In 1990, Best recorded a distillation of this music as “The Pilgrim’s Progress: A Bunyan Sequence,” with Gielgud returning to reprise the role he created.

Another program conducted by Best that includes Vaughan Wiilliams’ “Serenade to Music” and “Flos Campi” is also very highly prized. All four discs of his Vaughan Williams choral music performances were later collected and reissued as a set.

A recording of his I especially value (not a part of that set) is of Vaughan Williams’ opera “Hugh the Drover.” “Hugh” is chock-full of folk melodies, both genuine and imitation, of a variety that fans of the composer will recognize and adore. It’s also the rare opera to actually feature a prize fight!

This pugilistic interlude aside, there is a spirit of nostalgia and romance that permeates the score, and Best conveys it to perfection. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to opera die-hards who believe Verdi is the begin-all and end-all of the art form, but there’s a kind of twilit magic at play here that at times positively glows. I’ll be taking this with me today to keep me company during my Monday afternoon wildlife center food deliveries, an apt choice for farm and country.

Best was also a formidable bass, who sang such operatic roles as Wotan, Scarpia, and Mozart’s Commendatore. He died on Saturday, aged only 68 years. That’s often only middle-age for someone in his profession.

I didn’t mention Corp earlier, since I intend to honor him later this week on the next installment of “Sweetness and Light” (to be streamed on KWAX Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT). Corp too left many delightful recordings, including four discs of British Light Music that served to spark my interest in the genre. However, since Fate’s hammer has fallen twice, I am taking the opportunity to express, albeit briefly, my appreciation and gratitude for him, as well. Corp was 74 years-old.

R.I.P.

Best conducts Villa-Lobos, “Missa São Sebastião”

Vaughan Williams’ “Serenade to Music”

Corp conducts Armstrong Gibbs’ “At Dusk”

May 12, 2025
De Sabata’s Gethsemani Online

I know I’ve written about this before, but I notice for the first time that the sound file for the recording is posted online. This means either relaxed vigilance on the part of the record label, Hyperion (sold to Universal Music Group last year), or it’s slipped past YouTube’s search-and-destroy algorithm. Hyperion used to be pretty ruthless about yanking down its files.

On Maundy Thursday, Christians commemorate Jesus’ washing of the feet of His disciples, the Last Supper, and the betrayal and arrest of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane. I’m not on the air today, but if I were, I would most certainly play Victor de Sabata’s beautiful meditation for orchestra, “Gethsemani.”

De Sabata is remembered primarily as a conductor, especially of opera, having led the classic recording of “Tosca” with Maria Callas. He got his start playing violin in an orchestra under Toscanini. Toscanini encouraged the young man to become a conductor, which was kind of like letting the genie out of the bottle. Their relationship status passed from mentor-disciple to friendship to bitter rivalry. For decades, De Sabata was principal conductor at La Scala. For a time, he was its artistic director. One observer described his appearance while conducting as a cross between Julius Caesar and Satan.

An interesting tension, then, between the sacred and the diabolical. The conductor in this recording, highly recommended, is De Sabata’s son-in-law, Aldo Ceccato, who turned 90 in February. I think you’ll agree, it’s a garden well-tended.

March 28, 2024
Maundy Thursday Music A Meditation on Gethsemane

The next time you lament having to sing “Happy Birthday” twice as you’re washing your hands, imagine calling up the good grace to wash twelve pairs of feet.

Maundy Thursday commemorates Jesus’ washing of the feet of His disciples, His Last Supper, and His betrayal and arrest in the garden of Gethsemane.

I’m not on the air this afternoon, but if I were, I would surely play Victor de Sabata’s beautiful meditation for orchestra, “Gethsemani.” De Sabata is remembered principally as a conductor, especially of opera, having led the classic recording of “Tosca” with Maria Callas. He got his start playing violin in an orchestra under Toscanini. Toscanini encouraged the young man to become a conductor, which was kind of like letting the genie out of the bottle. Their relationship status shifted from mentor-disciple to friendship to bitter rivalry. For decades, De Sabata was principal conductor at La Scala. For a time, he was its artistic director. One observer described his appearance while conducting as a cross between Julius Caesar and Satan. The two volatile Italians (do I detect a redundancy?) eventually reconciled.

De Sabata was also a composer, who wrote his share of opulent music. Unfortunately, the only recording I can find of “Gethsemani” posted on YouTube is this piano version.

It’s still lovely, of course, but you should definitely check out the orchestral version, easily obtained as part of this gorgeous album issued on the Hyperion Records label.

https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/c.asp?c=C1208

The music comes across as both poignant and sincere. There’s little maudlin in this composer’s Maundy.

April 9, 2020
CD Rot & Bronzing: The Silent CD Killers

Classic Ross Amico annoyance du jour:

Yesterday I happened to pull down from the shelf one of my old opera boxes, a multi-CD set purchased in the 1980s, and when I opened the clamshell case, a wave of trepidation swept over me, as I discovered that I had left the sheets of protective foam inside.

For those of you who aren’t old enough to remember, or never purchased anything with more than a single disc in those dark days, it was common practice for CD manufacturers to include thin squares of foam in each of the separate compartments to protect a disc in the event that it was shaken loose from its spindle. Like the practice (long since abandoned, thankfully) of distributing CDs in horrendous plastic blister packs that are still, I’m sure, padding out landfills everywhere, they were an entirely superfluous addition.

In any case (no pun intended), about eight years ago, I took down my set of the Solti Ring cycle – 15 CDs – only to discover, to my surprise and horror, that the foam had begun to dissolve, as if some classical music Thanos had snapped his fingers, and that, in the more severe cases, some of the foam had begun to cling to and actually eat into the surfaces of the individual CDs. Some protective covering! Needless to say, I immediately began to scour the shelves for any other multi-disc sets I had purchased during that era and began dumping out the foam.

Well, I missed at least one of them, as yesterday I opened my Tebaldi recording of “La bohème” to encounter sheets of browned foam that, sure enough, began to dissolve the moment I touched them. Fortunately I was prepared and in the vicinity of a trash can. One of the discs is slightly pocked, but so far, none of the CDs in my collection have been damaged to the point of unplayability. I can’t vouch for long(er) term effects. Granted, I’ve already had many of these CDs for over 30 years. But I urge you, if you haven’t done so in a good long while, to go through all of your multi-disc sets from the ‘80s and ‘90s, and to chuck that foam! Just be sure to do it over a trash can. Don’t inhale, and don’t do it near any foodstuffs.

This also brings to mind the issue of bronzing (which has nothing to do with foam). That’s the unpleasant phenomenon of a CD taking on something of a bronzish hue, sometimes turning a little transparent around the edges, and its beginning to lose information or readability to the point that there is a kind of repetitive swishing or chugging sound when the disc is put into a player – if it even plays at all. Thanks be to the CD gods that this only ever happened to maybe three or four discs in my collection. Classical CDs on the ASV, Hyperion, and Unicorn-Kanchana labels seemed to have been particularly susceptible. I remember reading once that the problem was traced to a single plant in England that was using something unstable in its CD production. The issue was long ago resolved, but some collectors and consumers may still be dealing with the effects.

At any rate, I have since replaced the CDs in question and have had no further problems with bronzing, although I have also encountered the disturbing phenomenon when working at various radio stations.

Thankfully I haven’t yet had the same experience as this chap, whose CDs have become unplayable.

https://www.avhub.com.au/editors-blog/hi-fi/cd-rot-returns-415833

Powerful arguments for downloads or digital streaming? Nah, the hell with that stuff. I’ll be designing my pyramid with ample space for all the CDs and books I’ll be taking with me to the afterlife… Anubis willing.

Clockwise from upper left: (1) CD rot from superfluous foam packaging; (2) the creeping horror of bronzing; (3) the heinous practice of blister packaging; (4) Anubis

May 4, 2019

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS