Frederick Fennell (1914-2004)
remains an illustrious name in the American
wind-band and light music traditions.
In the 1950s and 1960s he recorded in
quantity for Mercury usually conducting
Eastman forces. His LPs from that era
still crop up frequently in secondhand
shops.
The present set comprises
discs some of which may not I think
have been issued on CD before. There
are two featuring wind-band and two
with orchestra. The landscape is firmly
popular light -a genre that since the
late 1980s has been making a strong
and now overwhelming comeback on the
strength of companies such as Hyperion,
Marco Polo, ASV (Sanctuary) and Guild.
The tracks featured
here remain sonic spectaculars authored
by that fine team of Wilma Cozart (who
presided over the digital transfers
from tape), Harold Lawrence and David
Hall.
Fennell's Sousa (in
fact his anything) showed and
shows careful attention to dynamics.
Not for him the unvarying mezzo forte
slackly favoured by bandmasters.
Rhythmic precision is also a feature
of this recordings.
Fennell and his elite
musicians give the Sousa marches all
the rambunctious, buffeting, resolute,
unbearably confident, percussion-whirring,
drum-thudding qualities called for by
the Sousa tradition. A little Sousa
goes a long way with this listener but
I can certainly appreciate the precision
and relentless boisterousness of these
fine sounding recordings of seven Sousa
classics. Sousa's The US Field
Artillery even has a choral contribution
from a male choir (members of the band?)
- not very numerous but they make a
manly sound.
The rest of CD1 gives
us a smattering of marches from other
climes. The Brits get a Coates Knightsbridge
and Alford's Colonel Bogey; the former
more free and certainly distinctive
and out of the Sousa pattern; the latter
closer to the smoking ramrod of the
Sousa sound.
Prokofiev's famous
march op. 99 has pep aplenty and is
a delightful contrast to much of the
rest which although not written by Sousa
sounds in the Sousa tradition. Whether
or not from the USA the following all
bear the stigmata or predict them: Tieke's
Old Comrades, McCoy's Lights
Out, Goldman's On the Mall,
Karl King's crashing cracker Barnum
and Bailey's Favourite and Klohr's
The Billboard. Both Meacham's
American Patrol and Ganne's Father
of Victory use dynamic variation
to good effect. San Miguel's The
Golden Ear has a instantly apparent
Hispanic flavour complete with toreador
solo trumpet (tr. 3 1:21). Hanssen's
Valdres March is pretty distinctive
too.
The Grainger/Coates
orchestral disc is a joy and how fitting
too since the composer had many links
with the Eastman School. Fennell makes
light of the pattering precision of
Shepherd's Hey yet is at ease
with the expansive epic unfolding of
the sentimental Colonial Song.
All the Grainger favourites are there
and are lovingly done. I simply regret
that space was not found for Hillsong
No. 1 and that Green Bushes,
The Power of Rome and the Christian
Heart and Hillsong No. 2 never
took Fennell's fancy or if they did
never as far as a Mercury session was
concerned. Spoon River might
be less familiar to some but it is well
worth getting to know in Fennell's tightly
rhythmic version. My Robin ... is
taken faster than usual missing some
of the emotion.
Eric Coates can, rather
like Sousa, be just a little too much
but things like the Saxo-Rhapsody,
By the Sleepy Lagoon, The
Four Centuries and The Three
Elizabeths mark him out as a minor
romantic master - very personal too.
Here the shivering excitement of Halcyon
Days (used as the signature tune
for the BBCTV's first adaptation of
Galsworthy's) and the Delian glow (complete
with unhurried cuckoo) of Springtime
in Angus make the case. On the other
hand the Youth of Britain march
owes more than a nod to Sousa.
There's
more Coates on CD3 (all orchestral again).
Dvořák clearly inspired
Coates in Covent Garden in which
there are some delightful stereo effects
in this version. The cello solo of Westminster
helps brace the listener for the
cheeky-chappy (at time rather Grainger-like)
Knightsbridge already heard once
from Fennell for windband on CD1. We
the get just two movements from Coates'
Four Ways suite: Northwards
clearly looks in Caledonian directions
and is proud and warlike while Eastwards
is a genre piece through which oriental
modes pitter-patter.
Leroy Anderson is represented
by his classics including the soft shoe
shuffle of the Sandpaper Ballet
and a smattering of carol arrangements.
His Forgotten Dreams is the epitome
of 1950s sentimental light music - neither
too deep nor too treacly. Trumpeter's
Lullaby rather belies its purpose
with the quick quiet part for the solo
trumpet. The complete Irish Suite
runs the Green gamut. The Minstrel
Boy has some delightful remote whispered
stereo effects carried by the side-drum.
The Last Rose of Summer drips
honey from the soloists' bows. All ends
well with the breezy-bright Girl
I Left Behind Me.
The last disc brings
us back to Fennell and the windband.
The contrived archaicism is of course
neatly handled by Fennell but Jacob's
William Byrd suite, for all its demonstration
of skill, wears thin quickly. Am I the
only one to regret that we were not
instead given Fennell's Eastman Grainger
Hillsong No. 1 and Holst's two
suites? However the Walton Crown Imperial
is the business! Taken steadily
at first, Fennell builds this most inspired
of marches with great skill. I prefer
the full orchestral version recorded
for EMI by Louis Frémaux but
this has plenty of oomph and majesty
without quite the tightly explosive
edginess it might have had. Even so
it's a classic recording and the bass
drum thwack at 5:01 as the trio ends
will please everyone.
Holst's Hammersmith
is not predictable Fennell territory.
It's one of the earliest subtle, indeed
darkly impressionistic, pieces for wind-band
- a study in redolent charcoal smudges
rather than sharply limned outlines.
It is superbly done here.
Robert Russell Bennett's
Symphonic Songs is also very
inventive and sometimes in the Serenade
movement simultaneously recalls
Piston's Incredible Flutist and
Malcolm Arnold's more popular works.
The second movement Spirituals handles
the genre with considerable tact and
originality and is by no means a straight
arrangement of well known spirituals.
It's more of a Delian soliloquy on misty
memories. In Celebration brash
and corny cannot escape Sousa so he
embraces the manner wholeheartedly.
He at times adds modernistic smoke and
mirrors and the occasional Prokofiev
reminiscence.
Clifton Williams was
an Eastman-trained composer but I am
sorry to say that while I could appreciate
his Fanfare and Allegro as a
study in wind-band sonority it left
little impression in the memory apart
from clear indebtedness to Howard Hanson
at 5:21.
There is a good compact
note by Ivan March and the admirably
uncluttered design of the booklet is
enhanced by vivid session photographs
of Fennell - at least one by Harold
Lawrence himself.
These recordings were
made in stereo in the decade between
1956 and 1966.
This is a quite a varied
collection with Fennell and light music
being the 'glue'. There are two discs
each for wind-band and orchestral. Technical
mastery, whether orchestral or audio-technical,
is not in doubt. These recordings sound
astonishing for their half century age.
March, wind-band and Fennell fans are
wonderfully well served. British and
American light music enthusiasts will
also find a great deal to please. It
is not just a magnum of nostalgia. Even
the present reviewer made discoveries
- the most attractive being the Bennett
Symphonic Songs and Anderson's
Forgotten Dreams.
Rob Barnett
Eastman Wind Ensemble/Frederick Fennell 
