Let's return to the 10-inch LP format and to conductor Efrem Kurtz for today's selection. This is the other album resulting from Kurtz's six-year tenure as the music director in Houston - suites from the mega-musicals
South Pacific and
Kiss Me, Kate.
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| Efrem Kurtz with members of the Houston Symphony |
Cole Porter's
Kiss Me, Kate had appeared on Broadway in late December 1948, with Richard Rodgers'
South Pacific in April 1949. Kurtz and the Houston Symphony recorded the two suites from these tremendously popular scores on December 14, 1949, the day all the Kurtz-Houston records were made. Their coupling of Satie and Auric ballets appeared
here in February of this year. The only other work taped that day was
Fauré's brief Pavane. The latter work became, incongruously, a fill-up for the 78 set of the Rodgers and Porter suites, but was jettisoned for the LP release.
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| Robert Russell Bennett |
Robert Russell Bennett, the orchestrator of both shows, assembled the suites contained on this LP. He called the
Kiss Me, Kate suite a "Selection for Orchestra," but grandly titled the
South Pacific potpourri a "Symphonic Scenario," whatever that might mean. Both are smoothly done, as you might expect from Bennett, and well handled by the Houston Symphony and by Kurtz, who could not have had much experience with this type of material.
Columbia had issued the original cast albums for both
South Pacific and
Kiss Me, Kate, and may have seen this 10-inch LP as an attractive alternative for those who didn't want or couldn't afford the full albums.
Columbia's sound is good. The album sports a characteristic cover by Alex Steinweiss.
A reader requested this LP a few months ago - I didn't have it then, but, as sometimes happens, I stumbled across a nice copy not long ago.
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| The Houston Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, 1949 |
