The Light Music Society, UK

The two CDs opposite, sent to us by our new member John Rapson, are sheer delight.  His Rhapsody Quintet have been presenting their programmes of salon music, light classics, theatre music and chamber music since the mid-80s, both in concert and for special occasions.

 The purely instrumental Salon Delights consists of pieces by Percy Fletcher, Ancliffe, Curzon and company which the group clearly enjoy playing.  As befits principals from Symphony Nova Scotia Orchestra the playing is technically superb with which to present their evident love of the music.  Particularly impressive is the way the ensemble thinks together into all the various nuances and expressiveness that make for perfect interpretation.  To quote their programme notes, "Rhapsody Quintet has continued the century-old tradition of arranging and adapting orchestral and piano music to suit its own instrumentation."   The arrangements are beautifully put together and have a freshness about them which made me want to look again at the many other compositions by those composers which we have here in the Library.  Works primarily with full orchestral textures have been adapted so skillfully as to sound as if composed for that very ensemble.

 The Melody Lingers On CD presents some of the most popular songs from the pens of Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Victor Herbert, Sigmund Romberg, Richard Rodgers and Irving Berlin put over by some lovely singing from soloists Leslie Lake Searle (Soprano) and Ross Thompson (Baritone) with several items sung as duets.  By their nature vocal backings call for something special by way of compositional skill and here we have arrangements of the highest order.  I like the way the piano cleverly dovetails into the salon texture rather than providing thickening.  In many passages the piano stays silent, leaving the texture to the quite delicious quartet sound.  Three of the songs are arranged purely instrumentally, with Pick Yourself Up by Jerome Kern a real gem of quintet writing.
   
                                                      - Ernest Tomlinson

 

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