476 272-2 HYDE PARK SHUFFLE AUSTRALIAN LIGHT MUSIC ADELAIDE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA GUYGUY NOBLENOBLE CCONDUCTORONDUCTOR ARTHUR BENJAMIN 1893-1960 1 Jamaican Rumba 2’13 HENRY KRIPS 1912-1987 2 Serenata Piccola 4’19 MIKE KENNY b.1939 3 Ocean Road 2’31 KATHARINE PARKER 1886-1971 (arr. Percy Grainger) 4 Down Longford Way 2’30 FREDERICK WHAITE 1887-1964 5 Argentina 3’55 HENRY KRIPS 6 Romanze 2’57 ARTHUR BENJAMIN 7 From San Domingo 3’14 ERIC JUPP 1923-2003 8 Bobsleigh 2’34 ALFRED HILL 1870-1960 (arr Henry Krips) 9 Waiata Poi 2’44 HENRY KRIPS 0 Blue Mountains 5’11 2 3 First of all, just what is ‘light music’? For most of following behind to a greater or lesser extent. us, it’s enough to simply say that we know it Between the increasingly divergent roads of when we hear it. ‘Light’ music is that which classical music and popular music’s progress, JACK GRIMSLEY abhors expressionism and angst, aiming instead light music steered a middle course (hence the ! Rebecca’s Dream 3’20 for uncomplicated pleasure. Unobtrusive, tuneful, appellation middle-of-the-road music, one of the HENRY KRIPS forthright in structure and just long enough that it many names that the practitioners of the music @ Legend 7’42 shouldn’t outstay its welcome. But light music gave to, or that others bestowed upon their solo cello: Janis Laurs can be given more specific definition, locating it genre). The advent of television, too, gave light as a genre of 20th-century music. Light music is, music further life in programs intended for early- TOMMY TYCHO b.1928 substantially, a product of the era of radio and evening family appeal, the world we associate £ Lifesavers’ March from Sydney Suite 3’49 television. On the one hand, because of its more with the smiling faces of Lawrence Welk and GEORGE DREYFUS b.1928 or less continual presence, the wireless created Mitch Miller, or their Australian equivalents, Eric $ Serenade for Small Orchestra 5’36 a need for a new type of music which would Jupp and Bobby Limb. serve as an enhancement to the various WILLIAM LOVELOCK 1899-1986 activities of life: dinner music, picnic music, The Australian Broadcasting Commission (now % Hyde Park Shuffle 4’30 romancing music, playtime music. And on the Corporation), formed in imitation of the British other, because it reached so many people, radio Broadcasting Corporation, was the dominant, ARTHUR BENJAMIN also created a new demand for music which though not the exclusive generator of light ^ Caribbean Dance: A New Jamaican Rumba 3’28 could be accepted by a more democratic range music. The ABC employed or engaged a wide Total Playing Time 60’33 of musical tastes and knowledge. variety of ensembles to provide this music, including dance and showbands and six To meet these requirements, classically trained Adelaide Symphony Orchestra orchestras of differing size and status in the six composers drew upon models like operetta, capital cities. Providing material for radio and Guy Noble conductor Gilbert & Sullivan and Sousa marches, and television was the original purpose of these began to glean rhythms and melodic turns from orchestras, including substantial amounts of light jazz and popular song. To this kind of material, music for many different programs. It was they turned their Conservatorium skills of almost like a Hollywood studio system: counterpoint, harmony and melodic construction. composers were employed as ABC staff Light music, consequently, is an amalgam of members, their main task being to arrange all classical techniques with popular forms and sorts of music for the various orchestras. character. This process continued as the 20th century progressed, so that light music changed Much of the music in the present collection along with the innovations in popular music, derives from this source, and has been 4 5 unearthed from the vaults of what is now the Krips was one representative of the influx of In general, the main influx of immigrant education and remained in London for most of Symphony Australia National Music Library. The new immigrant talents that invigorated musicians came, of course, from Britain. Eric his life, achieving outstanding success and content is biased towards composers who have Australian cultural life in the years following the Jupp had established a career in London as a exerting significant influence in the days before worked with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra Second World War. Australian light music, like all session pianist and arranger for, among others, the avant-garde seized control in the late 1960s. (known for much of its 70 years as the South other branches of the arts here, gained depth Geraldo and Ted Heath before coming to He was truly a Commonwealth composer, Australian Symphony Orchestra), reflecting the and breadth from the immigrant rush. Australia. He was taken up with alacrity by the working in Canada and most famously bringing orchestra’s particularly strong association with ABC to conduct, arrange, program and international attention to the calypso music of From Hungary came To m my Ty c h o , destined to light music production. occasionally compose light music, firstly for the West Indies. His Jamaican Rumba is among become one of the legends of Australian radio and from the 1960s for television with his the most successful compositions by any The ASO’s Chief Conductor for almost 30 years showbusiness. Quickly finding his feet in enormously successful family show, The Magic Australian composer. was Viennese émigré Henry Krips (brother of Australia as a versatile pianist, conductor and of Music, which spawned a series of Josef), who made his way via England to arranger, Tycho also managed to find time to pen Frederick Whaite, from about the same commercially successful LPs as well. Best Australia as an exile from the Nazis. Along the occasional compositions which, like the man generation as Arthur Benjamin, is a relatively known (note for note and word for word) to way, Krips tried his hand at writing all sorts of himself, are full of ebullience and good nature. obscure figure. Whaite devoted himself primarily music, including pop songs under the name of Australian audiences for the theme to Skippy, The Sydney Suite comprises pieces that to the quest for successful popular songs, but Cripps, before arriving first in Sydney, then the Bush Kangaroo, Jupp’s Bobsleigh harks back celebrate distinctive aspects of Australian life also worked as a member of the music staff of settling in Adelaide to take charge of the to the Old Country, having been composed for that must have appeared exotic to a postwar the ABC, contributing original works as well as fledgling ASO. Krips kept his composing as a the Boosey & Hawkes Production Library. European émigré: the Bondi Lifesavers are arrangements to meet the orchestras’ needs for sideline during his long tenure, contributing depicted in the march recorded here. broadcast and performance material. mood-pieces and many arrangements for his By contrast, William Lovelock was a senior composer of strong academic credentials when orchestra’s activities, particularly for its extensive The German émigré George Dreyfus, settling in Katharine Parker is also an unfairly obscure radio broadcasting activities. His first he came to Australia from London in 1956 to composer. Born in Tasmania, she moved to Melbourne, found a different, more classically composition upon arriving in Australia was Blue become Director of the Queensland State London to progress her studies with Australia’s oriented milieu, initially as a member of the Mountains (originally titled in German, Blaue Conservatorium of Music, and he remained in greatest composer and pianist, Percy Grainger, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Despite Berge), evoking the splendour of the mountains Australia until 1981. Known as a solid, whom she idolised. ‘Kitty’ limited herself to inhabiting the ‘legit’ classical music world, outside of Sydney. The other works of his conservative composer and teacher, the little songs and piano music, and Grainger decided to Dreyfus has always been a renegade, bringing to represented here are occasional pieces of more revelation here of Lovelock’s lighter side will orchestrate her lovely tune Down Longford Way, Australian music a playful, satirical and fun-loving abstract form, but are always evocative and come as a pleasant surprise to many who are both as a way of promoting her music and out of character, though not lacking in awareness of marked by particular melodic gracefulness and inclined to prejudge him. affection for his homeland – the sense of creative modernity. Dreyfus has always been a charm, and a palpable feeling of nostalgia. Krips nostalgia pervades this delightful piece. also made the orchestral arrangement of the somewhat controversial figure among Two generations of Australian-born composers popular Maori song, Waiata Poi, by the contemporary composers because he likes to be are represented here, too. One of the greats of Of a later generation, South Australian composer Australian Romantic composer Alfred Hill, who unserious, pokes fun at pretentiousness, and is light music composition (of any nation), Arthur Mike Kenny was heavily involved as a conductor grew up in New Zealand. willing to dabble in ‘low’ culture. Benjamin left Australia to complete his musical and arranger in the Light Entertainment 6 7 Department of the ABC in Adelaide, which Guy Noble has written for ABC Classics, Margaret and attract a wealth of conductors and artists of the produced some of Australia’s most sophisticated Mozart, featuring the popular broadcaster highest calibre from all over the world. Guy Noble is a conductor, radio broadcaster and popular musical productions during the 1960s Margaret Throsby in discussion with the author. He studied piano at the Sydney and 1970s, and he is still very active as an famous composer.