559356 bk Anderson 2/13/08 1:19 PM Page 4

BBC Concert AMERICAN CLASSICS The BBC Concert Orchestra was formed in 1952. It has a wide and flexible repertoire, ranging from classical works and musical theatre to and film scores, and appears with a huge range of artists every year. Its Conductor Laureate is and Principal Guest Conductor is . was the Orchestra’s first -in- Association; and has now taken on that rôle as Leroy Composer-in-Residence. The Orchestra has close links with BBC Radio 3 which broadcasts the majority of its concerts and with BBC Radio 2 where it is featured on the weekly programme Friday Night is Music Night. On ANDERSON BBC television the BBC Concert Orchestra has appeared in several programmes and can be heard on countless BBC TV soundtracks including the award-winning natural history series Blue Planet and Planet Earth on BBC 1. The Orchestra performs annually at the BBC Proms, makes regular visits to the Royal Festival, Royal Albert and Barbican halls in and appears throughout Britain and abroad. It has made many recordings, with recent releases on Chandos, ASV White Line, Dutton Epoch and Naxos. The Orchestra is resident at Chichester Festival Orchestral Music • 2 Theatre and Colosseum. Leonard Slatkin Jazz Pizzicato Appointed Music Director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra from 2008, after completing his twelfth and final season as Music Director of the National Symphony Orchestra, the distinguished American conductor Leonard Slatkin The Waltzing Cat continues as Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Music Advisor to the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, and Conductor Laureate of the Saint Louis Symphony, of which he was Music Director for seventeen seasons. He has served as Festival Director of the Cleveland Waltz Around The Scale Orchestra’s Blossom Festival (1990-1999), Principal Guest Conductor of the (1997-2000), Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra (2000-2004) and Principal Guest Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl (2004-2007), in a brilliant international career. His many recordings have won five Grammy awards and further Grammy Nominations, while honours and awards include the 2003 National Medal of Arts, the Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, the American Symphony Orchestra League’s Gold Baton for service to American music, ASCAP awards with both the National and Saint Louis symphonies, honorary doctorates from The Juilliard School, Indiana University, University of Missouri and the Declaration of Honour in Silver from the BBC Concert Orchestra Austrian ambassador to the United States for outstanding contributions to Photo: Steve Sherman cultural relations. Leonard Slatkin 8.559356 4 559356 bk Anderson 2/13/08 1:19 PM Page 2

Leroy Anderson (1908-1975) With its unmistakeably feline string glissando, The Anderson wondered why his second tango, The Girl Orchestral Music • 2 Waltzing Cat became one of Anderson’s more popular in Satin, was never as popular with the public as his first compositions, picturing, in his words, “Puss-in-Boots at (Blue Tango), for he was equally proud of both. In any etched out his own unique place in known withdrawn works from Anderson’s last decade. a fancy dress ball”. Another felicitous example of the case, The Girl in Satin is an even more seductive piece of American music – a composer rigorously trained in the Woodbury Fanfare, was written for the tercentenary composer’s fondness for 3/4 time is Song of the Bells work than its hit predecessor, with lush string harmonies classical tradition whose records topped the pop charts, of Anderson’s adopted home town, Woodbury, (originally called Waltz of the Bells), where the chimes in the final chorus that touchingly evoke the 1950s. a meticulous arranger of music whose own melodies Connecticut, in 1959. Consisting of a series of festive get a rare chance to spell out a marvelous tune. The posthumously-published March Of The Two were crafted with inventive precision. While he labored fanfares for four trumpeters, this tiny prelude was actually One little-known aspect of Anderson the practical Left Feet probably had the longest gestation time of any alone over each measure of each piece, the result recorded by Anderson that year, but he chose not to craftsman was his willingness to write music for Anderson original. First mentioned as a piece for Fiedler sounded as if he had pulled one marvelous tune after release it, so this recording is the first to be made public. beginning musicians. Forgotten Dreams was originally and the Pops in a 1947 letter, yet not completed until another out of his hat almost at will. Born in Cambridge, A Harvard Festival, also a first recording, is a 1969 conceived as a piano piece for beginners, but the more 1969, this madcap fast polka was inspired by a reading Massachusetts, in 1908, Anderson was a graduate of revision of A Harvard Fantasy, the very piece that gave Anderson played with the theme, the more he felt it of P.G. Wodehouse’s The Man With Two Left Feet – Harvard University, where he studied composition with Anderson his entrée to the Boston Pops in 1936. deserved development into a symphonic piece. This and Anderson has a devilish time tripping up the Walter Piston and George Enescu and led the Harvard Consisting of four Harvard student-songs skillfully sweet yet emotional vignette has a depth that belies its percussion section with wild offbeats. Band for a number of years. He seemed headed for a woven together, with an organ grandly adding weight to simplicity, inviting listeners to muse upon their own Another late piece, Lullaby of the Drums (1970), career in linguistics until a guest spot in 1936 leading the bass toward the end, this amounts to Anderson’s dreams or memories that got away. withdrawn by the composer, receives its first recording the Boston Pops Orchestra caught the discerning ear of Academic Festival Overture – and there are passages of Likewise, Waltz Around The Scale started life in in its orchestral version here. More a relaxed march than Pops conductor Arthur Fiedler, who promptly asked orchestration that do remind one of Brahms. As 1970 as a piece for beginning string ensemble and a lullaby, the tapping of the , pounding of the Anderson to write some pieces for the orchestra. Anderson related in a 1972 interview, “I did this piece percussion and was expanded later that year into a timpani, and Latinized tattoo of the bongos ironically Following a long break during World War II, where he and Arthur Fiedler took a look at it backstage and said, concert piece for full orchestra – Anderson’s last guarantee that the listener will not be lulled to sleep. served in the U.S. Army as a translator of Scandinavian ‘Anderson! You orchestrate well!’ I didn’t know if he original orchestral work. Here, the composer deploys Finally, we hear two samples from Anderson’s large languages, Anderson became a regular at the Pops, was accusing me of something or what; that was his another series of graceful waltz tunes against output as an arranger. One, Song Of Jupiter, is a crafting arrangements of popular music and contributing blunt, direct manner. But then he said, ‘How about descending and ascending major and minor scales, with straight-forward, dignified treatment of Where’er you miniature gems of his own. Anderson’s star rose to doing something for us?’” a central section that recalls Song of the Bells. Anderson walk from Handel’s Semele. The other is part of a surprising heights after he was offered a recording Two years later in 1938, Anderson came back with led the first performance in Hartford, Connecticut in follow-up to the concert overture A Christmas Festival, contract of his own with in 1950, for something for the Pops, a bit of whimsy for pizzicato 1971 but soon withdrew the piece. where Anderson hit upon the idea of weaving a host of which he led pick-up of New York’s finest strings called Jazz Pizzicato – and his career was By contrast, Whistling Kettle was a student piece for Christmas carols into a suite for an album to be released symphonic musicians in best-selling albums of his own launched. This is the earliest published example of the violins and violas that stayed in this form as part of a during the 1955 holiday season. Soon, the one suite compositions. He turned to Broadway, completing the Anderson style, full of good tunes, infectious rhythms, projected, but never finished, 1966 multi-movement expanded into three – one each for the string, winds and score for one show, Goldilocks, in 1958 before returning and distinctive carefully-worked-out harmonic work, The Musical Household. Built around a high brass sections alone. to his metier, the miniature, with one final burst of new movement within a compact structure. While Anderson violin drone on E that no doubt represents the kettle, this The neo-classical elegance and imaginative published material in 1962. Aside from writing a few always recorded this piece in its original string-orchestra piece was also withdrawn by the composer. deployment of sonorities in Anderson’s string unpublished original pieces, Anderson’s remaining version, this disc contains the 1948 edition for full The idea of movement was often a part of treatments of Pastores a Belen, It Came Upon A years were spent mostly arranging and guest-conducting orchestra. Anderson’s game, and one particular form of Midnight Clear, O Little Town Of Bethlehem, Bring a until his death from lung cancer in 1975. Jazz Pizzicato became a Pops hit, and Fiedler transportation links Horse and Buggy with Home Torch Jeannette Isabella, Away in a Manger, and Anderson shared with Brahms and Sibelius the trait wanted to record it the following year, but Jazz Stretch. When commentators refer to a Norman Wassail Song lift this Suite of Carols to a higher level of being intensely self-critical, working for months or Pizzicato could fill only one-half of a side of a ten-inch Rockwell quality in some of Anderson’s work, Horse than most holiday potpourris. “I didn’t just want to even years on just one three-minute piece, choosing not 78 RPM record, so Fiedler asked Anderson for a and Buggy is a prime example, with its easy-going make medleys of them, that’s the usual thing”, to publish works even after they had been performed. companion piece to complete the side. Out came the trotting tune and string tremelos framing a scene of Anderson told an interviewer. “In treating them Here, though, in the first complete cycle of Anderson’s breezy, swinging Jazz Legato for strings, which was long-gone Americana. Home Stretch, written for instrumentally, I thought I’d try to get something that orchestral music, the Anderson family has made recorded with Jazz Pizzicato as the B-side for Anderson’s last Decca album in 1962, kicks up the would give a little more scope and be a little different.” available several pieces that the composer did not Gottschalk’s The Banjo. Again, we hear the 1948 full speed to a fast gallop as a collection of thoroughbreds release. Indeed, this volume contains most of the little- orchestra version. race for the finish line. Richard S. Ginell 8.559356 23 8.559356 559356 bk Anderson 2/13/08 1:19 PM Page 2

Leroy Anderson (1908-1975) With its unmistakeably feline string glissando, The Anderson wondered why his second tango, The Girl Orchestral Music • 2 Waltzing Cat became one of Anderson’s more popular in Satin, was never as popular with the public as his first compositions, picturing, in his words, “Puss-in-Boots at (Blue Tango), for he was equally proud of both. In any Leroy Anderson etched out his own unique place in known withdrawn works from Anderson’s last decade. a fancy dress ball”. Another felicitous example of the case, The Girl in Satin is an even more seductive piece of American music – a composer rigorously trained in the Woodbury Fanfare, was written for the tercentenary composer’s fondness for 3/4 time is Song of the Bells work than its hit predecessor, with lush string harmonies classical tradition whose records topped the pop charts, of Anderson’s adopted home town, Woodbury, (originally called Waltz of the Bells), where the chimes in the final chorus that touchingly evoke the 1950s. a meticulous arranger of music whose own melodies Connecticut, in 1959. Consisting of a series of festive get a rare chance to spell out a marvelous tune. The posthumously-published March Of The Two were crafted with inventive precision. While he labored fanfares for four trumpeters, this tiny prelude was actually One little-known aspect of Anderson the practical Left Feet probably had the longest gestation time of any alone over each measure of each piece, the result recorded by Anderson that year, but he chose not to craftsman was his willingness to write music for Anderson original. First mentioned as a piece for Fiedler sounded as if he had pulled one marvelous tune after release it, so this recording is the first to be made public. beginning musicians. Forgotten Dreams was originally and the Pops in a 1947 letter, yet not completed until another out of his hat almost at will. Born in Cambridge, A Harvard Festival, also a first recording, is a 1969 conceived as a piano piece for beginners, but the more 1969, this madcap fast polka was inspired by a reading Massachusetts, in 1908, Anderson was a graduate of revision of A Harvard Fantasy, the very piece that gave Anderson played with the theme, the more he felt it of P.G. Wodehouse’s The Man With Two Left Feet – Harvard University, where he studied composition with Anderson his entrée to the Boston Pops in 1936. deserved development into a symphonic piece. This and Anderson has a devilish time tripping up the Walter Piston and George Enescu and led the Harvard Consisting of four Harvard student-songs skillfully sweet yet emotional vignette has a depth that belies its percussion section with wild offbeats. Band for a number of years. He seemed headed for a woven together, with an organ grandly adding weight to simplicity, inviting listeners to muse upon their own Another late piece, Lullaby of the Drums (1970), career in linguistics until a guest spot in 1936 leading the bass toward the end, this amounts to Anderson’s dreams or memories that got away. withdrawn by the composer, receives its first recording the Boston Pops Orchestra caught the discerning ear of Academic Festival Overture – and there are passages of Likewise, Waltz Around The Scale started life in in its orchestral version here. More a relaxed march than Pops conductor Arthur Fiedler, who promptly asked orchestration that do remind one of Brahms. As 1970 as a piece for beginning string ensemble and a lullaby, the tapping of the snare drum, pounding of the Anderson to write some pieces for the orchestra. Anderson related in a 1972 interview, “I did this piece percussion and was expanded later that year into a timpani, and Latinized tattoo of the bongos ironically Following a long break during World War II, where he and Arthur Fiedler took a look at it backstage and said, concert piece for full orchestra – Anderson’s last guarantee that the listener will not be lulled to sleep. served in the U.S. Army as a translator of Scandinavian ‘Anderson! You orchestrate well!’ I didn’t know if he original orchestral work. Here, the composer deploys Finally, we hear two samples from Anderson’s large languages, Anderson became a regular at the Pops, was accusing me of something or what; that was his another series of graceful waltz tunes against output as an arranger. One, Song Of Jupiter, is a crafting arrangements of popular music and contributing blunt, direct manner. But then he said, ‘How about descending and ascending major and minor scales, with straight-forward, dignified treatment of Where’er you miniature gems of his own. Anderson’s star rose to doing something for us?’” a central section that recalls Song of the Bells. Anderson walk from Handel’s Semele. The other is part of a surprising heights after he was offered a recording Two years later in 1938, Anderson came back with led the first performance in Hartford, Connecticut in follow-up to the concert overture A Christmas Festival, contract of his own with Decca Records in 1950, for something for the Pops, a bit of whimsy for pizzicato 1971 but soon withdrew the piece. where Anderson hit upon the idea of weaving a host of which he led pick-up orchestras of New York’s finest strings called Jazz Pizzicato – and his career was By contrast, Whistling Kettle was a student piece for Christmas carols into a suite for an album to be released symphonic musicians in best-selling albums of his own launched. This is the earliest published example of the violins and violas that stayed in this form as part of a during the 1955 holiday season. Soon, the one suite compositions. He turned to Broadway, completing the Anderson style, full of good tunes, infectious rhythms, projected, but never finished, 1966 multi-movement expanded into three – one each for the string, winds and score for one show, Goldilocks, in 1958 before returning and distinctive carefully-worked-out harmonic work, The Musical Household. Built around a high brass sections alone. to his metier, the miniature, with one final burst of new movement within a compact structure. While Anderson violin drone on E that no doubt represents the kettle, this The neo-classical elegance and imaginative published material in 1962. Aside from writing a few always recorded this piece in its original string-orchestra piece was also withdrawn by the composer. deployment of sonorities in Anderson’s string unpublished original pieces, Anderson’s remaining version, this disc contains the 1948 edition for full The idea of movement was often a part of treatments of Pastores a Belen, It Came Upon A years were spent mostly arranging and guest-conducting orchestra. Anderson’s game, and one particular form of Midnight Clear, O Little Town Of Bethlehem, Bring a until his death from lung cancer in 1975. Jazz Pizzicato became a Pops hit, and Fiedler transportation links Horse and Buggy with Home Torch Jeannette Isabella, Away in a Manger, and Anderson shared with Brahms and Sibelius the trait wanted to record it the following year, but Jazz Stretch. When commentators refer to a Norman Wassail Song lift this Suite of Carols to a higher level of being intensely self-critical, working for months or Pizzicato could fill only one-half of a side of a ten-inch Rockwell quality in some of Anderson’s work, Horse than most holiday potpourris. “I didn’t just want to even years on just one three-minute piece, choosing not 78 RPM record, so Fiedler asked Anderson for a and Buggy is a prime example, with its easy-going make medleys of them, that’s the usual thing”, to publish works even after they had been performed. companion piece to complete the side. Out came the trotting tune and string tremelos framing a scene of Anderson told an interviewer. “In treating them Here, though, in the first complete cycle of Anderson’s breezy, swinging Jazz Legato for strings, which was long-gone Americana. Home Stretch, written for instrumentally, I thought I’d try to get something that orchestral music, the Anderson family has made recorded with Jazz Pizzicato as the B-side for Anderson’s last Decca album in 1962, kicks up the would give a little more scope and be a little different.” available several pieces that the composer did not Gottschalk’s The Banjo. Again, we hear the 1948 full speed to a fast gallop as a collection of thoroughbreds release. Indeed, this volume contains most of the little- orchestra version. race for the finish line. Richard S. Ginell 8.559356 23 8.559356 559356 bk Anderson 2/13/08 1:19 PM Page 4

BBC Concert Orchestra AMERICAN CLASSICS The BBC Concert Orchestra was formed in 1952. It has a wide and flexible repertoire, ranging from classical works and musical theatre to light music and film scores, and appears with a huge range of artists every year. Its Conductor Laureate is Barry Wordsworth and Principal Guest Conductor is Charles Hazlewood. Anne Dudley was the Orchestra’s first Composer-in- Association; and Jonny Greenwood has now taken on that rôle as Leroy Composer-in-Residence. The Orchestra has close links with BBC Radio 3 which broadcasts the majority of its concerts and with BBC Radio 2 where it is featured on the weekly programme Friday Night is Music Night. On ANDERSON BBC television the BBC Concert Orchestra has appeared in several programmes and can be heard on countless BBC TV soundtracks including the award-winning natural history series Blue Planet and Planet Earth on BBC 1. The Orchestra performs annually at the BBC Proms, makes regular visits to the Royal Festival, Royal Albert and Barbican halls in London and appears throughout Britain and abroad. It has made many recordings, with recent releases on Chandos, ASV White Line, Dutton Epoch and Naxos. The Orchestra is resident at Chichester Festival Orchestral Music • 2 Theatre and Watford Colosseum. Leonard Slatkin Jazz Pizzicato Appointed Music Director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra from 2008, after completing his twelfth and final season as Music Director of the National Symphony Orchestra, the distinguished American conductor Leonard Slatkin The Waltzing Cat continues as Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Music Advisor to the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, and Conductor Laureate of the Saint Louis Symphony, of which he was Music Director for seventeen seasons. He has served as Festival Director of the Cleveland Waltz Around The Scale Orchestra’s Blossom Festival (1990-1999), Principal Guest Conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra (1997-2000), Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra (2000-2004) and Principal Guest Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl (2004-2007), in a brilliant international career. His many recordings have won five Grammy awards and further Grammy Nominations, while honours and awards include the 2003 National Medal of Arts, the Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, the American Symphony Orchestra League’s Gold Baton for service to American music, ASCAP awards with both the National and Saint Louis symphonies, honorary doctorates from The Juilliard School, Indiana University, University of Missouri and the Declaration of Honour in Silver from the BBC Concert Orchestra Austrian ambassador to the United States for outstanding contributions to Photo: Steve Sherman cultural relations. Leonard Slatkin 8.559356 4 CMYK NAXOS Playing Leroy Time: ANDERSON 54:51 (1908-1975) Disc made in Canada. Printed and assembled USA. compact disc prohibited. Unauthorised public performance, broadcasting and copying of this All rights in this sound recording, artwork, texts and translations reserved. 8.559356 1 Woodbury Fanfare (1959) * 0:55 AMERICAN CLASSICS 2 A Harvard Festival (1969) * 6:13 3 Forgotten Dreams (1954) 1 2:25 Leroy Anderson etched out his own unique 4 Whistling Kettle (circa 1966) * 1:44 place in American music – a composer

5 Horse and Buggy (1951) 3:46 rigorously trained in the classical tradition ANDERSON: 6 The Waltzing Cat (1950) 2:36 whose records topped the pop charts, a 7 Home Stretch (1962) 2:48 meticulous arranger of music whose own 8 The Girl in Satin (1953) 2:19 melodies were crafted with inventive precision. While he labored alone over 9 & March Of The Two Left Feet (1970) 2:24 each measure of each piece, the result 0 Waltz Around The Scale (1970) * 2:43 sounded as if he had pulled one marvelous 2008 Naxos Rights International Ltd. ! Lullaby of the Drums (1970) * 3:05 tune after another out of his hat almost at @ Jazz Legato (1938) 1:45 will. Here, in the first complete cycle of # Jazz Pizzicato (1938) 1:58 Anderson’s orchestral music, the Anderson Orchestral Music • 2 $ Song of the Bells (1953) 3:30 family has made available several pieces % Song Of Jupiter (arr. of Handel: Semele, that the composer did not release, with HWV 58, ‘Where’er you walk’) (1951) 2 4:13 some first recordings scattered among the Orchestral Music • 2 Orchestral ^ Suite of Carols for String Orchestra (1955) 12:27 familiar and not-so-familiar titles. Volume Two contains most of the little-known *World Première Recording works from Anderson’s last decade. Alistair Young, Piano 1 David McCallum, 2 BBC Concert Orchestra • Leonard Slatkin

ANDERSON: Recorded at The Colosseum, Town Hall, Watford, UK, on 12th April, 2007 (tracks 5, 6, 8, 12-14), 13th April, 2007 (tracks 3, 4, 7, 15, 16), 14th April, 2007 (tracks 1, 9, 11), 3rd September, 2007 (track 2), and 5th September, 2007 (track 10) Producer: Neil Varley • Engineers: Neil Pemberton and www.naxos.com 8.559356 8.559356 Marvin Ware • Publishers: Woodbury Music (tracks 1, 2, 4-7 and 9-13); EMI/Mills Music Inc. (tracks 3, 8, 14 and 16) Booklet notes: Richard S. Ginell Cover photograph courtesy of the Leroy Anderson family NAXOS