This new Guild Light Music series has already focussed attention on the many fine recordings made during the 1940s and 1950s, and it is now appropriate to concentrate on the output from British studios. A combination of talented composers, plus highly professional musicians to perform the music, meant that the resulting high quality was recognised and appreciated throughout the world. Names such as Robert Farnon, George Melachrino, Mantovani, Stanley Black and Sidney Torch became familiar through their regular broadcasts and new releases, but they were not alone in ‘flying the flag’ for light music, as all the other writers, arrangers and conductors featured in this collection will readily prove. Some of the melodies will rekindle happy memories, but there are plenty of new treats to discover as well.
"This is the fourth volume in what is turning out to be a real winner for the Guild labels’ Light Music Series. The seventy odd minute collection contains a wide spectrum of works with the leading exponents of the genre such as George Melachrino, Sidney Torch, Robert Farnon and Charles Williams alongside many others. There are many popular favourites here including a delightful Television March by Eric Coates, the wonderful Kashmiri Song with Mantovani and a raucous medley from the musical, Oklahoma!. Other interesting names included Robert Farnon who conducts Joyce Cochrane’s Honey Child with suitable panache throughout. I already possess Schertzinger’s Sand in My Shoes with Farnon from an earlier album on Dutton but this Guild version is slightly more translucent. Further interesting items include Valencia by Edmundo Ros and his orchestra, a lovely and evocative Spring Morning by George Melachrino and a rousing Television March by Eric Coates. The disc concludes with a wonderful medley from Oklahoma, surely the right tonic to what is really a wonderful disc. Guild’s remastering is really excellent with just the right balance between reducing the surface noise and retaining truthful sonics of these recordings. I just can’t wait for more releases in this series!"
Gerald Fenech
"Very much in the same vein are two well-filled Guild CDs, ‘Great American Light Orchestra’. The British CD contains genuine treasures among the largely unfamiliar original items, 26 tracks from 1946-53. In particular, the Television March by Coates – here conducting the London Symphony Orchestra in 1946 – and the Cactus Polka, conducted by the great Walter Goehr (whose pseudonym, ‘George Walter’, as a composer and arranger of light music, is also shown but not mentioned). Robert Farnon’s Goodwood Galop could teach Shostakovich a thing or two."
Robert Matthew-Walker
