During the 1950s the LP really came into its own, and many of the early big sellers featured large light orchestras playing popular standards and works specially composed for films, radio and television. 78 and 45 rpm ’singles’ were also very important, and the record industry as a whole offered a wealth of tuneful music that still appeals today. As each year passes, more of these treasures from the past fall into the public domain - long after the companies who made the original recordings have chosen to neglect them. Fortunately the finest examples from this fertile period can be made to sound even better today, thanks to great advances in digital sound restoration.
"For the most part, at least, these CDs make happily undemanding and highly pleasant listening. Alan Bunting has reprocessed the recordings expertly, and they come with informative notes by David Ades."
Andrew Lamb
"‘Say It With Music’ has 27 tracks from the first half of the 1950s. The sound is excellent throughout, although not (yet) from the stereo era. The range of music is British, European and American, and the disc encapsulates the growing internationalism of light music in the decade following the Second World War. In each case, the music deserves revival. The performances are authentic, at times featuring the composers themselves conducting their own works. Tracks conducted by Leroy Anderson, Roger-Roger, Philip Green and Robert Farnon are valuable, and other items here contain popular music by serious composers: Auric’s Pavements of Paris and Frankel’s A Kid for Two Farthings are excellent examples. We also have two more `mini concertos’ composed in the Wake of Addinsell’s Warsaw Concerto – one being by Addinsell himself, Out of the Clouds, alongside Joyce Cochrane’s Prelude to Peace. Does a recording exist of Addinsell’s Southern Rhapsody for piano and orchestra, premiered by the Tate Clive Lythgoe at the launch of the UK Southern Television Station? This is a good piece. The music here ranges from the once well-known Holiday in Hollywood to Rainfall (for harpsichord and orchestra, with Percy Faith’s orchestra) – the last being new to me"
Robert Matthew-Walker
