DDD Total Time = 70:56 / Production and Editing: Martin Hewitt and Phillip Mindenhall

Meditation comes from Massenet’s opera Thais (1894), produced along with many other stage works whilst the opera composer was living in Paris.

Anything Goes from Cole Porter in 1934 when he was perhaps at his creative best waswritten during a round-the-world cruise. This, the title number from the Broadway hit musical is perhaps Porter’s most well known song. Other popular songs in the show include ‘You’re the Top’ and ‘I Get a Kick Out of You’.

As Time Goes By was written by Herman Hupfeld in 1931, eleven years before it became one of the best known love songs through featuring in the 1942 film Casablanca. Starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman Casablanca is set against the backcloth of North Africa during the Second World War. This classic song has enjoyed a revival during more recent times as the title theme for a TV sitcom series starring Judy Dench and Geoffrey Palmer. The world changes, life has its ups and downs yet Hupfeld’s lyrics remind us that ‘it’s still the same old story’ and ‘the fundamental things apply ……. a kiss is still a kiss’ and ‘a sigh is just a sigh and the world will always welcome lovers as time goes by’.

The celebrated Czardas by Monti is a great standard in the concert violinist’s repertoire. During this dance with alternating tempi, try to visualise the violinist dressed in bohemian gypsy attire touring the tables of a candle-lit Hungarian café bar. Henri Betti’s harmony style in his C’est Si Bon is very characteristic of the period during which it was composed. Louis Armstrong recorded this piece in 1949. The clarinet, which has been given the solo line in this arrangement, seems particularly well suited to the appeal of the music.

Some Enchanted Evening takes us to an American base in the South Pacific during World War II following Pearl Harbour. Perhaps the most immortal song from the musical, it was sensitively ,rendered for the silver screen in 1958 by Rossano Brazzi. South Pacific, written in 1949 by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, became the longest running musical of the 1950’s. Here we hear the show’s hit song in an ‘upbeat’ rumba rhythm.

Henry Mancini’s Moon River with words by Johnny Mercer was featured in the movie ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’. Written in 1961 we might remember nostalgically this lyrical tune cropping up in a wide variety of venues.

Moonlight Becomes You was a wartime inspired ballad published in 1942. This particularsong echoes the heartfelt sentiment of the possibility of lovers reuniting.

Don’t Cry For Me Argentina from the genius of Andrew Lloyd Webber was written for the resoundingly successful musical Evita. and has continued as a regular showstopper.

Largo Ma Non Troppo comes from J S Bach’s Concerto in D Minor for two violins and string orchestra composed we think around 1730. Thanks above all to its inspired and melodious middle movement heard here, the Concerto is one of Bach’s most highly rated works.

When I fall in Love is perhaps Nat King Cole’s greatest hit number enjoying a much deserved popularity with its serene prose and remarkably sensitive orchestral backing ensuring that love may indeed ‘be for ever’. The great Victor Young wrote the music in 1952. Frederic Chopin’s Etude Op 10, No. 3 in E Major, later becoming popularly known with the addition of words as How Deep is the Night, is one of the perfect examples showing Chopin as the lyrical poet of the piano. Born near Warsaw in 1810 Chopin died in 1849 at the young age of thirty-nine. However during his relatively short life as a composer he created many epic piano pieces, expressing through them thoughts and feelings that had not previously found expression in music. The middle section in this arrangement by Martin is handed wholly over to the piano showing the intensely heroic nature of Chopin’s piano music.

Lady in Red with words and music by Chris De Burgh is a good example of the ‘one great hit’ syndrome defining the singer’s place in popular music.

I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s hit musical South Pacific is our ‘joker’ piece lasting around one minute! Phillip recalls seeing the wonderful Cinemascope film version of the show in 1958 at one of Southport’s many cinemas in well known Lords Street.

Vienna, City of my Dreams is a favourite song from the capital city of operetta. ‘My heart and mind forever delight in Vienna alone, in Vienna as it weeps, as it laughs. There I am at ease, there I feel truly at home by day, and still more, by night.’ Rudolf Sieczynsky wrote the music for this endearing song which has more than a touch of empathy with waltzes of the Strauss dynasty.

On Wings of Song, one of Felix Mendelssohn’s popular songs with German prose, was written in 1834. During his early twenties he undertook a grand world tour becoming a great favourite in Britain. He wrote important works in all forms except opera. He was one of the first to write independent concert-overtures and his ‘Fingal’s Cave’ is a perfect example both of that type and the romantic temper in music. We think the romanticism is very evident in this particular piece and in this arrangement we hear at the start and end the distinctively happy song of soaring skylarks!

Lullaby of Birdland written by the blind pianist and composer George Shearing displays his flair for writing pieces with a naturally built in jazz rhythm. The words by George David Weiss seem to have the perfect affinity for Shearing’s melody :- ‘Have you ever heard two turtle doves bill and coo when they love? That’s the kind of magic music we make with our lips when we kiss!’

Maple Leaf Rag is one of a series of ragtime pieces by the renowned pianist Scott Joplin 1868 – 1917. Pianola rolls of these catchy numbers were ‘cut’ by Joplin himself before phonograph rolls and gramophone records were more widely available.

Uptown Girl is very much the lively hit standard from the 1980’s with words and music from Billy Joel.

Fascinating Rhythm by George and Ira Gershwin bring the clarinet and violin together in a lively dance rhythm. The piece was written by George and Ira as a result of their collaboration for the 1924 musical ‘Lady be Good’. In 1999 ASCAP – the American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers voted Misty in at the top twenty five published love songs from the twentieth century. Errol Garner wrote many songs but this particular one has certainly stood the test of time.

Camille Saint-Saëns’s The Swan comes from his celebrated ‘Carnival of the Animals’. Originally scored for solo cello and piano, we hear now a transcription for solo violin, piano and orchestra.

Revised 12.04.06