Anderson: Orchestral Works, Vol. 3

Leroy Anderson etched out his own unique place in American music - a composer rigorously trained in the classic tradition whose records topped the pop charts, a meticulous arranger of music whose own melodies were crafted with inventive precision. Here, in the first complete cycle of Anderson's orchestral music, the Anderson family has made available several pieces that the composer did not release, with some first recordings scattered among the familiar and not-so-familiar titles. Volume Three includes the notorious musical gem The Typewriter in which the machine is transformed into a relentlessly busy percussion instrument, the tasteful and soul-satisfying Suite of Carols for Brass Choir and Anderson's biggest hit, Sleigh Ride. Album Description

Leroy Anderson, America's Iconic Light Music Composer

In the wake of two lauded earlier volumes of Leonard Slatkin's recordings of orchestral music by Leroy Anderson comes this volume containing such favorites as 'Plink, Plank, Plunk', 'Sleigh Ride', 'The Typewriter', 'The Syncopated Clock' and 'A Trumpeter's Lullaby'. Of the three volumes this is the one with the largest number of the best-known pieces and it is, of course, self-recommending. And, as in the earlier volumes, Slatkin and the BBC Concert Orchestra, supply the music with all the light-heartedness, élan and suavity one could wish for.

Lovely as the well-known pieces are, for me the best parts of the CD are those less familiar but equally attractive pieces, the ones that many of us have never heard before. 'Serenata' is drenched in Spanish atmosphere and features two marvelous tunes. 'Mother's Whistler' (pun intended) is an early piece that Anderson withdrew but it was found in the library of the Boston Pops and saw the light again years later; it features an insouciant whistling tune in the high violins. 'The Phantom Regiment' features muted trumpets and depicts a ghostly troop of marching onto the scene and then off again. 'Sandpaper Ballet' requires the percussion section to use three grades of sandpaper to imitate the rhythms of a soft-shoe routine.

Anderson's take on 'Old MacDonald Had a Farm' is laugh-out-loud funny with its imitations of barnyard sounds. And his arrangement of Meredith Willson's 'Seventy-Six Trombones' cleverly mixes Willson's tune with some of the familiar marches of John Philip Sousa. And then Anderson wrote an endearing arrangement of 'Wintergreen for President', from George Gershwin's 'Of Thee I Sing'. Altogether more staid, but equally attractive, is the longest piece on the CD, Anderson's 'Suite of Carols for Brass Choir'.

No doubt about it, this is a CD to lift one's spirits and set one's toe tapping. Anderson is indeed an American musical treasure and his music is always welcome, particularly in such fine performances by Slatkin and his orchestra.

Heartily recommended.

Scott Morrison August 14, 2008

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