Halloween 2009, Part 5: Elgar, Satie, Gould, more!

You can't go wrong with today's playlist. Well, not unless you rob a bank to it, or something.

Anyway, Edward (Pomp and Circumstance) Elgar is the first composer we think of when it's time for Halloween background music, right? No? Well, maybe he should be. A few days ago, and for the first time in my life, I listened to the Fairies and Giants movement of his Wand of Youth Suite No. 1 (1908) and... wow. This should be the official theme song for the season.

In a gentler (but just as charming) vein is Erik Satie's Jack in the Box (1899), as orchestrated in 1926 by Darius Milhaud. Then the Hollywood Bowl Orch. with De Falla's Fire Dance (a.k.a. Ritual Dance of Fire) (1915) and Berlioz' magnificent March to the Scaffold from Fantastic Symphony (a.k.a. Symphonie Fantastique). For something written almost 180 years ago, the March is pretty amazingly modern-sounding. These two Hollywood Bowl Orch. tracks come straight from my 1928 Victrola label 78--I think the rips came out nicely.

We end with a 1941 Decca recording of Morton Gould playing his Deserted Ballroom. I ripped this from a muffled-sounding 10-inch LP, and I did what I could to give some illusion of treble.

To the sounds: ZIP FILE NO LONGER AVAILABLE

SLAYLIST

WAND OF YOUTH SUITE NO. 1: FAIRIES AND GIANTS (Elgar)--Howard Mitchell, c. National Symphony Orch. JACK IN THE BOX (Satie; Arr. Milhaud)--Maurice Abravanel, Utah Symphony Orch., 1968. FANTASTIC SYMPHONY--MARCH TO THE SCAFFOLD (Berlioz)--Hollywood Bowl Orch., c. Eugene Goossens, 1928. (From 12" 78) THE FIRE DANCE (De Falla)--Same, 1928. DESERTED BALLROOM (Gould)--Morton Gould, piano, 1941.


Lee