During the last 24 hours I've spent time listening and watching (again) some of this incredible genre: notably the film "High Society", with wonderful music and lyrics by Cole Porter (Richard Rodgers referred to Porter's music as "essentially Jewish" - I think he was onto something there).
Of course, the magnificent orchestrations of Conrad Salinger and Skip Martin, who both worked at the MGM "Freed Unit", really make these little masterpieces more brilliant. (Andre Previn once said of Conrad Salinger, "he could turn a little tune like 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' into 'Daphnis and Chloe'"!! What a recommendation!!) Listening to Salinger's sumptuous and complex arrangements of the tunes in "High Society" must have made Cole Porter very pleased indeed!! I think Porter provided a piano arrangement of his songs and - voila! - look at the results!! Salinger's orchestrations for "Kiss Me Kate", "Gigi" and "The Bandwagon" are equally stunning.
I wouldn't be without this music for anything in the world!! Reading about it is fascinating too. For example, did you know that the Director (for RKO) of the Astaire/Rogers musicals was Mark Sandrich - he studied Physics before going into pictures, and died at the young age of 45!! Pandro Berman, producer, and Hermes Pan, choreographer, both lived to a ripe old age though.
Of course, the magnificent orchestrations of Conrad Salinger and Skip Martin, who both worked at the MGM "Freed Unit", really make these little masterpieces more brilliant. (Andre Previn once said of Conrad Salinger, "he could turn a little tune like 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' into 'Daphnis and Chloe'"!! What a recommendation!!) Listening to Salinger's sumptuous and complex arrangements of the tunes in "High Society" must have made Cole Porter very pleased indeed!! I think Porter provided a piano arrangement of his songs and - voila! - look at the results!! Salinger's orchestrations for "Kiss Me Kate", "Gigi" and "The Bandwagon" are equally stunning.
I wouldn't be without this music for anything in the world!! Reading about it is fascinating too. For example, did you know that the Director (for RKO) of the Astaire/Rogers musicals was Mark Sandrich - he studied Physics before going into pictures, and died at the young age of 45!! Pandro Berman, producer, and Hermes Pan, choreographer, both lived to a ripe old age though.
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