Elgar with Gladys Ripley and George Weldon

Edward Elgar's memorable song cycle Sea Pictures was written for soprano, but it was a contralto, Dame Clara Butt. who persuaded him to transpose it and orchestrate it for her use.

Dame Clara recorded only "Where Corals Lie" from the set, but a latter English contralto, Gladys Ripley, did set down her interpretation of the cycle twice, with the same conductor, George Weldon.

It is those latter recordings that are the basis of today's post, with two additional items - Weldon's recording of Elgar's In the South and Ripley's of Haydn's "Hark! What I Tell to Thee." And on my other blog, we hear from Dame Clara as well - also in Elgar; not the Sea Pictures, rather "Land of Hope and Glory."

The 1946 Recordings

Ad in The Gramophone, July 1946

Gladys Ripley's first recording of Sea Pictures was in August 1945 with the Philharmonia Orchestra and the young conductor Maurice Miles. She went on to record or perhaps re-record "Where Corals Lie" from the cycle with the same forces the following February. That set was not issued. Instead, in May 1946, Ripley and the Philharmonia again assembled in EMI's Abbey Road for a re-do, this time with George Weldon on the podium. He was at the time the conductor of the City of Birmingham Orchestra.

That set was released a few months later to acclaim from The Gramophone's Alec Robertson: "I have, personally, an abiding fondness for Elgar’s Sea Pictures, and it would be difficult to imagine them better sung, played, and recorded, than in this present issue." Ripley and the recording quality came in for special praise:

Miss Ripley has none of the faults traditionally associated with contraltos. She does not hoot, her vowel sounds are pure in quality, her diction clear...

Miss Ripley gives a most moving and dignified interpretation of this picture of a spirit awaiting its beloved companion and the beauty of the orchestral accompaniment is fully realised. Throughout this recording the balance is unusually good and altogether it is an outstanding issue and one that conveys the actuality of a concert performance.

The fill-up (i.e., the sixth side of the 78 set) was given over to Haydn's setting of "The Spirit's Song" (here called "Hark! What I Tell to Thee") in an orchestration by an unknown hand.

LINK to 1946 recordings

The 1954 Recordings

Just eight years later, Ripley and Weldon were back at Abbey Road, this time with the London Symphony Orchestra. By this time Weldon had become the assistant conductor of the Hallé Orchestra to Sir John Barbirolli. I don't know why the remake was considered necessary, but it may have something to do with EMI's transition to long-playing records, which had begun a few years earlier.

The interpretations were very similar and Alec Robertson's reactions in The Gramophone much the same:

I find now that I could repeat that [i.e.,, the 1946] review word for word except that there is now no astringency in the tone of the violins in the first song, or in "Sabbath Morning at Sea." Miss Ripley’s lovely voice is ideal for these songs and, as I said before, she sings them with complete understanding and is free from all the usual contralto vices of hooting and scooping.

Gladys Ripley

Elgar is not always very sensitive in his setting of the words, as such, and indeed makes nonsense of some lines of the first song ("Sea Slumber Song"), but his music gives distinction to some indifferent poetry, the orchestral part is full of imaginative touches, and his vocal line has a fine sweep and singable-ness that seem to have departed from most vocal writing to-day. George Weldon and the L.S.O. provide a sensitive accompaniment, the balance is excellent, and altogether I found these five songs as enjoyable as ever.

George Weldon

My own small reservation is that the performance of "Sabbath Morning at Sea" could have been more urgent, such as in the classic recording by Dame Janet Baker and Barbirolli. 

Side two of the Ripley/Weldon LP is given over to Elgar's In the South, a tone picture of his beloved south Italy. Just as Sea Pictures is criticized for its choice of poetry, In the South is accused of being repetitive. There is truth in both judgments, but both works do make glorious sounds.

Here is Alec Robertson on In the South:

George Weldon’s lively interpretation deserves the praise Elgar gave to a performance by the Hallé Orchestra, "The thing goes with tremendous energy and life": and if the Roman section is not, to us "knocking over", as Elgar described it, the recording is, even though it is a little weak in bass.

Actually, the problem with the recording is in the overall balance - too strong in the highs, too weak in the mid-range and upper bass and too strong in the lower bass, which made the result muddy and a bit strident. I've rebalanced it accordingly.

This transfer is from the US Capitol issue.

LINK to 1954 recordings

Lambert's 'Sleeping Beauty' Recordings, Plus Weldon's 'Faust' Ballet Music

1946 Covent Garden Sleeping Beauty production - the Prologue

My recent post of an LP containing Nicolai Malko's recording of excerpts from Tchaikovsky's score for the Sleeping Beauty ballet set off a lengthy discussion: was it really Malko or did the record company mistakenly include Constant Lambert's 1939 Sadler's Wells recordings?

It turns out it really was Malko. I had always doubted the doubters, mainly because I was familiar with Lambert's Sleeping Beauty recordings, and they were not the same as what RCA had presented as Malko's rendition. So today I come full circle by presenting the Lambert recordings.

The remarkable Lambert, the long-time music director for the Sadler's Wells Ballet, actually made two sets of excerpts from the ballet, one in conjunction with a 1938 staging, and one in 1946. The latter was recorded in association with a new production by Ninette de Valois and Frederick Ashton in the troupe's new Covent Garden home, with costumes by Oliver Messel. As she did in 1938, Margot Fonteyn danced Princess Aurora, with Robert Helpmann as both Prince Florimund and Carabosse.

Margot Fonteyn as Princess Aurora in the Rose Adagio

Margot Fonteyn and Robert Helpmann in the Awakening Scene

Robert Helpmann as Carabosse

Fortunately - and unusually - there is a good visual record of the 1946 staging in the form of color photographs taken by Frank Sharman during performances. The images seen here are from his collection, as made available on the Covent Garden website. Several others are in the download, along with a few black-and-white images taken by Merlyn Severn and published in his book Sadler's Wells Ballet at Covent Garden, a record of the 1946 season.

In the February 1939 session for HMV, Lambert assayed some of the most familiar excerpts from the score - the Introduction, the Waltz, the Rose Adagio, Puss-in-Boots and the White Cat, and the Finale. In 1946, he avoided these items, taking up the Dance of the Maids of Honor and Pages, the Aurora Variation, Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, and a few other dances.

Robert Helpmann and Constant Lambert

Lambert's work is, as usual, beautifully done. Both orchestras are up to the task, although neither has much weight of tone, as far as one can tell from the 70- and 80-year-old recordings, which nonetheless are relatively good for the period. As you might expect, the sound from 1946 is better than from 1939.

The 1939 recordings are taken from lossless needle-drops found on Internet Archive, as refurbished by me. The 1946 excerpts come from an early 50's U.S. Columbia LP in my collection that also included ballet music from Gounod's opera Faust, discussed below.

Weldon Conducts Ballet Music from Gounod's Faust

George Weldon by
Walter Stoneman, 1949

George Weldon (1908-63) was a talented English conductor who was the director of the City of Birmingham Orchestra in 1946, when these recordings were taken down. He was to stay there only until 1950, when he was dismissed or resigned (accounts differ), supposedly because he was having an affair with choir director Ruth Gipps, a very good composer whose music has lately been revived. Orchestras could be strict about such things back then - blog favorite Efrem Kurtz was reportedly shown the stage door by the Houston Symphony because of a liaison with principal flute Elaine Shaffer, later a well-known soloist.

Weldon made quite a number of records for EMI during his brief life - including a semi-complete version of Sleeping Beauty in 1956. I believe he was associated with the Sadler's Wells Ballet at that time, although the recording was with the Philharmonia. Sadler's Wells music director Robert Irving had recorded a competing version of the ballet the year before, which has appeared on this blog. EMI seemed to make the score a specialty - and so does Big 10-Inch Record, it appears.

The premiere of Gounod's Faust had been in 1859; Gounod added the dance music to Act 5 a decade later at the request of the Paris Opera, where ballets were expected as part of the spectacle.

Weldon secures a lively performance from the underpowered Birmingham band, which had been been decimated during the war. The sound - as with the rest of these items - is well-balanced and pleasing without any high-fidelity pretensions.