My Fair Lady (Original Broadway Cast 1956) / Brigadoon (excerpts)

My Fair Lady (Original Broadway Cast 1956) / Brigadoon (excerpts) cover $25.00 Out of Stock
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LERNER & LOWE
My Fair Lady (Original Broadway Cast 1956) / Brigadoon (excerpts)
Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews, Stanley Holloway,Robert Coote & others

[ Naxos Nostalgia Musicals / CD ]

Release Date: Monday 2 June 2008

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Alan Jay Lerner had eight wives; Frederick Loewe had almost as many yachts. Together they wrote some of the most glorious musicals of the 20th century. One would have thought that the man with the wives was the romantic and the one with the yachts was the realist, but in truth, it worked the other way around.

Loewe, whose personal affairs were always kept shadowy at best, was the one who provided the rich, emotional music that allowed their shows to sail off to Nirvana, while Lerner, the one who seemed to keep Cupid in his vest pocket, wrote the tart, worldly lyrics that made their songs such a perfect match.

Lerner grew up in a world of Eastern American wealth and privilege, with a philandering father who used to pretend he was at the boxing matches when he was visiting his mistress. One morning, Lerner's mother asked who won the match. Lerner Sr guessed wrong and moved out that day.

Loewe, on the other hand came from a background of music, both highbrow symphonic and lowbrow coffee house. He embraced it all and loved it all.

Perhaps nowhere did the cultural marriage of these two odd men out come to such perfect fruition as in My Fair Lady, their 1956 musical which still stands as the perfect piece of musical theatre composition.

The amazing thing was how close it came to not happening, and how hairpin-sharp were the turnings of fate that allowed it to continue. Shortly after George Bernard Shaw died in 1950, Hungarian impresario Gabriel Pascal, who had acquired the film and theatre rights to many of the bearded genius's works, started trying to generate a stage musical version of My Fair Lady.
Rodgers and Hammerstein laboured long and hard, only to finally throw in the towel, but when Lerner and Loewe picked up the torch, they found it scorching their fingers as well. Three songs they auditioned for Mary Martin caused her to lament that 'the poor boys have lost their talent' and they were about to give the whole project up when Lerner suddenly came up with a brilliant solution for musicalizing Shaw's work. 'I realized,' said Lerner, 'that all I had to do was write the things that Shaw said were happening offstage.'

From that moment on, the writing flowed swimmingly, but it was still no cakewalk to get the show onto the stage. In perhaps the smartest move anyone ever made, they hired Moss Hart as the director, one of the few men who could move equally between West End elegance and Broadway glitz.

"Naxos has gone back to the vaults to find another gem to shine up and release.

Few are unfamiliar with this musical. The original release of the 1956 Broadway cast recordings reached #1 on the Billboard album charts. At the time the musical set the record for the longest continuous run on Broadway and achieved more than 2000 performances in the West End. The film adaptation eventually won 7 Academy Awards in 1964. The original cast included Rex Harrison, Stanley Holloway, and Robert Coote in addition to Julie Andrews in her first major role.

The story is famously an adaptation of Pygmalion, and concerns the transformation of the young and pretty Cockney Eliza Doolittle from a common flower girl to a woman capable of passing in upper class society. Many of the songs, such as I Could Have Danced All Night, On the Street Where You Live, and Wouldn't It Be Loverly have become standards. The remainder are equally outstanding. What's more is that the original cast seems to have been perfectly assembled. Listening to this recording makes it obvious why this was such a brilliantly successful musical.

The original recordings have been cleaned up to pristine condition. There is little background noise and the fidelity is as good as the 1950s recording equipment would produce. Generally speaking this entire disc is as good as a vintage recording can be.

The bonus material is different from the cast recordings that front the CD, but also quite good. Songs written by Lerner and Lowe for The Day Before Spring and Brigadoon are given an easy listening light jazz treatment. Kaye Ballard competently handles the bulk of the vocals, but the lyricist himself, Alan Jay Lerner, sings There But For You Go I. The performances are given a straight-ahead jazz treatment that would not be out of character for Chet Baker.

Anyone who does not already have an earlier copy of these recordings should definitely consider purchasing this album. As a Golden Age Broadway musical recording this is as good as it gets." (MusicWeb)

Tracks:

My Fair Lady
1. Overture 00:03:01
2. Why Can't The English (Higgins, Pickering, Eliza) 00:02:41
3. Wouldn't It Be Lovely (Eliza, Cockneys) 00:03:58
4. With A Little Bit Of Luck (Doolittle, Harry, James, Chorus) 00:04:08
5. I'm An Ordinary Man (Higgins) 00:04:39
6. Just You Wait (Eliza) 00:02:43
7. The Rain In Spain (Higgins, Eliza, Pickering, Servants) 00:02:41
8. I Could Have Danced All Night (Eliza, Mrs. Pearce, Maids) 00:03:30
9. Ascot Gavotte (Ensemble) 00:03:15
10. On The Street Where You Live (Freddy) 00:02:57
11. You Did It (Higgins, Pickering, Mrs. Pearce, Servants) 00:04:23
12. Show Me (Eliza, Freddy) 00:02:12
13. Get Me To The Church On Time (Doolittle, Harry, James, Chorus) 00:02:43
14. A Hymn To Him (Higgins) 00:03:30
15. Without You (Eliza) 00:02:03
16. I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face (Higgins) 00:04:04
17. Finale 00:01:10
18. My Fair Lady: The Embassy Waltz 00:02:44

19. The Day Before Spring: A Jug Of Wine 00:04:00

Brigadoon (excerpts)
20. Almost Like Being In Love 00:01:54
21. The Heather On The Hill 00:03:07
22. There But For You Go I 00:02:20
23. Love Of My Life 00:03:15