Various Composers - Charles Gerhardt conducts Classic Film Scores

Information

• CD01: Erich Wolfgang Korngold
• CD02: Dimitri Tiomkin
• CD03: Errol Flynn
• CD04: Max Steiner
• CD05: Alfred Newman
• CD06: Humphrey Bogart
• CD07: Bernard Herrmann
• CD08: Franz Waxman
• CD09: Erich Wolfgang Korngold
• CD10: Miklós Rózsa
• CD11: Max Steiner
• CD12: Bette Davis

John Alldis Choir

The Ambrosian Singers

National Philharmonic Orchestra

Charles Gerhardt, conductor

Compilation: 2020

Label: RCA

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Review

It would have been the summer of 1980 when I walked into our local music store in Marylebone High Street in London and heard the film score to The Sea Hawk blazing out of the speakers as I perused the scores I needed for conducting class. I was suddenly unable to concentrate on anything else as the richness of the film score poured over me—I had to get the recording immediately regardless of whatever I’d gone into the shop for. Getting it home, I brandished it proudly to our esteemed publisher with whom I shared a student flat and we sat for hours enjoying the vivid scores that had not seen the light of day for decades. 

After collecting a dozen or so of these recordings, I became familiar with the name of conductor and producer Charles Gerhardt and the powerful playing of the National Philharmonic Orchestra, the London pickup band who played on all the recordings. I began to search for other recordings with the same combination. 

Charles Gerhardt was born in Arkansas in 1927 and trained at Juilliard as well as University College, London. He began his career in the technical department at RCA Records. In his role as producer, he created easy listening releases as well as supervising the first tape transfers of Schnabel’s piano recordings and the early development of stereo sound, which led to the spectacular recordings of Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony in the mid 1950s. 

Gerhardt’s keen interest in conducting and recording was encouraged by Toscanini (he worked as assistant to Toscanini) and when Readers Digest were looking for a producer to assist the the legendary Decca engineer Kenneth Wilkinson, Gerhardt came to London in early 1961 and was responsible for many classic albums, including the Beethoven Symphony cycle conducted by René Leibowitz, selling over a million copies. It is considered one of the great sleeper cycles of the era which is now available on Bibendum Records together with many other classic and popular classics recorded by the same team.

Gerhardt and the British violinist Sidney Sax formed the National Philharmonic Orchestra (1970) in order to always have a high quality band available to record at any time—it became well known for having most of the first chair principals of the London orchestras in its ranks plus all the concertmasters in the fiddles and every leading session player in the country.

This gave RCA a finely tuned ensemble to work with and culminated with Gerhardt producing the last recordings of Stokowski with the orchestra in the mid 1970s when the maestro was in his ‘90s.

Gerhardt’s lasting tribute will be his recordings of classic Hollywood film scores which he sourced and arranged and together with the National Philharmonic and the Ambrosian Singers and John Alldis Choir and brought vividly to life in a series of recordings spanning the 1970s.

These magnificent artistic documents are now available in a 12 CD RCA box set for the budget price of less than $35 (almost 10 hours of music). They are available to be streamed in their original single CD form on Apple Music but the complete RCA box can be found on Qobuz if you’re streaming inclined. Personally, I would order the new box set, surely to be OOP soon. Ownership of this piece of history is always a good thing rather than a streaming ‘lease’.  

On these recordings, you will find the pinnacle of performance and production. The National Phil plays brilliantly both in ensemble and in the wonderful character of the orchestral solos. All the great film composers from the ‘30s and ‘40s are here. You’ll discover scores by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Max Steiner, Franz Waxman, Miklos Rosza and Bernard Herrmann, among others. 

While I love much of the music from all the composers enshrined, I’d direct you to taste a few Korngold morsels to set the tone. Korngold was an émigré from Nazi Germany, a child genius composer who made a considerable name for himself in pre war Europe composing classical works, including symphonies, concertos and operas, many of which have become standard repertoire. As he needed work in his adopted home of Los Angeles, he began writing film scores. And it is scores for such films as Captain Blood, Between Two Worlds, Kings Row, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex and The Adventures of Robin Hood which cemented Korngold as the greatest of film composers. The stunning opening themes of Kings Row and Elizebeth and Essex alone are enough to always ensure top billing. And to spot the main Germanic influences of Wagner and Strauss, listen to ‘Mother and Son’ from Between Two Worlds. The two Richards could not have done better. Absolutely gorgeous. And be sure to listen for Sax’ beautiful violin solos. 

Other film music geniuses such as Max Steiner and Bernard Herrmann are well represented. Gerhardt had the best taste. Much of Hermann’s most important work (Hitchcock) can be found elsewhere, but still great repertoire, here, including Citizen Kane. As for the great Steiner, sample his brilliant scores for Casablanca and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. As the days and weeks go by, you’ll experience the wonderful scores by Los Angeles film royalty such as Franz Waxman, Dmitri Tiomkin and Alfred Newman. 

The recordings are classic Gerhardt studio sound; warm, detailed and completely analogue. The recordings also were produced under the guiding hand of Korngold’s son, George. Gerhardt’s later forays with the same orchestra on Varèse Sarabande, Kings Row full score especially, are digital and have an extra bloom and power these recordings lack. But, they are still wonderful to listen to and very atmospheric. Because this is a ‘budget’ release, there are no special notes or commemorative booklets. And the recordings are ‘as is’—no remastering. 

I’ve owned individual recordings from the set on cassette, vinyl and CD, and all sound wonderful—even the Dolby-less hiss on the original ‘70s cassette could not ruin the magic of the music and playing. 

These performances also brought out some fascinating stories surrounding some of these scores. For instance it was not so well known that many Hollywood stars did have some musical training and actors such a Claude Rains and Fred Astaire could play the piano to a good standard and did their own stunt playing when needed. The most interesting story I think is the film Deception in which Paul Henreid has to play a cello concerto for several minutes and his hands were replaced with the arms and hands of Eleanor Aller who was the cellist in the Hollywood String Quartet and the mother of the well known American conductor Leonard Slatkin. Slatkin’s father, Felix, was first violinist of the Hollywood Quartet and led many of the original recording sessions of the films scores at Warner Brothers during the ‘30s and ‘40s when the scores were conducted by the composers themselves.

Gerhardt retired to California in 1991 and died of the complications of a brain tumour in 1999. Sid Sax continued to lead the National Philharmonic until his death. My own recollections of both these wonderful men was a rehearsal of Tosca with the National Phil in 1990 when I banged my head getting down into the pit and nearly fell into Sid’s lap. He caught me with a smile and a quip, ‘you won’t last long if you do that very often!’.

-- James Norris, Audiophilia

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Charles Gerhardt (February 6, 1927 – February 22, 1999) was an American conductor and record producer. He studied music and engineering at several colleges, but his formal education was interrupted by World War II. Gerhardt began to produce records for RCA Victor and Reader's Digest in 1960, and in 1964, together with violinist Sidney Sax, he formed the National Philharmonic Orchestra for use in his recording sessions. Gerhardt himself conducted the orchestra in standard repertory, contemporary works, and film score music. His Classic Film Scores series for RCA, issued 1972–1978, were particularly successful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Gerhardt_(conductor)

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