the music

Before Late Romantic orchestral trends of length and scope separated the trajectory of lighter orchestral works from the Western Classical canon, classical composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart or Joseph Haydn won as much fame for writing lighter pieces such as Eine Kleine Nachtmusik as for their symphonies and operas. Later examples of early European light music include the operettas of composers such as Franz von Suppé or Sir Arthur Sullivan; the Continental salon and parlour music genres; and the waltzes and marches of Johann Strauss II and his family. The Straussian waltz became a common light music composition (note for example Charles Ancliffe's "Nights of Gladness" or Felix Godin's "Valse Septembre"). These influenced the foundation of a "lighter" tradition of classical music in the 19th and early 20th centuries...from the likes of Binge and Coates to Farnon.

Herman Finck (November 4, 1872 – April 21, 1939) was a British composer and conductor of Dutch extraction.

Born Hermann Van Der Vinck in London, he began his studies training at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and established a career as the musical director at the Palace Theatre in London (from 1900 until 1920), with whose orchestra he made many virtuoso recordings. During these decades, he was also a principal conductor at the Queen's Theatre, at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and at Southport. Finck was a prolific composer throughout the 1910s and 1920s. He composed around thirty theatre shows of most types - operettas (such as Decameron Nights), ballets (like My Lady Dragon Fly), incidental music, revues (annual revues Round the Map and The Passing Show were especially popular), plus songs, "mood music" for the silent cinema and many light orchestral pieces - suites such as Vive La Danse and Marie Antoinette, marches such as Pageant March, Guards Parade March, Splendour and Victory and the individual genre movements Dancing Daffodils, Dignity and Impudence, Land of Roses, Penguin Parade and Queen of the Flowers. Finck also conducted the first record album ever made (in 1909) of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. WIKIPEDIA

 VIDEO: Musical tribute to the composer Herman Finck, who was all the rage in London in the early 1900's. The music comes from the Divine Art / Diversions 2012 CD The Finck Album, performed by Mart Sander and his Bel-Etage theatre orchestra and principals. Recorded in Tallinn, Estonia, in 2010 and 2011.

 

 VIDEO: Orchester des PALACE THEATRE, London, Dirigent HERMAN FINCK MELODIOUS MEMORIES Nos. 1 -- 6 Großes Potpourri von Herman Finck Odeon (10 3/4 inch / 27,5 cm) Nummern 66211, 66185, 66224, 66212, 66223, 66225; Matritzen Lx 2464, Lx 2465, Lx 2466, Lx 2467, Lx 2463, Lx 2468 London, 1907 I: Soldiers in the park / A Runaway Girl - Monckton The Torpedo and the Whale / Olivette - Alexander 'A frangesa - Costa An der schönen blauen Donau - Strauß Intermezzo / Cavalleria rusticana - Mascagni ... Vieni sul mar (resp. "Two lovely black eyes") Lied der Musetta / La Bohème - Puccini Votre toast, je peux vous le rendre / Carmen - Bizet II: ... Gloire immortelle de nos aïeux / Faust - Gounod Funiculi funicula / Denza ... III: ... Miserere / Il trovatore - Verdi Ouvertüre / Leichte Kavallerie - von Suppé Ouvertüre 1812 / Tschaikowsky Stars and Stripes forever / Sousa La Paloma / Yradier ... Parla-Walzer / Arditi ... Addio / Tosti ... Hochzeitsmarsch / Mendelssohn-Bartholdy ... IV: ... Rienzi-Ouvertüre / Wagner V: ... De Jung mit'n Tüdelband / Wolf ... VI: Prolog Pagliacci / Leoncavallo Nachtigallen-Lied - Der Vogelhändler / Zeller ... Pomp and Circumstance No. 1 - Land of Hope and Glory / Elgar ... Avant de quitter ces lieux - Faust / Gounod ... Barcarole - Les Contes d'Hoffmann / Offenbach Lippen schweigen - Die lustige Witwe / Lehár Teil I und II auch bei EMGColonel unter http://youtu.be/yd3KT0CP9uY, Teil 3 auch bei n78de unter http://youtu.be/WuNGAH1RIT8. Eine weitere Aufnahme mit Jack Hylton bei SchreibenderEngel (http://youtu.be/sfkoroUkxiA).