I was tempted to express surprise that a month and a half have gone by since my previous post. But, given that I teach 16 to 19 year olds, and this was the half term leading up to exams, things have been somewhat hectic.

On Saturday May 8th, we went to see “The Gift of Music: An evening with Julie Andrews” at the O2 arena here in London. It was a wonderful event, with the first half devoted to the music of Rodgers & Hammerstein, and the second half to a musical version of “Simeon’s Gift”, one of the children’s books which Dame Julie has written with her daughter. As Dame Julie acknowledges, at the age of 74, and after a disastrously botched throat operation more than a decade ago, she can no longer sing as she used to. So most of the evening’s songs were performed by a quintet of Broadway stars, including the wonderful Jubilant Sykes (who sang on Marin Alsop’s 2009 Naxos recording of Bernstein’s Mass). Dame Julie introduced parts of songs, sang parts of various songs, and got two songs entirely to herself (though with vocal lines adapted for her reduced range): My Funny Valentine and Cock-eyed optimist. Particularly nice was the sequence from “Cinderella” – as expected she sang the fairy godmother’s part in “Impossible – It’s possible!” There has been much written about disappointed fans wanting their money back, and leaving at the interval. It disappoints me to think that some people went to this performance expecting, presumably, to hear the voice that was immortalised on film more than forty years ago. If you went with your expectations tempered appropriately, then there was such a lot to enjoy. The quality of Dame Julie’s singing, despite the years and the operation is testament to the hard work she has put in to recover sufficient voice to sing as well as she did. There are numerous clips on youtube (just search for “Julie Andrews O2”.)

This hasn’t really been about 78s though. So to get back to the theme, in the run up to this concert I took the opportunity to remaster the various recordings in my collection by Lilian Stiles-Allen, one of the original sixteen singers in Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music, and Dame Julie’s vocal teacher. These will be on my site within the next few days. I also have two of the 78s Julie Andrews recorded as a child, and these will be uploaded soon as well.

Once I’ve sorted out a few issues with uploading to Mediafire, my site update will be completed. This will also include Hamilton Harty’s recordings of Schubert’s Rosamunde music (including both overtures), Henry Wood’s electrical recordings of the Unfinished Symphony, from 1926 and 1933, the English winners of Columbia’s Schubert competition (Merrick’s Two Movements in Symphonic Form, a completion of the Unfinished Symphony, and John St. Anthony Johnson’s Pax Vobiscum) conducted by Stanford Robinson. There’s also a late acoustic orchestral selection from Lilac Time, with Schubert’s music arranged by Clutsam, with George W Byng conducting the Mayfair Orchestra.

www.damians78s.co.uk