My guess is they could have given us more film music by each composer and filled in the albums with concert works to make two more complete albums and that would have been just fine. Of course, then these albums would have had to be called "Film and Concert Music of..." Also, the album says that Chandos got support from the Berners Trust. Did they impose the Lambert on a Berners album? Maybe I should be thankful. Then again, I'm not interested in Chandos' marketing worries. Just give me the music I want to hear and I'll pay for it. [Should I call them cheapskates?] I would have bought two separate albums with more music from Anna Karenina (1948) and The Halfway House (1944) on them.

While all the works on the album are enjoyable, from Berners' bawdy music hall tune "Come on Algernon" to his choral finale to The Halfway House, the key work on the album is Lambert's score to Anna Karenina.

Before I go on, I have to say that I really love the music of Constant Lambert. His Elegiac Blues is worthy of standing beside Gershwin, his Concerto for Piano & 9 Instruments tops Gershwin and Ravel in audacity, and his ballets (especially Horoscope) are charming.

Lambert only scored two films, the war documentary, Merchant Seamen (1940), and Anna Karenina. He appears in and conducts works by other composers in a third film, Battle for Music (1944).

The Chandos album contains the suite from Merchant Seamen that Lambert extracted from the score for concert performance. This same suite was recorded not that long ago for another Lambert album:

http://www.amazon.com/Lambert-Piano-Concerto-Constant/dp /B00002EPN8/ref=pd_bbs_6?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1213874842&sr=8-6

When Rumon Gamba initially showed up conducting film music, I wasn't impressed. But now that he's done a number of albums for Chandos, he's gotten his feet wet and the last couple have been really solid. I think Gamba's version of Merchant Seamen tops the one mentioned above.

As for Anna Karenina, there are only two other performances of the music that one can compare Gamba's version to: the version on the film's soundtrack and a suite conducted by Bernard Herrmann for one of his very last albums, Bernard Herrmann Conducts Great British Film Music.

As I've written here before, Herrmann's penchant for slowing down the tempi of the film music he recorded has its pros and cons. Among the pros are an emphasis on the power and strength of the sound over its mere speed and the addition of a few extra seconds which allow the listener to analyze the music rather than just be excited by it.

One piece in the Herrmann-conducted set of 4 cues from Anna Karenina, the film's main title, may be one of the finest versions of music that he ever conducted, helped along by the ever-wonderful Phase IV engineering that seems to catch every instrument. Herrmann's main title doesn't quite match up with how Lambert conducted his version in the film but it brings out everything brilliant in the piece.

What is interesting about Gamba's version of the score in comparison with Herrmann's is that Gamba's versions aren't that much quicker. Has Gamba slowed down the tempi too or was Herrmann just not as slow as I thought? I looked for my copy of Anna Karenina so I could listen to the score and answer those questions but I couldn't locate it. So, I'm talking here from memory. For the record, there is about 40-45 minutes of music in the film and Gamba's suite of music on the Chandos album runs just over 30 minutes.

Gamba's version of the main title and opening scene are good and they come closer to Lambert's original and Gamba catches the humor and mocking tone of the opening scene music especially in the woodwinds. Gamba's version of the main title and Herrmann's couldn't be more different, however. Herrmann emphasizes every cymbal crash while they can barely be heard in Gamba's version.

As for everything else, Gamba seems on the mark. He does a first class Forlana and he gets the creepy tremolos that signify death just right too. I seem to recall the love scene doing something slightly different in the film than in either Herrmann or Gamba's version but it may just be my imagination. As for the cues that Gamba's suite adds that Herrmann's dropped, they are mostly low key cues that resemble Lambert's ballet interludes. For whatever reasons, Gamba's version cuts these snarling muted horns Lambert composed to show a mother fighting with her children in the last scene of the film that I always liked and an earlier more animated cue that brings back some of the main title motif I remember liking as well. [Anna meets her husband, rides in a carriage, then meets her own kids? I can't remember now where it comes in.]

In any case, he did a great job of both Merchant Seamen and Anna Karenina and it's nice to have more music from Anna even if Chandos didn't record the complete score. [On second thought, there were only a few more cues, they could have recorded it all. I'll still shake my finger at them.]

As a last note, since we are talking about slower tempi, Gamba's version of the Nicholas Nickleby suite runs 1:30 longer than a 40s recording of the same suite runs. But I guess I'll excuse Gamba since he gets the bells in the finale right.

In regards to Anna Karenina, the performance of the Finale in Herrmann's recording is a bit tighter, but other than that I love this take on the music. The disparity between the two performances of the "Main Title," even though the tempos are virtually identical, is rather amazing. Herrmann's almost sounds militaristic in places (helped by the engineering) while Gumba's is more tragic. I love both!

I haven't yet warmed up to the Lord Berners stuff, but the Lambert tracks clock in at 41 minutes so that's pretty good right there. I definitely need to explore some of Lambert's non-film music works.

So the two Main Titles clock in at the same time? Amazing. The Herrmann feels slower doesn't it? Oddly, I'm not sure Gamba's is the most tragic. When that melodramatic main theme kicks in in the Herrmann version I can feel the sadness in it as well despite all the orchestral flourishes surrounding it. In the Herrmann version someone moves a chair or plays a note just towards the end that isn't in the Gamba version. Then on the Gamba version (of later cues) you can hear chairs creaking and sheet music turning. I guess you can't win.

I must admit I much prefer Lambert to Berners but there are a couple of Berners pieces that are solid. There is an EMI album with his ballet The Triumph of Neptune which also has yet another version of that published Nicholas Nickelby suite (I wonder if that's all that has survived). You might be interested in hearing this. Unfortunately the suite will play an idea for a minute stop in mid-note and switch to something else. It doesn't give you much time to appreciate the score. I didn't mind the two ditties from Champagne Charlie but they are minor and not really what we look for in film music. The Halfway House music is the work I'm trying to warm up to. I've never seen the film. I love Ealing and Dearden so even if the film isn't good I'd be interested in seeing it. I liked the seance, drowning, and finale music all on the first play though. And yet, there is something conventional? perfunctory? dull? about the thing.