1950s

Most of the explorers of the time of Columbus went back to report only wide stretches of virgin territory thinly peopled with aboriginal tribes. But when Hernan Cortes landed in what is now called Mexico he found not just a hunting ground but a whole empire. The Aztec Empire that he discovered and later conquered had been, at the height of its civilisation, comparable in its scope and influence to that of ancient Egypt. Here had been a highly developed social system, a busy net of commerce, a system of agriculture based on careful observation of nature, a highly refined religion involving worship of the sun and moon. This civilisation, founded about a hundred years before the Christian era, was one of the earliest on the American continent. Even before that time the Mexican Indian tribe of the Toltecs had constructed the massive temples which are still to be seen today at Teotihuacan. No primitive structures these, but fine examples of architecture carrying about them the aura of an age long past amidst a country still not vastly changed by time. Adorning the buildings are sculptures of the kind that we should call gargoyles, each one finished exquisitely in lines that the artist of today would have good reason to envy.

Within two years Cortes had executed the last of the Aztec emperors and had inaugurated a period of Spanish rule that was to last for three centuries until the establishment of Mexico’s independence. The Spaniards took much from this land that they named New Spain; yet they also brought much froth their own country. Spanish forces sweeping out from Mexico City destroyed the sumptuous and spacious palaces of Tenochtitlan and were later to make encroachments well into the States that are now.Louisiana and Florida. Great quantities of Mexican gold and silver were brought back to Europe and some samples of the riches of the New World are still to be seen in Toledo cathedral. But into Mexico the Spaniards took a civilisation of their own which is still the predominating influence. In Mexico today are to be seen the patios and overhanging balconies which might have been lifted bodily from Europe. Here too are cathedrals and churches with the Moorish influence carried over the sea far away from the land of its origin. For the tourist there is also the attraction of the bullfight where all the highest traditions of the old world are maintained.

To dine in Mexico, then, with all its romantic associations, is to partake of fire and sunlight and the music which should accompany such a meal must be as exotic and as highly spiced as the food. In presenting this record Arturo Ramirez has been able to pick and choose amongst the rich repertoire of the different regions, each of which can boast its own individual style. There are songs and dances of the coast and of the mountains, refrains of the villages through which pass the traditional mariachis, a sort of wandering minstrel who travels on foot to find a welcome wherever there is a wedding.

Arturo Ramirez has found here as much of a place for the popular songs of today as for the folk songs of yesteryear. Cielito lindo is a waltz which by now is as well known in every capital of Europe as it is in the smallest villages of its home country. Guadalajara, an old country dance, takes its name from a town built at the foot of the Sierra Nayarit which has now grown into the second biggest city of Mexico.

The many influences that have gone into the making of Mexico are to be found also in its music. These are not overlaid, as one civilisation is upon another, but constantly interacting and blending together to form a new and original combination. The waltz La zandunga shows what can happen once a popular style of dance is imported from Europe. Though it follows the rules of rhythm, it injects a spirit of its own, capturing extremes both of vivacity and of grace. The Danzas calabaceadas on the other hand is an example of a native product of such animation as to adapt itself well to the excitement of a bullfight. At the same time the slow waltz Dos arbolitos is marked with that slight hesitation of step and the light dignity of movement which one has learned to admire in Spain where there is to be found the best ballroom dancing in the world. Something indeed has been added to the waltz since it left Vienna but, in return for anything that has been borrowed, Mexico has its own contribution to make to the world of music. In such numbers as Amor, amor and La bamba we hear examples of a rhythm which could have emanated from no other country and which can never be imitated successfully.

So, before we put on the record, let us be sure that we are in the right mood. Dinner in Mexico is not a hasty meal that one snatches before going to the theatre. It happens late and, starting at leisure, it proceeds with infinite variety far into the night. Soon tongues are loosened and reminiscences are brought forth until, with the stars picked out in the black sky, no man need be ashamed to reveal even his most cherished dreams.

This album began in a bar at the corner of Third Avenue and 30th Street after the last session for the Porgy and Bess (CL 1298) album. Percy, with Harold Chapman, the Columbia engineer who has developed the remarkable sound the Faith orchestra has on records, and a dozen members of the orchestra, who hoped to prolong this latest reunion an hour longer, were having a nightcap together before going home. With the excitement of Percy’s Gershwin arrangements still upon us, we discussed what to most of us was the essence of Percy’s orchestral writing, his “string sound.” And we decided that night that the next album would be orchestrated for strings alone to show off the remarkable interplay which takes place among the strings in all Faith arrangements.

“Not even a flute?” asked Percy’s flutist dejectedly. “Come on,” Percy told him. “I’ll drive you home. Next time maybe all flutes.”

Bouquet, then, is Percy’s first album by his large string orchestra, and he has written it with loving care. The title song is his own, but there is so much composition in a Faith arrangement that even the great songs by other composers included here seem to belong to Percy. This is a result of many things that go into one of his arrangements. First, there is a style that has come to be identified with Percy. You’ll recognize parts of it in the descending string figures in Tenderly and the rising sweep of The Song from Moulin Rouge. Then, there are the counter-melodies Percy writes to compliment the original melody of each song. They are always present, but listen particularly to Laura or Solitude or Fascination for fine examples. Also, the continuous movement of string sections is a Faith trademark, perfected in this album by dividing the orchestra into four major sections of two banks of violins, one section of low strings, and one section of piano, harp, guitar and vibraphone. The violin sections are, in turn, divided into two parts, and melodies seem to grow continuously across the orchestra. The contrast of ensemble and soloist is another Faith characteristic, and solos by George Ockner in Laura and Intermezzo provide another color. Finally, and, perhaps, most important-to an analysis of Percy Faith’s unique musical sound is the natural flow of his writing. Musicians like to play his arrangements because the writing is logical, the line always sustained. “They almost play themselves,” is a remark I’ve heard many times from people who have played his arrangements. You who listen know this feeling well. It is the reason you are listening again to Faith.

Little need be said about the songs. You know them all, except for Bouquet, which you will like to know. They are the greatest of all popular songs for this kind of album, and they fit together like parts of a suite for strings.

The orchestra for this album consists of thirty-two violins, eight cellos, six violas, two basses, and harp, piano, guitar and vibraphone. The forty-eight string players, led by Georgern Ockner, Percy’s concertmaster, are some of the finest performers in music, men whose skill has made them the highest paid, most respected instrumentalists in America. Even their instruments would cost a king’s treasure to buy, for in this orchestra are seven Stradivarius, eight Guarnerius, four Ruggieri and a dozen Gagliano instruments, as well as a sprinkling of such other famous makers’ names as Montagnana, Guadanini, Gaspar di Salo, Beronzi, and Goffriller. Percy conducted with a Scripto pencil costing twenty-nine cents.

During the years in which I have been associated with Percy Faith in the production of his records, I’ve seen and heard his talent displayed in almost every musical circumstance. He has conducted symphonies and variety shows, written for the screen, had his own television and radio shows, com-posed hit songs and flattered countless recording stars with his graceful accompaniments. He is a Canadian with a flair for Latin rhythms, a lover of Gershwin’s music, and a man who has earned his stature in the world by pre-serving and nourishing the finest of all performers, the orchestra. In other words, he is what he likes to be, and while I am certain that he will do much more of importance in music than he has already done, his is the success of an artist who enjoys that rarest of all achievements – universal acclaim for what he likes best to do.

Notes by IRVING TOWNSEND

Ray begins with a lyric presentation of the main theme from Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, using the chorus as part of the orchestral fabric and also employing the piano to state the theme. Moreover, he uses violins extensively as a bow to the classic feeling. In the selection from the Swan Lake ballet, he again keeps a steady dance-floor tempo; the theme itself is the famous basic motif of the ballet, the music of the Swan Queen. Moving next to another famous Russian com-poser, Ray Conniff presents the richly romantic melody from Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, perhaps the composer’s best-known work in that genre. Here again the sound is somewhat different from the customary. Conniff manner, but still unmistakably his, and again the piano is prominent in the arrangement. Returning to Tchaikovsky, he presents another beautiful and familiar fragment, this time from the Fifth Symphony, giving the melody to the wordless choral ensemble. Next comes the theme from the Ray Conniff Suite, an altogether delightful original waltz, featuring massed strings, and the first half of the program concludes with the brilliant love music from Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet (Overture-Fantasia), played in a warmly romantic arrangement.

The second part of the program opens with Ray’s arrangement of the broad, flowing theme from Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, again using the wordless chorus, and continues with the afore-mentioned fin Always Chasing Rainbows, adapted from Chopin’s Fantasie-Impromptu. Here, on this side. Ray reverts to his more familiar style and sound, keeping nevertheless a solid relationship to the larger orchestra used in the first half of the program. Maurice Ravel’s Pavanne for a Dead Princess is heard next, in the famous adaptation called The Lamp Is Low, the Conniff arrangement stressing the mellow qualities of the melody. Then, in a setting of the On the Trail movement from Ferde Grofe’s Grand Canyon Suite, comes a cheerfully humorous interlude, followed by a contrastingly romantic selection, Claude Debussy’s Reverie. Ray has achieved an unusual effect by using the orchestral coloring for the romantic atmosphere, over a catchy shuffle-like rhythm. He concludes his concert in rhythm with Franz Schubert’s Serenade, set in a delightfully rhythmic concept that gives the charming old melody a new twist, typically Conniff and typically enjoyable.