The Cascading Strings – Golden Memories

Most of us have a soft spot for one particular song — a song which brings back all those precious memories we can never recapture often enough. This album aims to do just this —bring back a few of your treasured and Golden Memories —and we hope that Your Song is one of those featured here by THE CASCADING STRINGS, conducted by GREGORY. This record includes a wide selection of some of the world’s most popular ‘Standards’, embracing several decades, but actually begins with a new song — the song which has given its title to the album — ‘GOLDEN MEMORIES’. Composed especially with this record in mind by their Conductor JOHN GREGORY, THE CASCADING STRINGS play this beautiful melody as if it is an ‘Evergreen’ they have long known, and indeed, as with many of the world’s most popular songs, it is the kind of melody you hear for the first time, and yet feel you have known it a lifteime.

Apart from conducting the orchestra, GREGORY arranges and orchestrates all the music himself, and over the past years, has developed a style of arranging which he calls ‘Panoramic Sound Pictures’. On the previous LP entitled ‘THE CASCADING STRINGS’ (6308 016) the track which best portrays this idea is his arrangement of ‘Raindrops Keep falling on my Head’.

On this record however, the best example of a GREGORY Sound Picture’, is the track which opens side two — Charles Trenet’s famous ‘LA MER’. He begins this quietly, depecting the sea’s tranquil yet mysterious quality. Gradually the sounds ‘swells’ as first a little wave, and then a larger one, approaches the seashore, gathers speed, tumbling over itself, and then crashes down on to golden sands, spreading out like a fan, and then receding, dragging with it the shingle from the water’s edge. The warmth and depth of the melody bring us back to the serenity and calmness of the sea, but in the background, behind the piano solo, one can still hear the little wavelets (on violins), dancing and breaking over the rocks, sparkling like diamonds in the glittering sunshine.

‘NIGHT AND DAY’ is another lovely arrangement, done in a modern style. As THE CASCADING STRINGS play this number, it is easy to picture yourself on some balcony at night, with the moon highlighting the features of your loved-one beside you, and as the ‘cellos play the melody, you will hear in the background (on violins) the rustling of the leaves on the trees overhead, as the gentle breeze fills the evening air with the scent of flowers.

‘JUST AN OLD FASHIONED WALTZ’ begins gently, almost shyly, like young love, but gradually, we are transported as though in a dream, to an elegant ballroom setting, where we see a young girl in a beautiful long gown, which billows gracefully as she is being swung gently round the dance floor by her partner.

The song that was featured in the Columbia picture ‘Cover Girl’ starring Rita Hayworth — ‘LONG AGO AND FAR AWAY’ — has been given an unusual rhythmic pattern, and the opening to ‘MOONLIGHT AND ROSES’, which closes the album, is almost symphonic in its approach. Apart from this, what more remains to be said about such famous songs as Rodgers’ and Hammerstein’s ‘SOME ENCHANTED EVENING’ and ‘THE SOUND OF MUSIC’, or Charles Chaplin’s recent ‘THIS IS MY SONG’, that hasn’t been said so many times before. The same might be said of ‘LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDOURED THING’, ‘STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT’ or the ever-popular ‘ANNIVERSARY WALTZ’. On this album, GREGORY has given them all beautiful, warm and melodic treatments, which truly show THE CASCADING STRINGS off to their fullest advantage. We are sure you will enjoy listening to this record as much as we enjoyed making it for you, and if Your Song was not one of those featured here, then perhaps it will be on our next volume of GOLDEN MEMORIES.

Beverley Campion