Dancing in Vienna
Philharmonic Concert Orchestra/Iain Sutherland
rec. live, c. 1990-1995
Somm Recordings SOMMCD0708 [78]
One of the things I like about MusicWeb International is its contribution over the years to the tradition of light music, not least in things like the access the site still provides to The Philip Scowcroft Collection and other brilliant reviews and resources. I am proud to write a review of a record by the great Iain Sutherland, a legend in the field of light music and an artist who I imagine would have been right up Philip’s street.
Iain Sutherland worked with the now defunct BBC Radio Orchestras in London and Scotland over decades. These orchestras played what we would describe as light or variety programmes. He could often be heard on the wireless with these bands, the last of which disbanded in 1991. In the mid-90s, he made a series of recordings of musicals with the BBC Concert Orchestra: works like My Fair Lady, Follies and Kiss Me, Kate. The record label Somm have been raiding the stock of material in his library for several years now and this latest release is of Viennese music.
As with their other releases of film music and light orchestral classics, the provenance of the recordings is unknown and documentation is sketchy at best. The Philharmonic Concert Orchestra is the name on all Somm’s discs, but the band is different on several discs; indeed, I don’t believe the same musicians play on all the tracks on this record nor was it recorded in the same venue – but it’s the music that counts. As far as I can tell the sources could be the Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR), NDR (Hanover) or even Radio Clyde. One of the film CDs was credited as being made in the NOS-gebouw in Hilversum which suggests the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic was used there. Somm tells us the recordings date from 1990-1995 so we will have to be content with that for now.
The name of the record is Dancing in Vienna, and it is apt. There is a wide range of dance music from several sons of Vienna both native and adopted. We begin with a greeting: Gruß aus Wien, a work dating from 1952 by Robert Stolz. Robert Matthew-Walker, in his useful liner notes, tells us that Iain Sutherland has a treasured note from Stolz’s last wife (he had five in all) in which she complements his Viennese heart and golden arm. Later in the programme we hear an earlier Stolz work, a waltz from the mid-1930s: Wiener-Café.
There are familiar waltzes and polkas aplenty from the usual names. The Strauss family are represented by the three brothers of the second dynasty. Most of the pieces are well known but there are a few rarities like Eduard’s Bahn frei! and Josef’s Feuerfest! (Fireproof!). That last one was written for the Wertheim company of Austria, famous for their fireproof and burglary proof strong safes, of which they had just made their 20,000th example. The company is still in existence.
Brahms who lived in Vienna for the last thirty years of his life is represented by three of his popular Hungarian Dances. The sound quality is a bit ropey in the first, with some distortion in the original material I assume. Some of the performances across the CD are in places a little untidy, too, but I have to agree with the assessment of Einzi Stolz in the final reckoning. Sutherland’s instinct for tempi and rubato feel right and the music always smiles. This is important and I enjoy the recital very much.
The audience makes its presence felt in places with some shuffling and a little coughing, and there is applause after some tracks. This CD will not be for everyone but for lovers of the Viennese tradition and fans of light music, it will be a tonic.
Philip Harrison
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Previous review: Rob Maynard (August 2025)
Contents
Robert Stolz (1880-1975)
Greetings from Vienna, march(1952)
Richard Heuberger (1850-1914)
The opera ball (1898)
Josef Strauss (1827-1870)
Chatterboxes, quick polka (1868)
The dragonfly, polka-mazurka (1866)
Eduard Strauss (1835-1916)
Clear the track!, quick polka (1869)
Johann Strauss II (1825-1899)
Emperor waltz (1889)
Josef Strauss (1827-1870)
Jockey polka (1870)
Johann II Strauss (1825-1899) and Josef Strauss (1827-1870)
Pizzicato polka (1869)
Johann Strauss II (1825-1899)
Long live the Magyar!, quick polka (1869)
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Hungarian dance no. 1 (1869)
Hungarian dance no. 5 (1869)
Hungarian dance no. 6 (1869)
Josef Strauss (1827-1870)
Fireproof!, polka-française (1869)
Johann Strauss II (1825-1899)
Tritsch-tratsch polka (1858)
Thunder and lightning polka (1868)
Robert Stolz (1880-1975)
Viennese café, waltz (?)
Johann Strauss II (1825-1899)
Die Fledermaus overture (1874)
Champagne polka (1858)
