Alan Jay Lerner (1918-1986) & Frederick Loewe (1901-1988)
My Fair Lady (1956)
A Musical Comedy in Two Acts adapted from George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion (1913) and Gabriel Pascal’s motion picture Pygmalion (1938)
Eliza Doolittle – Scarlett Strallen; Henry Higgins – Jamie Parker; Alfred P. Doolittle – Alun Armstrong; Colonel Pickering – Malcolm Sinclair; Freddy Eynsford-Hill – Laurence Kilsby; Mrs Pearce – Julia McKenzie; Mrs Higgins – Dame Penelope Wilton
‘My Fair Lady’ Ensemble
Sinfonia of London/John Wilson
rec. 2024, Susie Sainsbury Theatre, Royal Academy of Music, London
Libretto included
Chandos CHSA5358(2) SACD [2 discs: 130]
John Wilson already has excellent recordings of two great musicals by Rogers and Hammerstein in the catalogue: Oklahoma! (review) and Carousel (review). Now he has turned his attention to Lerner and Loewe’s huge hit My Fair Lady. One of the many things that I learned from David Benedict’s excellent booklet essay is that My Fair Lady was such a success when it opened on Broadway that it ran for six-and-a-half years, notching up an astonishing 2717 performances. That was a record at the time, comfortably smashing the record of five years and two months held by Oklahoma!
Given that success, not the least interesting aspect of Benedict’s essay is the detail he goes into concerning the struggle to turn George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion into a musical in the first place. For one thing, Shaw was adamantly opposed to the idea, though that objection lapsed after his death in 1950. Thereafter, though, the names of the people who either turned down the idea flat or else tried to make a go of it and gave up reads like a Who’s Who of Broadway. The roster of names includes Rogers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter and Irving Berlin. Even Lerner and Loewe had one abortive go at the idea when the producers approached them in 1952; they couldn’t find a way to make the material work as a musical. There the matter might have rested had not Alan Jay Lerner subsequently persuaded his partner to give it one more shot. Lerner’s masterstroke was to use as the basis for the show the screenplay which Shaw had written for Gabriel Pascal’s 1938 motion picture of the play. Lerner made significant adaptations to Shaw’s screenplay but even so one wonders why no one had thought of that solution earlier.
Perhaps the first thing I should say about this recording is that it presents the complete score of the show. As John Wilson proudly states in an interview with David Benedict, he and his colleagues “have recorded every note, including underscoring, plus all the music written but cut before opening, with the instrumentation exactly as it was on opening night”. Thus, as Benedict points out, the recordings made by the original casts of both the Broadway and London shows each run for about 54 minutes whereas Wilson’s recording plays for 96 minutes. In addition, Wilson’s appendix of excised material gives us another 24 minutes of music; I’ll comment on the appendix later.
I wasn’t aware until I read the booklet that John Wilson conducted My Fair Lady at the BBC Proms in 2012. That year, it may be remembered, was when London staged the Olympic Games and Wilson says that London was a theme running through the Proms that year; in consequence My Fair Lady was a logical fit since it is, in Wilson’s words, “the quintessential American London musical”. Apparently, Alun Armstrong is the only soloist who took part in both the present recording and that 2012 Proms performance. He is joined for this recording by a strong cast. The original Broadway cast included Julie Andrews as Eliza, Rex Harrison as Henry Higgins, and Stanley Holloway in the role of Alfred Doolittle. Like me, countless people will be familiar with the sound of their voices and the characterisations they brought to the original cast recording. Happily, I can honestly say that I didn’t find it a problem to erase those voices from my mind while listening to this new recording.
Scarlett Strallen seems a natural fit for the role of Eliza. In ‘Wouldn’t it be Loverly’ she deploys a Cockney accent, of course, but I didn’t feel this was overdone to the point of caricature; she sings the song very convincingly. Later, I like the way she transforms Eliza’s enunciation – and with it her character – when after Higgins’ endless elocution lessons, she finally ‘gets it’ (‘The rain in Spain’). I said I had no problem in forgetting the voices of the original cast but actually, when Ms Strallen sings ‘I could have danced all night’ I do hear more than an echo of the lightness, gaiety and stylishness with which Julie Andrews delivered the song. Much later in the show I really enjoyed Strallen’s indignation as she confronts the hapless Freddy in ‘Show me’. The moment at Ascot Races when, in the heat of the moment Eliza gets caried away while cheering on her horse to such an extent that the mask falls and she reverts to type, urging on the animal in broad Cockney, is hilarious. In sum, this is a memorable assumption of the character of Eliza.
Opposite her, Jamie Parker is, I believe, an unqualified success in the role of the self-centred elocution expert, Henry Higgins. Rex Harrison gave him a hard act to follow but Parker inhabits the role and makes it his own through excellent verbal acting. Right from the outset, he sets his stall out in ‘Why can’t the English’; here, his inflection of the text and his sense of timing brought a smile to my face. His delivery of ‘I’m an ordinary man’ shows him in an ideal fashion as the perpetual bachelor; he makes this number amusing and vivacious, as it should be. Eventually, though, Higgins softens and in ‘I’ve grown accustomed to her face’ Parker audibly wrestles with himself as his hitherto suppressed feelings for Eliza gradually come into the ascendant over his self-centred approach to the fairer sex. I enjoyed Parker’s performance very much and Malcolm Sinclair, as Colonel Pickering, is an excellent foil to him. Incidentally, I was tickled by the revelation in the booklet that Sinclair, who has played the role on stage more than once, “says he has modelled his no-nonsense, stiff-upper-lip interpretation on Sir Adrian Boult”. Lerner & Loewe meets Boult: there’s a thought!
Among the other principals, one singer particularly caught my ear. Just last year I was thrilled by a solo song recital from the young English tenor, Laurence Kilsby (review). That was a very serious – and highly enjoyable – programme but here Kilsby shows how versatile he is by taking the role of Freddy. He has one of the absolute plum numbers in the show, ‘On the street where you live’. Kilsby’s singing of this great song is eager and full of youthful ardour; his voice and diction are as clear as the proverbial bell. John Wilson comments that the role requires “a very poised, light English tenor”. This is an inspired piece of casting.
In truth, there isn’t a weak link in the cast. Alun Armstrong relishes the part of Alfred P. Doolittle; he’s the ideal cheeky chappie in ‘With a little bit of luck’. Just as enjoyable is his last fling in ‘I’m getting married in the morning’. Penelope Wilton, in best Downton Abbey vein, represents luxury casting as Mrs Higgins and we have another fine actor in Julia McKenzie who is cast as Mrs Pearce. The smaller roles are all taken with vigour and good characterisation while the specially formed ‘My Fair Lady’ Ensemble do a fine job as the chorus. Of course, Cockney accents are often to the fore but that’s as it should be in this show and it all adds to the fun. (Rest assured, there are no disastrous, unconvincing accents to challenge the one affected by Dick van Dyke in the film of Mary Poppins!)
Alongside the acting and singing principals, joint top billing ought to go to the Sinfonia of London. I’ve heard and admired a good number of their symphonic recordings with John Wilson but it’s in material like this that they are at their very best; Wilson handpicked the players for this assignment. The show benefits from superb, inventive orchestrations by Robert Russell Bennett, Philip J Lang and Jack Mason; John Wilson and his players bring these orchestrations to sparkling life. Like any show, this score includes a good deal of recycling of the best tunes, not least in the underscoring passages, the Entr’Act and right at the end at the Curtain Calls and then in the Exit Music. These musicians make you appreciate that these recyclings are not mere repetitions; time and again the scoring is varied so that fresh light is cast on the tunes; it’s marvellous. Throughout the show, the playing is top-drawer in its quality – I love, for example, the elegance and élan with which the orchestra plays the Embassy Waltz right at the end of Act I. The accompaniment to the singers is consistently right on the money; I mean no disrespect to Scarlett Strallen when I say that the orchestral contribution to ‘I could have danced all night’ – and especially the chattering woodwind – is as captivating as the singing. Right at the very end of the show, the Exit Music is as well worth your attention as anything that’s gone before it. The number is a bubbling pot-pourri of the best tunes in the show – and what tunes they are! Here, Wilson and the Sinfonia of London bring out all the wit and joie de vivre in the music, giving a sparkling performance that should send us all out of the virtual theatre with smiles on our faces.
From start to finish John Wilson conducts the performance superbly. A great deal of research has gone into recreating this score just as it was on opening night in 1956. Every bit of his work was worthwhile. Then he’s translated that research into a vivacious performance and the result is an expertly paced, vastly entertaining show. Wilson makes a telling point in the booklet, saying that the recording was made “as live. Microphones pick up what is happening in the room as if in the theatre”. I didn’t spot that comment until after I’d completed my initial listening; without a doubt it explains why I found this performance such a lively and spirited experience.
The second SACD also includes a substantial musical appendix, running to twenty-four minutes in total. This contains music that was discarded from the final version of the show. Some items are less important than others. For example, there are three Utility Cues which between them add up to less than four minutes of music. They’re there for the sake of completeness but I doubt if I shall bother listening to them again. Other tracks are much more interesting, though. Chief among these are four tracks, amounting to some 11 minutes of music, which are billed as the original end to Act I, though I don’t believe that they would have played continuously. There’s a solo song for Higgins (‘Come to the ball’); this was cut, Wilson says, because it was thought to hold up the action. I think that judgement was wise but the song is a good one – and Jamie Parker delivers it very well – so it’s good that it hasn’t been completely lost. There’s also an orchestral item, ‘Dressing Eliza Ballet’ in which all manner of helpers scurry around getting the heroine ready for the ball. It’s lively and bustling music, expertly played by Wilson and the orchestra. We also get to hear a little pre-ball song for Eliza, ‘Say a little prayer for me tonight’. It’s touching and Scarlett Strallen sings it with feeling. Also included is the original version of the Embassy Waltz. This version is vivacious, though arguably a bit too full of energy (I’m talking of the music, not the excellent performance). I don’t think it’s as elegant as the final version, which I much prefer, though it’s very good to hear Loewe’s initial thoughts. Finally, there’s the original version of ‘On the street where you live’. In the final version of the song, which is given in the main recording, of course, the preamble to the song has dialogue, underpinned by music, between Freddy and, in order, a policeman, a flower girl and Mrs Pearce. In the original version none of that appears (it’s possible the dialogue was in the book, sans the music) and instead Freddy sings a couple of introductory verses before launching into the main body of the song. These verses are, frankly, a bit sentimental and the final version is infinitely preferable. I think that what this appendix shows is that in every case second thoughts were best but it’s valuable to hear the first or discarded versions, especially the cut songs for Higgins and Eliza. The appendix demonstrates in spades the thoroughness with which this project has been approached and executed.
Chandos have not stinted when it comes to production values. The recorded sound is ideal for this music; it’s punchy, clear and detailed. All the principals are clearly heard and full justice is done to the wonderful, inventive orchestrations. Only once did I have a tiny reservation about the recording. In the later stages of ‘I could have danced all night’ it seemed to me that the two maids were a bit too prominently balanced against Eliza’s melody. When you’re reduced to that kind of nit-picking it’s a sign that the recorded sound is a great success. So is the booklet. David Benedict’s essay about the show is excellent and his interview with John Wilson is most enlightening. There’s an excellent synopsis of the show; the full libretto is provided and there is a copious selection of black-and-white photographs.
My Fair Lady is a great show, vividly brought to life here. We live in troubling times and it’s been a great relief to turn to this marvellous musical. I think that more than ever we all need some true and high-class entertainment in our lives; this show – and this superb recording – give us just that.
John Quinn
Other review: Stephen Barber (October 2025) David Barker (October 2025)
A note by Nick Barnard supplementary to John Quinn’s review:
I’ve a bit of a history with My Fair Lady – it was the first professional show I ever played, the first I conducted and the first for which I was Musical Director , so its a work I’ve lived with for many years.
It is an astonishingly well-crafted piece but much of that skill is hidden. In his autobiography, “On the Street where I Live”, Alan J Lerner makes several key points. There are no love songs in MFL. No-one ever says “I love you” (or perhaps Freddie does – I can’t remember – but he’s an idiot). Everything is the consequence of feelings which are often repressed. Because it has the longest spoken script of any major musical, Lerner & Loewe were forced to write songs that are all in essence quite quick in feeling – hence there are no ballads. The only exception is “I’ve grown accustomed to her face”, simply because it is the only time in the show when the blustering Higgins pauses for any kind of reflection. Elsewhere, they had to find musical solutions that could cover a range of emotions but at pace: “Show Me” – anger; “I could have danced all night” – swept away excitement. Very curiously, the score does not contain a single “vamp” bar (which is usually a two or four bar phrase the orchestra play “round and round” to cover a bit of dialogue or scene change before moving on). Everything in My Fair Lady is written out to fit exactly. That makes it quite a job for the Music Director and co. to fit it all together perfectly but it’s a miracle of clever writing.
The supposed “completeness” of this recording could be regarded as something of a red-herring. The inclusion of an appendix is always of interest to Musical Theatre nerds but less relevant here than in recordings of Showboat, where no definitive single performing version exists, or Cabaret, where the “extra” songs were legitimate alternates written for the film. “Trunk” or “Lost in Boston” songs exist for just about every show ever written. I’m sure it must say this in the liner – but “Say a little prayer” was cut from My Fair Lady because the ‘energy’ – as mentioned above – was wrong – but the song is lovely, hence it went straight into their next show, Gigi, where it became one of its hits. As mentioned above, the underscores are brilliantly worked here but by definition they are only part of a scene, so to include the music but not the whole scene makes it dramatically unbalanced. Including all the ‘extra’ orchestral bits – intros/exit music, etc. – is quite fun – and as you say, brilliantly played here, but this is always utility music that in any performance is cut and pasted to fit the requirements of any version. It is also important to understand that this is not the work of Lerner & Loewe but something knocked together by the brilliant orchestrators. My strong guess is that even if they have here all the music that was available to those first performers back when, even then it wouldn’t have been played on that first night. This kind of adding and subtracting music again happens in every show all the time and is simply a function of that version in that space with those performers; in no way is it meant to be definitive. For example, when I directed the show we needed an extension to the Ascot Gavotte in order to get all the pretty costumes onstage, so I wrote a fanfare extension to the beginning of the standard number.
In short, good as this recording undoubtedly is, it is not necessarily the last word in performance that Chandos would like us to assume that it is.
A final point: Fritz Loewe took great care with the oversight of the original orchestrations as he wanted to create a kind of Music Hall/small pit orchestra sound. He was not at all happy when the film came out and the orchestrations in it made the sound – in his opinion – overblown. The film was of course conducted and supervised by no less than André Previn, for which he got an Oscar….
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