Audio Samples - Expanded 4/16

Audio Demo Tracks:

Carmen Suite 2

Played by Stephen Ades. Carmen is an opera in four acts by French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first performed by the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 3 March 1875, where its breaking of conventions shocked and scandalized its first audiences. This is Stephen's second selection from Carmen, consisting of:

• Choeur Des Cigarieres

• Chanson Boheme

• Je Vais Danser En Votre Honneur

• Entracte to Act 3

Stephen's first Carmen suite was recorded on the Redford Barton 3/10 sample set.

Contrabombarde: Carmen Suite 2

Gold and Silver Waltz

Played by Stephen Ades. Franz Lehár was an Austro-Hungarian composer. He is mainly known for his operettas, of which the most successful and best known is The Merry Widow (Die lustige Witwe). Indeed the cover page of Stephen's copy of the piano reduction for the Gold and Silver Waltz announces that it is "another great waltz by the composer of the famous Merry Widow Waltz". After a moody intro and a colossal upbeat, this smooth waltz delicately works its charms.

Contrabombarde: Gold and Silver Waltz

Her Name is Mary

A popular song written in 1932. No doubt much played on the theatre organ in its heyday. Words by Bruce Sievier and Harold Ramsay, music by Harold Ramsay. Played for us by Stephen Ades.

Contrabombarde: Her name is Mary

The Girl from Ipanema

Played by Stephen Ades. "Garota de Ipanema" ("The Girl from Ipanema") is a Brazilian bossa nova and jazz song. It was a worldwide hit in the mid-1960s and won a Grammy for Record of the Year in 1965. It was written in 1962, with music by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Portuguese lyrics by Vinícius de Moraes. English lyrics were written later by Norman Gimbel. This song is believed to be the second most recorded pop song in history, after "Yesterday" by the Beatles.

There really was a girl from Ipanema, an attractive seventeen year old that the song writers would see going about her daily business. When she was in her sixties she opened a boutique called 'Girl from Ipanema' . The children of the songwriters sued her for breach of copyright. She won the case, partly because the song writers had previously named her as the girl from Ipanema in a press release.

Contrabombarde: The Girl from Ipanema

The lady is a tramp

The tramp in the song is a lady who enjoys the simple pleasures of life and does not feel the need to do things just to be seen doing them or to 'keep up with the Joneses' - she says "I like the theatre, but never come late". This is a show tune from the 1937 Rodgers and Hart musical Babes in Arms, in which it was introduced by former child star Mitzi Green. Played for us by Stephen Ades.

Contrabombarde: The lady is a tramp

The Mikado

"The Mikado" is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations. It opened on 14 March 1885, in London, where it ran at the Savoy Theatre for 672 performances, the second-longest run for any work of musical theatre and one of the longest runs of any theatre piece up to that time. By the end of 1885, it was estimated that, in Europe and America, at least 150 companies were producing the opera. Here is a medley for Gilbert and Sullivan fans, played for us by Stephen Ades. It comprises:

• Overture opening (entrance of the Mikado)

• A Wand'ring Minstrel I

• Three little maids from school are we

• The sun, whose rays most radiant are

• Willow, Tit Willow, Tit Willow

• Mikado's Fanfare

• Finale

Contrabombarde: The Mikado

The Phantom of the Opera

The Phantom of the Opera is a 1986 musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Charles Hart, and a libretto by Lloyd Webber and Richard Stilgoe. Based on the 1910 French novel of the same name by Gaston Leroux, its central plot revolves around a beautiful soprano, Christine Daaé, who becomes the obsession of a mysterious, masked musical genius living in the subterranean labyrinth beneath the Paris Opéra House. This is the title track from the show. It is Stephen Ades' transcription of the version which starts with the phantom composing music at his organ. Played for us by Stephen Ades.

Contrabombarde: The Phantom of the Opera

These foolish things

"These foolish things remind me of you" - a song from the 1930s about lost love, lyrics by Eric Maschwitz, writing under the pseudonym Holt Marvell, and music by Jack Strachey, both Englishmen. Made popular by famous artists like Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Billy Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, and more recently by Rod Stewart, Bob Dylan, and Seth Macfarlane.

Contrabombarde: These foolish things