= PREMIER POPS =

Intro/Listening to Mancini - A Glorious Career -
Personality and Private Life - Pieces Performed -

Listening to Mancini

Something wonderful is about to happen. I can almost feel the elation that results when something lost is finally regained. Here, on the threshold of the 1990s, pure listening enjoyment is upon us. It was a wonderful idea. The Royal Philharmonic Pops Orchestra perform the works of Henry Mancini under his own baton, so that each piece can attain its full potential as envisaged by the composer-conductor.

This is an album that will stand as a monument in the contemporary music scene. Mancini has selected what he feels are the best of hic compositions. If one excludes sound track recordings for films, this performance in fact marks the first time in fifteen years that he has demonstrated his considerable talents. And there's much to look forward to: during this fifteen-year hiatus - a hiatus as regards records, that is, for new Mancini pieces can always be heard in the cinema, on television or radio and at concerts - audio technology has made great strides, giving birth to digital recording and compact discs.

Mancini's accomplishments span virtually every musical field. But without doubt his roots lie mainly in the cinema, where his successes have been highly conspicuous, and secondarily in television and on the stage. His scores routinely become standard numbers, sung or performed just about everywhere.

If one were to encapsulate Mancini's music in just a few words, the essence would surely be clarity - sometimes sentimental but never unhappy. Listening to it is like experiencing the uninhibited joy of a blue California sky, clouds glinting in the sunlight. It's like inhaling fresh air. Exciting and invigorating.

The Mancini sound revolutionized film music.

Before his appearance, scores were all cast in the same classical mould. But Mancini blew away the cobwebs and made people sit up and listen; cinema audiences everywhere liked the fresh new sounds that had something different, something quite unlike the works of Miklos Rosa or Dimitri Tiomkin. Mancini created screen music that comes direct from Holly wood, scores that are organically suited to motion picture entertainment. This is what the industry had been waiting for, and Mancini was the first to show how it should be done.

Discords and down beats - but it's not just jazz techniques that mark his work. Mancini's music is thoroughly American; a chemical reaction takes place with the Italian optimism that flows in his veins, and the result is music that adds a new, colorful dimension to the visual.

A beautiful melody line wells up with emotion, charged by the unison of strings and wind - simple and highly effective. Meanwhile the solo parts paint in the interstices - piano, flute, sax and percussion. His impressive use of solo instruments no doubt reflects the fact that Mancini himself is a talented performer on both flute and piano. As an arranger, he has a sixth sense that tells him what kind of phrase, on which instrument, is most effective, or which vocal range is best suited to the atmosphere. And it's because unison and solo are so easily grasped by the audience that his music is so pregnant with emotion, enabling us to empathize with the hero or heroine on the screen.

Mancini's music naturally excels in scenes of wrenching tragedy or thrilling suspense, but at its core lies his positive romanticism - ample proof is to be found in such memorable numbers as "Moon River", "Baby Elephant Walk" and "Days of Wine and Roses".

- Moto Kono
(April, 1988)
Translated by Andrew J. L. Armour