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Editorial Reviews

The contents of this budget double CD make collective sense: overtures by George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Jerome Kern, while not really well known in themselves, contain lots of familiar tunes and offer intriguing comparisons among the three great musical composers who would be hard to compress into any other listening experience. The performances are by a variety of British orchestras that have plenty of experience with light American-inflected theater music; all are conducted by John McGlinn, who also helmed Kiri Te Kanawa's successful Gershwin disc. One notices how much jazzier Gershwin was, even than the younger Cole Porter; it is only Gershwin's tunes that float above the harmony like jazz, while Porter's humor is grounded in simpler two-step rhythms. The second disc, devoted entirely to Kern, also brings out how adeptly he drew on different eras of popular song -- "Show Boat," viewed a certain way, is a whole mini-history of white American attitudes toward black music, fitted expertly to a story on the same theme, but the "Sweet Adeline" overture (CD 2, track 5) also creates a seamless blend of music of Kern's own time with 1890s tunes. There are also sequences of film music by Gershwin and Kern to break up the overtures. A great offbeat gift for the musical comedy lover. James Manheim, All Music Guide

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