Toy Symphonies

Raymond Lewenthal - Toy Symphonies

LP released in 1975

Here is a record for the man who has everything. Music to wake up to. Music to surprise your friends with. Music for Christmas. Music for your children. A sugar-coated history lesson pill. An inquiry into the mores of bygone days.
Hear 'em and laugh!
But above all, here for once is happy music - frivolous, even silly, some will say... but who can deny its happiness? It was written for happy occasions, for a world that was prosperous, secure, and certain at a time when family life was the center of life and when music in the home was homemade. It comes from a time when the cracks in the plaster of society were scarcely noticeable to the naked eye.
This record is the evocation of an era: the 19th century; and a place: the home ... the comfortable home of the well-to-do bourgeois, where people had leisure but not so much money that they were too indolent or too preoccupied with the cares of supervising their fortunes to make their own entertainment, and had to resort to hiring it.
Long ago, a hundred years ago and more, anyone who studied anything studied music. It was part of one's education. One was expected to learn it as one was expected to learn the ABC's. One didn't study music only if one intended (perish the thought) to go into it as a profession, nor did one decide to go into it as a profession simply because one could play a scale decently or eke out a high tone (as is happening more and more today).
No ... music, drawing, letter writing, reciting poetry, these were all part of the general education of those classes which had any leisure for any kind of education at all ... adjuncts to a culture civilized life. Music in those days was part of all family occasions, from the quiet evenings at home to the big festive holiday reunions, when visiting relatives came from afar and the house was full to the brim with the laughter (well-mannered!) of children, the warmth of the hearth and all the happiness that humans are capable of in those periods when troubles, misery and sadness can be warded off, forgotten or hidden in cupboards. The only mechanical music available then was from the music box standing in a corner of the parlor. All other music had to be made. People lifted their voices in song, and created sounds with the aid of their lungs and their fingers. Composers were kept busy supplying music to fill all needs. For this world came most of the lieder of Schubert, Schumann and Brahms, most chamber music and four-hand piano music, and a good deal of the music written for two hands.
And for this world also came the music for this record. Here was music in which the whole family could participate ... the elders playing on "serious" instruments such as the piano, violin and cello, while the children took care of organized noise in the form of peeps, tweets, thumps and what have you. Sometimes the elders took all the parts, to the delectation of the children. Sometimes the children were advanced enough to manage everything, to the vast entertainment of doting grown-ups.
Thus, toy symphonies form a not inconsiderable literature. (The French called them Symphonies burlesques, or Foires des enfants [Children's Fairs]; the Germans called them Kindersymphonien, Children's symphonies.) Their popularity made them a lucrative business for publishers, who sold not only the music but the toy instruments as well. Toy symphonies go back quite a bit in time. Both Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Michael Haydn experimented with the idea, and it now seems to be pretty conclusively proven that "The Toy Symphony by Haydn" was actually written by Leopold Mozart. An inspiration for writing this kind of music came, in the 18th century, from the existence of a world famous toy industry in the mountains near Salzburg ... not far from Berchtesgaden (which, ironically later, became infamous as the eyrie of Adolf Hitler). During the long winter months the peasants, confined much of the time to their huts, manufactured all manner of musical toys ... bird calls, drums, rattles, whistles, toy trumpets and the like. The tradition of toy symphonies grew and flourished in the German-speaking countries throughout the 19th century and spread elsewhere, though never to the same extent.
One of my musical hobbies (I have many) has been the collection of Toy Symphonies. Those presented here are a culling from among the best of many. All these pieces were written lovingly, with imagination and with care and, given the built-in pitch limitations of the toys (cuckoos are rather single-minded), they contain delightful music. The parts for the toys are always written out very specifically. Nothing is ad libitum or left to chance. The players are expected to follow all the rhythms and markings with scrupulous attention and the works only really sound well when played with the same care with which they were written.
The first time I conducted a toy symphony was for a gala benefit a few years ago in Newport, the famous summer gathering place of old-time American wealth. The concert took place in the hundred-room "cottage" of the Vanderbilts, The Breakers. The toys, tea trays and glass bowls were manned (or rather, womaned) by pillars of Newport dowagerdom. These formidable ladies took their work very seriously and were a most conscientious orchestra. At the concert they covered themselves with glory (and made only a minimum of wrong entrances). Other toy performances which I have led, numbering among the performers some well-known musicians, have sometimes been on a less high artistic level due to the fact that some of the professional players seemed to have had more difficulty counting correctly than my Newport dowagers!
In Newport there was, however, one major disaster. Before the first rehearsal a tour of the grand homes was made for the purpose of auditioning glass bowls, in order to find one which had the proper pitch and timbre. The lady entrusted with the very important glass-bowl part, while an excellent musician, had not yet mastered the technique of managing the bass-drum stick which was to make the bowl ring forth in all its glory. In one of the grandest homes, she swung her drum stick with a trifle too much vigor and shattered into a thousand sparkling splinters a very large, very expensive and very precious crystal bowl ... thereby almost putting an end to toy symphonies in Newport. (Raymond Lewenthal)

Pieces:

Toy Symphony (Kindersymphonie) in C, for piano, two violins & cello with nightingale, cuckoo, toy trumpet, drum, ratchet, bell tree, glass bell & tea tray - composed by Carl Reinecke

Adagio & Finale from the Toy Symphony, for piano, violin & cello with cuckoo, nightingale, fairy bells, sleighbells, triangle, toy trumpet, drum, bass drum & cymbals - composed by Franklin Taylor

Kitchen Symphony, Op. 445, for piano with trumpet, funnel trumpet, wine glass, bottle, saucepan, fire irons, milk jug & tin covers - composed by Henri Kling

Three Bacchanales, Op. 53, for piano with tambourine & triangle - composed by Daniel Steibelt

Toy Symphony (Kindersymphonie) in C, Op. 169, for piano, violin & cello with quail, cuckoo, nightingale, triangle, toy trumpet & drum - composed by Cornelius Gurlitt

Ouverture Burlesque, for piano and violin with three mirlitons, triangle, toy trumpet, drum, ratchet and whistle - composed by Etienne-Nicolas Mehul

Performers:

Raymond Lewenthal - conductor, piano
Nathan Ross - violin
Marshall Sosson - violin (tracks 1-4, Side 1)
Eleanor Aller - cello
Malcolm McNab - trumpets
Tom Raney (including solo tambourine), Hubert Anderson, Larry Bunker, Richie Lepore, Wally Snow, George Sponhaltz - toy instruments and percussion

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Toy Symphony (Kindersymphonie) in C: I. Allegro un poco maestoso {5:38}

2. Toy Symphony (Kindersymphonie) in C: II. Andantino {5:44}

3. Toy Symphony (Kindersymphonie) in C: III. Moderato {1:42}

4. Toy Symphony (Kindersymphonie) in C: IV. Steeple Chase (Molto vivace) {1:42}

5. Adagio from the Toy Symphony {5:17}

6. Finale from the Toy Symphony {5:49}

Side 2

1. Kitchen Symphony, Op. 445 {5:49}

2. Three Bacchanales, Op. 53 {4:21}

3. Toy Symphony (Kindersymphonie) in C, Op. 169: I. Allegro con fuoco {4:28}

4. Toy Symphony (Kindersymphonie) in C, Op. 169: II. Scherzo (Poco vivace) {3:11}

5. Toy Symphony (Kindersymphonie) in C, Op. 169: III. Rondo burlesco (Allegro, non troppo) {3:57}

6. Ouverture Burlesque {4:12}

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