April 2, 2015

  • Belgian Musical Chocolate--Salon & Waltz Music

     

    Lou Koster: Orchestral Music
    Orchestre Estro Armonico Luxembourg/Jonathan Kaell
    Naxos 8.573330
    Total Time:  61:34
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    One of the most difficult aspects of researching early film music from the Silent Film era is knowing just who wrote what if the music even survives.  Often, movie house pianists, or organists, played from a preset collection of Classical musical themes with some dramatic musical gestures occasionally credited with a composer.  American film music fans tend to forget that other country’s movie houses often featured local composers writing music for the silent screen, much of which has also been lost.  All of this serves to help provide a bit of context into which we can now discuss Lou Koster (1889-1973).

    Koster played in local palm court salons, movie houses, cafes and elsewhere honing in musical talent, but it was as a composer that she began to feel more pulled artistically.  It was between the two word wars that Koster began finding opportunities to publish her songs and other piano works in Luxembourg.  She would provide a large variety of light orchestral music of waltzes, marches, overtures, etc.  Most of her music survives in autograph form with very little annotation about when they were composed.  The bulk of the pieces on this new Naxos release, all world premiere recordings, list most of these as being from the 1920s.  Thus they lend us a window on Luxembourg’s musical life.  It is worth noting that Koster’s music was quite popular throughout her lifetime being recorded well into the 1950s, and performed by radio orchestras well into the 1960s.  Many of her orchestral pieces are believed to have been put together from some of her silent film music and many were performed by salon orchestras at the time.  Sometimes she would create fuller orchestrations which were then performed by the Radio Luxembourg orchestra.  Much of her work is believed “lost” or yet to be rediscovered, but some 250 pieces (!), itself a phenomenal accomplishment, are currently available at the Lou Koster archive at Cid-Fraen an Gender (www.cid-femmes.lu).

    For this program, conductor Jonathan Kaell has selected seven works.  Two of these, “Lore-Lore” and “Moseltraume” (both waltz suites), were performed over 111 times during World War II.  At the center is a brief Suite Dramatique.  The program begins though with the Overture Legere.  The music is a perfect example of the 1920s orchestral lighter music somewhat like a a French operetta overture with delightful melodies and fun little touches in the orchestra.  The shape allows for returning thematic material to tie things together.  Koster’s harmonic language is also moving into unexpected places.  One could certainly feel transported to the premiere of a new film with this music setting the stage for its beginning.  Her language falls into place with late Strauss family, Gade, and perhaps comes closest to Victor Herbert when all is said and done—and that is some great company to be in!  We are back in the dance salon for the beautifully rich “waltz-suite” Lore-Lore, Op. 13.  Composed around 1914, it still hearkens back to the end of the 19th Century (as did Eduard Strauss’ work).  The melodic writing is always engaging here and it makes this music quite delightful.  The same can be said for the ideas heard in Heideland from the next decade.

    At the center of the program is a collection of three little pieces into the Suite dramatique.  These may be taken from some of Koster’s film piano scores as one can hear how smaller segments of the music recur immediately and then set the stage before moving on to another idea.  Each of the movements is strikingly evocative music with her catchy melodic phrases, orchestral coloring, and harmonic turns.  The program then concludes with three sets of waltzes, Unter bluhenden Linden, (with nods to Johann Strauss, Jr.), her popular Moseltraume, and concluding with Toute vie.

    Kaell and the Luxembourg players give their all in this performance with wonderfully-shaped playing that really allows Koster’s orchestral style to be well represented here.  The music is treated with the sort of respect it truly deserves and with a little luck, perhaps more from the Koster archive can, or is on the way, to being made available.  Simply wonderful music representing the lighter side of the inter-war period.