Edouard Artemiev - Siberiade (1979)

Siberiade was directed in 1979 by Russian film maker Andreyi Konchalovski, whose most celebrated films are as different as Maria's Lovers and Tango & Cash. Before entering mainstream Hollywood car chase culture, Konchalovski gained some repute as a film director and screenwriter in Europe and the US through relatively successful movies like Uncle Vanya and Siberiade (or Sibiriada, or Сибириада). Siberiade was filmed in 1979, won the Jury Special Prize in Cannes that year, and brought him the international recognition that would eventually take him to Hollywood.

Siberiade, according to IMDB, is a "story about a very small god-forgotten village in Siberia [which] reflects the history of Russia from the beginning of the century till the early 80s. Three generations try to find the land of happiness and to give it to the people. One builds the road through Taiga to the star over the horizon, the second 'builds communism' and the third searches for oil. The oil is found but this is followed by the destruction of the old cemetry and everything the people of the village cared for in order to get the 'black treasure' of Siberia".

The soundtrack, never released on CD, is something of a mystery. There is a clear cut distinction between sides A and B of the record, probably related to the historical phases which the plotline above describes. Side A (except track 7) contains several traditional tunes from Siberia, possibly arranged by Artemiev, through the voice of Dmitry Bouzilev. It seems difficult to believe that Bouzilev is backed by the same outfit that takes the B side, and Artemiev's contribution to these pieces remains doubtful; the label is to blame for such uncertainties.
Side B, by contrast, features synth-washed prog experiments by the Soviet band Boomerang (Бумеранг). This short-lived group includes Edouard Artemiev (better known for his soundtracks for Tarkovski's Solaris and Stalker) and Yury Bogdanov on the synths, backed by drums, bass and guitar, oscillating between more straightforward prog and ambient-like pieces. Tracks A7 and B5 are also played by the USSR State Cinema Orchestra, Révélation being one of the most interesting scores included here. While it may be strange, but not necessarily bad, to see a "world music" label like Le Chant du Monde releasing prog music, it is to be regretted that so little info is included in this edition.

A1. Ma Beauté a Fleuri Trop Tôt

A2. Le Soleil

A3. Les Yeus Emeraude

A4. La Chanson des Tziganes de Sibérie

A5. Le Long Chemin

A6. Dimitri

A7. Révélation

B1. Le Feu

B2. Le Vent de L'espoir (char à vole)

B3. Le Tourbillon de L'histoire

B4. Les Balançoires

B5. La Mort du Héros

Alexey Zagirov - bass

Edouard Artemiev - synthesizer

Yury Bogdanov - synthesizer, guitar

Sergey Bogdanov - percussion

Dmitry Bouzilev - vocals

Released by Le Chant du Monde in 1979.

A Petrol Pump to Prof. DOUBLE AVENUE for the fine vinyl rip.

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Vladimir Ussachevsky - Film Music

Ussachevsky was one of the most significant pioneers in the composition of electronic music, and one of its most potent forces. Born in 1911 in Manchuria, China, Ussachevsky was the son of a Russian Army captain. His childhood was spent on the windswept and sparsely settled Manchurian plain, visiting with the nomadic tribesmen in their tents, and singing Old Slavonic chants as an altar boy in the local Russian Orthodox church. By the time he arrived in California, at the age of nineteen, he was a skilled pianist gifted in the interpretation of Romantic music, and a fluent improvisor. After receiving his undergraduate degree in music from Pomona College, he earned a Ph.D. in composition from the Eastman School of Music. From 1947 until his retirement in 1980, Ussachevsky taught at Columbia University, where he was known for his teaching of sixteenth-century counterpoint. But in his career there, he began experimenting with the use of tape recorders to manipulate sounds. Through much experimentation he developed the first works of “tape music,” a uniquely American synthesis of the French musique-concrète and the German pure electronic schools. In 1952, Ussachevsky's first works of tape music were performed at an historic concert at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City, along with works of his colleague Otto Luening. Through a five-year grant awarded by the Rockefeller Foundation in 1959, Ussachevsky co-founded the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, and directed its course for the next twenty years as the leading electronic music studio in the United States.

Ussachevsky's electronic compositions include many milestones of the genre, covering a wide spectrum of solo tape pieces, pieces for live instruments and tape, tape music for radio plays, live theater productions, film and television. Among his solo tape compositions are such classics as Piece for Tape Recorder (1956), Metamorphoses (1957), and especially, Of Wood and Brass (1965). Perhaps the most beautiful of his works for tape and live musicians is the oratorio Creation Prologue (1961) for tape and four choruses.

On this recording are two of Ussachevsky's most powerful and innovative scores: Suite from No Exit (1962), from the film of Jean-Paul Sartre's play No Exit directed by Orson Welles, and the soundtrack for Lloyd Williams's avant-garde film Line of Apogee (1967).
Ussachevsky's score for No Exit is a traditional soundtrack in that the music was meant to be a background to spoken words. Line of Apogee is quite different: There are only a few spoken words, and the images on screen shift quickly and wildly between weird, dreamlike sequences and partial animation. Here, Ussachevsky's music becomes the primary organizing element, as the various sections of music flow into one another smoothly, easing the shocking effect of the visual changes.
In both film scores we hear Ussachevsky's favorite musical form: variations on several alternating themes. His themes are significantly different from those of his serialist colleagues, who often choose themes consisting of the same pitch material they would write for traditional musical instruments. Ussachevsky instead chose themes that often do not have traditional pitch or timbral characteristics. In No Exit, for example, he used three main sound sources: electronic, vocal and concrète. The electronic sounds range from searing and slicing noises, to the ominous, bell-like tolling at the end. Here his use of the human voice is especially effective, starting with the torturous, electronically manipulated screams of the opening scene, through the voices of distant children, a woman humming, echoing male voices, and at the end, men laughing—suddenly silenced by rifle fire. The concrète sounds in No Exit include a threatening, pulsing loop of hog sounds (which appear in varied form in Line of Apogee), the rising wind (also developed in Line of Apogee), the crackling of fire, a cloc ticking, and the rifle fire.
In Line of Apogee, Ussachevsky used an intriguing variety of sources: Environmental: wind, footsteps, splashing water, telephone, creaking chair. Animal: hog, songbirds, owl. Vocal: infant crying and laughing, woman humming and laughing, choruses singing Gregorian chant; Jewish cantor intoning. Instrumental: piano (Ussachevsky improvising), flute, organ, brass, glockenspiel, drums. These sources were electronically modulated through such devices and techniques as the electronic switch, echo chamber, feedback, ring modulation, tape loops, speed variation, volume control, complex mixing and detailed tape editing.
Due to his choice of such timbres, what constitutes a “melody” in his tape music can vary from the tempered scale of the piano in Line of Apogee to the simple intervals of high, medium, or low in the “wind” parts of the same score. By using the medium of tape music for its unique capabilities, Ussachevsky extended the orchestral resources of his time just as composers have done in every century, by developing an instrument with previously unknown musical possibilities.
But perhaps Ussachevsky's most remarkable achievement is that he did not fall into the common trap of electronic composers: he did not become obsessed with technology as an end in itself. Instead he concerned himself with the musically expressive possibilities of a sound or technique. Clearly, he brought to the development of electronic music an ear highly skilled in the perception and expression of emotion in music. This may be attributed to his early and intensive training in Romantic music and Russian Orthodox choral music, both characterized by the powerful expression of emotion. Ussachevsky's uncannily sharp ear could detect the slightest technical defect in a recording. But more important, he would go to extraordinary lengths to remedy anything musically dissatisfying. Those of us who assisted him in the tape studio can attest to the often excruciating hours of work to which he would submit himself and us to gain the sublest increases in musical effect. As we worked with him in the studio, we saw the means by which he transferred such emotional expressivity onto the tape: in a word, he danced. As he turned the controls of a machine, his whole body moved in graceful choreography in response to his simultaneously listening and sculpting ear. Any machine under his sensitive hand became a fully responsive musical instrument. —Alice Shields

1- 6: Suite From 'No Exit' (1962)
7-13: Line Of Apogee (1968)

With Alice Shields & Pril Smiley (7-13)

Originally produced at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, New York

CD release by New World Records in 1990

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Henry Mancini - Hatari! (1962)

1. Theme for Hatari!
2. Baby Elephant Walk
3. Just For Tonight
4. Your Father's Feathers
5. Night Side
6. Big Band Bwana
7. The Sounds of Hatari
8. The Soft Touch
9. Crocodile, Go Home!



All tunes by Mancini except #3 by Mercer & Carmichael.
Recorded in 1961. CD release by RCA Victor in 1998.

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Alan Splet & David Lynch - Eraserhead (1982)

"An astonishing, peerless masterpiece, the soundtrack to David Lynch's debut labor of love creates a world of haunting mechanics and sexual distress in such a bizarre layer of sonic fog that any record collection is simply poorer without it. The enormity of the aural experimentation is extraordinary. With renowned sound designer Alan Splet, Lynch developed any technique he could conjure up -- from recording with pieces of glass tubing, pneumatic engines, or water-based pieces of machinery -- to produce sounds never heard before (or since) in any medium. Pieces of Fats Waller filter in through the unsettling haze. The sounds of the unimaginably horrific baby are nothing less than ghastly. Few directors could have realized such a potent vision only a first time out. Disturbing, haunting, and -- decades later -- still one of the most compelling sonic creations in the history of film." AMG

#1:
Digah's Stomp [Fats Waller]
Lenox Avenue Blues [Fats Waller]
Stompin' The Bug [Phil Worde, Mercedes Gilbert]
Messin' Around With The Blues [Phil Worde]
Pipe Organ - Fats Waller

#2:
In Heaven (Lady In The Radiator Song) [Phil Ivers, David Lynch]

Excerpts in #1 performed by Thomas "Fats" Waller in 1927.
"Dedicated to the man in the planet's sister".

Recorded in 1976.
Released in 1982 by I.R.S.
CD re-release in 1989.

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Dumb Type - S/N (1995)

Dumb Type's work is as formally complex as it is socially involved. Their most well-known works fall somewhere within the bounds of performance, often accompanied by installations. In many ways, such work fulfills their original declared intent to "develop an art/performance form to fill the gap between static visualart and performance dependent on dialogue." The 'dumb' in Dumb Type thus does not denote a level of intelligence, but rather describes a desire to create without words. "When we first came together," explained Furuhashi in High Performance (Summer 1990), "we just had too many things we wanted to say. We decided not to shout. We try to keep it simple." Although Dumb Type's work spans a much greater range than performance, they are generally perceived as a performance group because touring outside Kyoto forces them to modify works to fit more conventional settings and traditional schemes of venue scheduling. When they work in Kyoto, they are known for spending weeks or, given the opportunity, months just preparing a space for one of their events, often completely restructuring an interior to meet their demands.

The performance S/N (1992-96) is about the body as love, and involves performers fighting against even more sophisticated technological stage devices. With AIDS as the thematic center, the work brings out issues such a gender, homosexuality, nationality, identity, and life and death. S/N is critical not only of the reality of discrimination in contemporary society, but also attempts to use this criticism as an opportunity to advocate the message that love can equal communication, provided that humans and technology can be permitted to intersect freely and equally.

1-Counter-Invention
based on the soundtrack for "S/N" 1993
2-Silence Fiction
based on the soundtrack for "Pleasure Life" 1988
3-Water
based on the soundtrack for "036-Pleasure Life" 1987
4-Vacant
based on the soundtrack for "The Enigma of the Late Afternoon" 1992
5-Trans-Limit
based on the soundtrack for "S/N" 1993
6-Love/Sex
based on the soundtrack for "Plan for Sleep" 1986
7-White Out
written for "S/N" 1992
8-Pier 21
based on the soundtrack for "036-Pleasure Life" 1987
9-Picnic
based on the soundtrack for "Pleasure Life" 1988
10-Passport Control
based on the soundtrack for "pH" 1990

Released by Disques Du Soleil Et De L'Acier in 1995.
Composed & performed by Tiru Yamanaka & Teji Yamanaka
Produced by Ryoji Ikeda.

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John Carpenter - Escape from New York (1981)

1. Main Title
2. Up the Wall/Airforce 1
3. Orientation#3
4. Engulfed Cathedral (Debussy)
5. Back to the Pod/The Crazies Come Out
6. Arrival at the Library
7. Everyone's coming to New York
8. The Duke Arrives/The Barricade
9. Police State/Romero and the President
10. The President at the Train
11. The President is Gone
12. Come Across the 69th Street Bridge
13. Over the Wall



Written and interpreted by John Carpenter in colaboration with Alan Howarth
#4 with Pamela Smith (keyboards)
#8 with Tommy Wallace (guitar)
CD re-issue by Colosseum Schallplatten in 1988
Originally released by Varèse Sarabande Records in 1981.

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Serge Gainsbourg - Le Cinéma De Serge Gainsbourg - Musiques De Films Vol. 1

"Continuing their sickeningly good series of lavish re-issues, Universal France have out-done themselves with this incredibly lavish package, collecting-up Gainsbourg's lesser known film soundtrack works and presenting them over three cd's and a large, gorgeously presented book. It's hardly surprising the lengths that Universal have gone to on this issue considering the quality of the other cds in the serie but I have to say I think this is my favourite so far simply for the fact that it's a veritable sweetshop of good music - and so much of it - all of it utterly top notch. From sleazy jazz to French low-slung funk to rockabilly to easy listening... it's all here and all injected with Gainsbourg's devilish panache and unsurpassable style".

1. Eau à la Bouche
2. Angoisse
3. Black March
4. Loups Dans la Bergerie (Final)
5. Cha-Cha du Loup
6. Strip-Tease
7. Some Small Chance
8. Rendez-Vous à la Calavados
9. Wake Me at Five
10. Solitude
11. Crazy-Horse Swing
12. Comment Trouvez-Vous Ma Soeur?
13. Erotico-Tico
14. No Love for Daddy
15. Rocking Horse
16. Chanson du Forçat
17. Vidocq Flash-Back
18. Scène de Bal 1
19. Scène de Bal 2
20. Valse du Jardinier
21. Sous le Soleil Exactement
22. Caressante
23. Woom Woom Woom
24. Breakdown Suite

First of a Three Volume Series.
Strictly instrumental music fom L'Eau a la Bouche, Anna, Si J'Étais un Espion, Le Jardinier d'Argenteuil, Les Coeurs Verts, Vidocq, Comment Trouvez-Vous Ma Soeur?, Toutes Folles de Lui, Les Loups dans la Bergerie, Strip-Tease.
All tracks recorded 1959-1967.

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MKT Bhagavathar: 1937-1959

"Born in Trichy (Tamilnad, India) in 1910 to a goldsmith family, M.K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar remains a seminal figure in Tamil music. Celebrated as the very first star in the Tamil film industry (also known as Kollywood), Bhagavathar achieved legendary status in the 1930s and 1940s with a series of devotional songs and epic movies that continue to delight generations of Tamils and music lovers in the world. His training in classical Carnatic traditions provided him with the necessary discipline to bring Papanasam Sivam's compositions to life. This selection, featuring material recorded between 1937 and 1959, is the perfect introduction to M.K.T. Bhagavathar's legendary voice"

1. Bhumiyil Manida
2. Gnaanakkan Ondru
3. Radhe Unakku
4. Vadhaname Chanthira
5. Shyamala Jeevapriye
6. Characharangal
7. Manmatha Lilayayi
8. Naatiya Kalaye
9. Vasantha Ruthu
10. Rajan Maharajan
11. Ambaa Manam
12 Aranange Nai
13. Sollu Paapa
14. Manam Kaninthe
15. Chuttum Vizhil Shudar Thaan
16. Sorpana Vaazhvil
17. Chedi Maraivile
18. Annayum Thandayum

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RD Burman - Caravan (1971)

"The quintessential Burman score and a true testament to his off-kilter genius. The rock ‘n’ roll flavoured Cabaret scene had been a standard in Bollywood movies since the ‘50s, but with the song ‘Piya Tu Ab To Aja’, Burman invented a whole new revolutionary style of music - featuring surf guitars, sleazy jazz sax, moody vibes, Spanish trumpet, eerie organ playing, a big band and a ridiculous number of breaks, bridges and rhythm changes. A total classic." Fact Magazine

1. Pya Tu Ab To Aja - Asha Bhosle & RD Burman
2. Dilbar Diln Se Pyare - Lata Mangeshkar
3. Chadati Jawani Meri Chal Mastani - Lata Mangeshkar & Mohd. Rafi
4. Goriya Kahan Tera Desh - Mohd. Rafi & Asha Bhosle
5. Ab Jo Mile hain - Asha Bhosle
6. Hum to Hain Rahi Dil Ke - Kishore Kumar
7. Daiya Yeh Main Kahan Phasi - Asha Bhosle
8. Kitna Pyara Wada - Lata Mangeshkar & Mohd. Rafi

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Elmer Bernstein - I Love You Alice B. Toklas (1968)

Surprisingly produced my a major studio, but nevertheless ultimately conservative, I Love You Alice B. Toklas is a timely comedy that attempts to caricaturize the clash and continuities between the "American way of life" as it was known before the 60s and the hippie movement. Directed by Hy Averack in 1968, it tells the story of Harold Fine, an asthmatic Jewish lawyer who lives out this tension, slides between these two models and "evolves as a human being" in the process. The trigger for such a change is... a woman; or better yet: two women and a dozen marijuana brownies. By embracing the beautiful, sweet, libertarian hippie girl, and rejecting the exhaustive emotional parasite who wants to drag him into a colorless marriage, Harold engages with the Mondo Teeth universe, a world where gurus tell you parables and make riddles about flowers, where junkies bathe in your tub with their clothes on, where directors make extra-long movies about dental realities, and where "it is very unhip to say you're hip". The film is equally sympathetic to both parties, the hip and the square, and concludes by arguing that true freedom and humanity is to be found outside the chartered territories of hypocritical conservatorism and the oft-silly "counterculture" of the 60s.

Elmer Bernstein's soundtrack explores some of the sounds and instruments that were to become a trademark of the decade. It opens with the title theme, in which the Harpers Bizarre sing about Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein, the author of a recipe book that teaches you to cook hashish fudge. (This, however, is not the version included in the movie, which has mellower and, er, groovier vocals). Most of the remaining tracks are stop-and-go instrumental restatements of this and other two themes. with a generous use of sitar, bongos, horns and string orchestration, the small musical episodes that compose a soundtrack not being excluded and creating a satisfying succession of miniature approaches to the same basic phrases. The overall orientation of the record is, perhaps as implied in the movie plot, a merging of "psychedelic" grooves and more "traditional" Hollywood orchestral arrangements, and the soundtrack can be read as a mature and ironic document of the musical experiments and stereotypes of the decade as seen through the glasses of a sympathetic outsider. Whether you're hip or square, whether you're into Gertrude Stein and dope brownies or not, whether you're an asthmatic Jewish lawyer or a freewheeling hairy refusenik, it is likely that, like Harold Fine, you'll love Alice B. Toklas.

link@320 [vinyl rip]

This vinyl rip is a courtesy of Phil, whose Eastern Eye offers a sample track of this and other great records. Many thanks for this.

RD Burman - Yaadon Ki Baaraat (1973)

Yaadon Ki Baarat is a movie directed by Nasir Hussain in 1973. It was a huge hit and it tells, in true Bollywood fashion, the story of three brothers separated during childhood. The eldest brother, played by Dharmendra, becomes friendly with a Muslim boy and grows up to be a good-hearted criminal; the younger one is adopted by a widower who works for a rich Bombay family, and leads a carefree life with his friends; and Ratan, raised by his family's maid, changes his name to Monto and forms a band, called The Avengers, sweeping Bombay's night scene with his wild tunes and eccentric clothing.

Unlike most Bollywood movies, the soundtrack is here crucial to the plot and holds the key to the family reunion that closes the film. In the opening scene, Lata Mangeshkar sings the title song with a children's choir and Padmini Shivangi, depicting the familial harmony that is soon to be destroyed by a villain who wears different sized shoes. This songs allows Lata to display her enormous vocal talent and remains an all-time favorite for Indians of all ages; it is also the song that will allow the three brothers to recognize each other and reunite in the end. After their parents' murder, the brothers go on with their separate lives, and the second song, Aap Ke Kamre Mein, introduces us to Monto and the Avengers, the Psych-Rock-Masala band that offers us the best songs in this soundtrack. Manic rock'n'roll guitars are here merged with fast paced grooves to take us through the various stages of the song. Kishore Kumar and Asha Bhonsle (RD Burman's wife) are then joined by a semi-chaotic choir (reminiscent of Hair-related stuff!), quickly transporting us to a frantic succesion of psych musical sketches that eventually lead to a variation on Dum Maro Dum (probably RD Burman's best known tune in the West) and back again to the opening tune -- that good! Next comes Churya Liya Tumne, an extremely popular tune by Asha that illustrates the memorable courting of Sunita (the unbelievably gorgeous Zeenat Aman) by Vijay (Vijay Arora) at one of those Bombay high-class parties that Bollywood screenwriters fancy so much.

In O Meri Soni, RD Burman pulls one of his plagium/not-plagium tricks and has Asha and Rafi screaming "I Love You" to illustrate a lovers' strife up in the mountains (with suicide threats and all). Then comes Lekar Hum Diwana Dil, another brilliant Burman take on psych rock. The song kicks off with distorted guitars, proceeds to a horn section typical of 70s Burman, and rapidly develops to produce one of Bollywoods most dramatic and intense tunes ever. Violins play a minor role here, as the guitars, congas and organ pave the way for another memorable Asha/Kishore duet. The final song, Yaadon Ki Baarat, revisits the opening tune but now substitues Lata's vocal gimmicks with an emotional and apotheotic duet by Rafi, "the nasal", and Kishore, "the king", marking the final reunion of the three brothers (Dharmendra, the good-hearted criminal, never sings throughout the movie, and therefore remains silent, incognito, and crying while his brothers embrace each other).

Whereas most Bollywood soundtracks, and even Burman's, usually include one or two good songs and simply fill up the rest of the time with banal tunes and arrangements, Yaadon Ki Baarat is engaging from the beginning to the end. It is perhaps Burman's most accomplished recording, one in which his penchant for crazed-out Western psych elements and his continuous engagement with Indian modern musical traditions don't override one another. This is thus true "fusion music", much more than any recording ever produced by Ravi Shankar or Anand Shankar. The only thing to be regretted here is the absence of "incidental music", those scraps of sound and musical sketches in which Burman excelled and that, unfortunately, the publishers deemed unworthy of the CD edition. Jay Burman Jay!

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Georges Delerue - Film Music 1958-1965

Jules et Jim (François Truffaut, 1962)
1. Musiques, Dialogues et Ambiance
voices of Jeanne Moreau, Henri Serre, Oscar Werner
2. Le Tourbillon

lyrics, guitar and music by Cyrus Bassiak

sung by Jeanne Moreau
3. Musiques, Dialogues et Ambiance

Une Aussi Longue Absence, Herni Colpi (1961)
4. Générique
5. Trois Petites Notes de Musique
lyrics by Henri Colpi
sung by Cora Vaucaire



Le Mépris, Jean-Luc Godard (1963)
6. Musiques, Dialogues et Ambiance
voices of Brigitte Bardot, J-L Godard, Michel Piccoli



Hiroshima Mon Amour, Alain Resnais (1958)
7. Musiques, Dialogues et Ambiance
voices of Emmanuelle Riva, Eiji Okada



Viva Maria, Louis Malle (1965)
8. Musiques, Dialogues et Ambiance
9. On a Chanté la Douceur
sung by B. Bardot and J. Moreau
10. Ah! Les Petites Femmes
sung by B. Bardot and J. Moreau
11. Musiques, Dialogues et Ambiance



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Rodgers & Hammerstein - South Pacific (1958)

"With South Pacific, Rodgers and Hammerstein rose to new towering heights of success, both commercially and artistically, following their triumph with Oklahoma! and Carousel. There was hardly any question in anybody's mind at the première performance of South Pacific that this was a classic of the musical theatre of the stature of Oklahoma! and Carousel. The veteran producer Arthur Hammerstein called it the greatest musical show Broadway had ever seen, perfect in every respect. The critic Richard Watts, Jr., described it as "a thrilling and exultant musical play, an utterly captivating work of theatrical art". The response at the box-office was as exultant as that of critics and veteran theatre-goers. South Pacific ran five years on Broadway (1,925 performances), earning nine million dollars. The tour of the national company over a period of several years earned several more millions. The motion picture adaptation grossed domestically more than sixteen million dollars, the sixth highest (at that time) in the history of talking pictures in America. South Pacific played two and a half years in London, after which the company went on a tour that lasted another year and a half. It was also given in foreign translations in many other leading European capitals. The sheet music and the long-playing score also sold in record numbers. The name "South Pacific" was licensed for cosmetics, dresses and lingerie. In addition to all this, South Pacific received most of the coveted awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the New York Drama Critics Award as the season's best musical, seven Antoinette Perry and nine Donaldson Awards."

Mark Lubbock, The Complete Book of Light Opera


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This post is dedicated to Melvin of the Apes, who is now heading to the Pacific South.