Showing posts with label Sleigh Ride. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sleigh Ride. Show all posts

Saturday, July 2, 2011

A gorgeous version of an old favorite



I've been rediscovering Leroy Anderson, a composer I once dismissed as kitschy, and, surprise:  his compositions (The Syncopated Clock, The Typewriter, Fiddle-Faddle) are charming and very well-written. He also wrote the perennial favorite Sleigh Ride, which I didn't appreciate until I tried to play it on the violin! Whew. It's much more sophisticated than it first appears. His lesser-known stuff makes me say, "Oh, THAT!", which is a mark of something, i. e. he has worked his way into popular culture, and deservedly. I first heard most of these on Captain Kangaroo, with bizarre pre-video effects like construction-paper puppets against a felt background.