Robert Davies
Robert Davies
October 2nd 2010
Boehm
Robert opened his program with the Radetsky March plus Opus 228 from William Tell and The Light Cavalry Overture from the Merry Widow. Next was Hero as performed by the international operatic pop vocal group Il Divo, set to rich strings and vocals and to a nice red background by Keith.
Our Mr. Supreme was ready with his kaleidoscope of colours and patterns for Westside Story: I Feel Pretty - Maria - Tonight - I'd Like To Be In America and Somewhere. Time to mention that Robert was producing some very nice rich sounds out of his Diamont 280 CT organ to enhance all his pieces of music throughout the evening.
Michael Buble's It Had Better Be Tonight and a lively samba composed by Henri Mancini preceded the slow ballad Forgotten Dreams by LeRoy Anderson before Mr. Buble returned with Feeling Good.
A lone church bell tolled, the sound of the harpsichord and then into full strings for an excerpt from Tosca. Red and purple floating shapes, Klaus Wunderlich and James Last sounds combined for Something Stupid and Games That Lovers Play.
Bette Midler recorded From A Distance for the album Some People's Lives some twenty years ago, before Robert took us back nearly eighty years with a song composed by Harold Arlen: I've Got The World On A String. Then it was off to Russia and the sounds of the balalaika with Dark Eyes and Midnight in Moscow.
Raffle time over, we could settle down to the second half of Robert's concert and a bit of nostalgia taking us back to 1955 with Non Stop, the original ITN news theme music composed by John Malcolm which was used until 1970.
One of my favourite pieces of music followed - the Chorus Of The Hebrew Slaves - before Robert reminded us that winter was on its way with The Snowwaltz.
Tiny red and green lights flickered merrily all over the stage and ceiling for Il Mondo (My World) which was set to rich orchestral sounds.
If you are a film lover and have seen both Godfather 1 & 2, then the music from those two films was right up your street. The music of the Beatles is as popular today as it was way back in the Sixties. Eleanor Rigby - Michelle - played slightly up tempo, nice - Will You Still Love Me When I'm 64?, concluding with Ticket To Ride, super stuff.
Mr. A.L.Webber is still going equally strong, tonight we heard Sunset Boulevard, the adaptation from the film with the same name. Edmundo Ross, due to celebrate his 100th Birthday on December 7th, will forever be associated with Latin American music, his career spanning some 54 years. Robert delighted us with Samba Fascination.
Freddy Mercury, Queen and the Bohemian Rhapsody, a very difficult piece of music to play, all go together, well done Robert. A red background then set the scene for I Know I Need To Be In Love by the Carpenters.
Having enjoyed a very pleasant evening of good music by Robert and his Boehm organ, the evening unfortunately drew to the inevitable close with a medley of tunes taken from various A.L. Webber shows, far too many to mention.
The traditional Basildon encore was asked for with Robert duly obliging with a couple of lively Rock 'n' Roll numbers, Jailhouse Rock and Blue Suede Shoes. Those present really enjoyed the evening; there was a lot of positive feedback at the door as folk left.