Sir Henry Wood conducts Shepherds Hey (Grainger)

[tromuniapp]

no-one be the ass that dislikes this

[presbyterosBassI]

This is great! I had no idea films like this existed.

[grai]

Amazing - what year was this?

[A60stock]

@grai 1937

[salexlindsay]

Treasure

[drigin1234]

I just love it one of my favourite pieces of music

thankyou

[ofthetoo]

I love the tempo, especially how it speeds up at the end. I like this string version verses the band version. It's kind of raggedy, not precise, nor contrived; it's just refreshing. It is after all Shepherd's Hey.

[mrsax13]

i prefer the band version

[RyaZila24]

he conducts pretty big for everything

you can't really tell the difference for some dynamics

[shinerchina]

It is of course "The Queen's Hall Orchestra" - The 'Light' addition arrived

after the destruction of the Hall and was,

as already stated, an all purpose name for Chappell's ad-hoc recording orchestra.

[laurielor]

Found in a skip!!

[RyaZila24]

what's a skip?

[A60stock]

Trash can

[d60944]

Wonderful! And how interesting to see a conductor really doing none of all the [physical and facial expression we associate with them so much. He's doing little more than beating time (unusually clearly and easy-to-follow) on the face of it - but clearly the expression is coming from somewhere....!

[theclairvoyant5]

Awesome video...very refreshing to hear this played by professionals. The tempo is very impressive.

[adam28xx]

The Queen's Hall Light Orchestra was formed in 1916 by the music firm Chappell's to promote its own music. It was this orchestra which Sir Henry conducted in the film. He recorded with the New Queen's Hall Orchestra for Columbia (1915-1934) though his Decca 78s (1935-37) were indeed made with the Queen's Hall Orchestra. Charles Williams took over the re-titled New Queen's Hall Light Orchestra in 1942 but resigned in 1946, by which time Chappell's had dropped the "New" in the band's title.

[A60stock]

Many thanks for enlightening us on the complexities of "Queens Hall" orchestras

[adam28xx]

Many thanks to you for letting us see the clip! The orchestra details come from Wood's own autobiography "My Life of Music" and also from Arthur Jacob's biography of the conductor. Incidentally, Wood says he never saw the finished film!

[A60stock]

Thanks. I don't think the film had much of a run, I suspect it was a quota quickie.

[adam28xx]

This clip comes from a 1936 British feature film entitled "Calling the Tune", a story about the development of the gramophone industry, and Sir Henry Wood and his Queen's Hall Light Orchestra, seen here, were among the guest stars.