Christmas In July 2007-Day 15

You may recall that early last week I missed a day of posting, and I promised to make it up to you this weekend. Well, here's the make-up post, and I hope it was worth the wait. I wanted to do a little something different for you, since you had to wait so long, so here are two half albums, both featuring versions of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. The first version is by Ira Wright And His Orchestra from the album The Nutcracker Suite/Johann Strauss Waltzes (Rondo-lette SA 44, 1959). It's five tracks worth of the original, with slightly wonky sound, but hopefully you can still enjoy it. Version two is by The Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra, Conducted by Felix Slatkin, and the LP is Nutcracker Suite/A Midsummer Night's Dream (Capitol SP 8404). This is a much longer take on the ballet, this time running through 8 tracks. (If you like Felix Slatkin, you can download a full Christmas LP from him here.) Please be my guest and download these two half-albums. I have to admit that I don't like either of these versions as much as I do the version from Fred Waring that I shared out last Christmas.

This day last year was a real hodge-podge of tracks. Three songs conducted by Frederick Fennel, and a folk song from The 3-D's.