Search - (Soundtrack) :: Miss Hook of Holland - Soundtrack

Transcription Of An Old Recording Of An Edwardian Musical

Marc Kenig | Mountain View, CA United States | 07/03/2000

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This recording of Miss Hook is a rare chance to listen to a spirited performance of a noteworthy Edwardian Musical. It's a wonderfull find for those with interests in these operetta-like early Musicals or the origins of modern musical theater.Miss Hook is a simple, charming and feather-light stage work. Paul Rubens serves up many light-hearted noteworthy numbers, showing rhythmic inventiveness & better-than-average melodic tunesmithing. Rubens as lyricist, though, is far less mature. Buy the recording for it's historical and musical interest and ignore the childish rhyming and stretches of fa-la-las and tra-la-las.The CD comes with liner notes on the origins of Miss Hook and a great bio of Paul A. Rubens and his contribution to the musical stage. There is no libretto. There is occaisional narration on the recording and a good plot summary in the liner notes.The CD is a transcription of an old recording. I would have appreciated, though, some mention of the provenance of the original. It's an early electric recording and some of the lead artists are named, but not the year or company. My major complaint is with a high-pitched hiss on the CD. I would expect that in the digital remastering process, such hiss could have been minimized. In playing the CD, I mix the trebel waaaay down to make the recording bearable. Luckily, the relatively low fidelity of the original recording is such that it doesn't suffer from trebel attenuation at all.Overall kudos to AEI, Andrew Lamb and all others involved in producing the recording and the copious liner notes. I would have rated the CD higher, save the pervasive hissssss."