Donald Fraser (Composer), et al - Heigh-Ho! Mozart

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Music reviews of Heigh-Ho! Mozart

Music Review: Varied, eclectic, intriguing and occasionally fascinating
Rating: 4 Stars

[Warning: I have no musical training, and these are personal impressions, not educated analysis. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.]

The Mozart version of "Heigh Ho" is a straightforward rendering of Disney's tune in Mozart's style. It's fun, but not a tour de force. The Johann Strauss "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" is similarly interesting, but doesn't really rise above the level of a re-arrangement of a familiar thirties movie tune.

By contrast, the Rachmaninoff version of "Beauty and the Beast" adds to the emotional effect. The love song plays well in this form. Similarly, the Tchaikovsky approach greatly improves "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" Yes, now I can feel it, which I never quite did in the Elton John original version. The impression of Handel's Water Music (I think) adds to the effect of "Little April Shower".

A very few pieces became new and excellent works on their own. "I Wanna Be Like You" translated very well from its Jazz origin to Villa-Lobos classical guitar, and "Under the Sea" makes a very good Joplin rag. These translations work so well that they are almost new songs, rather than variations, just as "West Side Story" became its own story, not just "Romeo and Juliet in New York".

Some of the combinations are obvious and straightforward. "Feed the Birds", for example - a Brahms version of this sentimental lullabye is not much of a stretch. And both the words and music of "Second Star to the Right" fit well as a Tallis Canon. (It's the only piece with lyrics - in a polyphonic Renaissance religious style.) These versions work very well in the new style, and my appreciation for each song has gone up because of it.

Three pieces sounded very familiar to me, and it took me awhile to figure out why. The orchestrated Grieg "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes", Chopin "With a Smile and a Song" and Richard Strauss "When You Wish Upon a Star" didn't feel like translations at all - they felt like straightforward Disney. Eventually I realized that they mimicked perfectly the feel of the entrance music into the Magic Kingdom, which is, after all, orchestrated Disney tunes. If these three had been on a "Music from the Parks" album, I would have believed it completely.

The piece that fascinates me the most is the Vivaldi Main Street Electrical Parade. I've heard synthesized music trying to duplicate instrumentals, but this is the first time I've heard an instrumental copy of a synthesizer. The instrumental version almost, but not quite, captures the strange tones of the original. The result is that both versions run in my head together, and the piece becomes almost a fugue of what I hear and what I remember.

All in all, an interesting game of styles, and a varied and intriguing collection of music.

Children's Music CDs

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