Tchaikovsky in the Grove

One of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's least known operas is Tsar Saltan. A skip-along scherzo in its second act has become one of the inevitable pieces in any violinist's repertory: Flight of the Bumblebee. Last week Rimsky-Korsakov's little earsore was a strong jukebox nickel-puller, helped by a steady left-hand beat, and a new name: Bumble Boogie.

The man who put it there is short, balding-39-year-old Bandleader Freddy Martin--the man who has made more money from the music of Tchaikovsky and Grieg than the composers did themselves. By last week, Bumble Boogie (titled by Freddy's 14-year-old son, who thereby gets a cut in the profits) had sold a million phonograph records.

Five Bars in Helsinki. Freddy himself was only 16 when he committed his first crime against classical music. He and some fellow high-school boys had played their way to Europe on a Cunard liner. Later, in Helsinki, playing at a hotel, they heard that Jean Sibelius would be a dinner guest that night. They hurriedly worked up a ragtime version of Sibelius' Valse Triste. Sibelius heard five bars of it, and stalked heavily from the room. Says Freddy now: "That's one reason I've never attempted to do anything with Sibelius."

Freddy now dates this part of his life as "B.C.--before concerto," which means before the 1941 Sunday when he heard a broadcast of Toscanini and Vladimir Horowitz, playing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto in B Flat. B.C. includes Freddy's boyhood, thumping a drum and selling musical instruments. For ten years Freddy Martin's band played prestige jobs like the Waldorf-Astoria, but never made much money at it. His recording of Tchaikovsky's Concerto put him into the big time, in the movies and on the air, and shot his income up to about $100,000 a year. (He now owns two song-publishing firms and three horses.)

Freddy Waters Down. Freddy has been borrowing from Tchaikovsky ever since, and it doesn't cost him a cent. He has recorded Nutcracker Suite (an album of eight sides), Serenade for Strings and the theme of the Sixth ("Pathetique") Symphony, titled Now and Forever, with lyrics ("So it was fated, two hearts are mated . . ."*). He also recorded Grieg and Rachmaninoff piano concertos and last week did Dingbat, the Singing Cat, a dance perversion of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. Says Freddy admiringly: "Tchaikovsky is the most commercial of all the classic writers." Martin believes there should be some honor among thieves of classical themes, and thinks it is good of him that he still usually mentions the original composer in titles.

Freddy Martin does not jazz up the classics; he waters them down, so that they are simple enough for his own treacly tenor sax, and the fiddles in his 19-piece band. This diluted sugar has helped draw 1,000,000 dancers to the famed Cocoanut Grove at Los Angeles' Ambassador Hotel in the five years he has played there. He would like to record Debussy's Clair de Lune, but it will be over the copyright owners' dead bodies. Says he: "You've got to give the public something it can hang onto--some real melody that isn't too long, too involved or too deadly. For instance, they want me to try the Moonlight Sonata, but that goes on too long. If anything goes beyond 32 bars it is hard for the public to assimilate."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.