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Farewell
To The Senate Don Thompson at the Senate Theatre, Detroit
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Farewell
To The Senate Don Thompson at the Senate Theatre, Detroit
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To
hear samples of the tracks on this cd, click on the track names below.
(The player will
continue to play each sample in sequence after your selection - click
the pause or close button on the player to stop it)
01
Calling All Workers
02
Morning Song
03
The Silken Ladder
04
Ebb Tide
05
The Prince of Denmark's March
06
Satie's Gymnopedies 1 & 3
07
If
08
Faure's Pavane
09
My Old Flame
10
Hot Dog
11
When Your Lover Has Gone
12
Granada
13
Clair de Lune
14
Black and Blue
15
Air on the G String
16
Debussy's Arabesque # 1
17
I Get A Kick out of You
18
Dill Pickles
19
Suppe Medley
ABOUT THE ORGANIST
Don Thompson was born in England and became very well known there as an
organist in the 1950s and 1960s. He arrived in the US in 1968 and
played many concerts in the Los Angeles area, including at the famous
Wiltern and Old Town Music Hall theaters. In 1969 he embarked on his
first concert tour of the US and toured on a yearly basis until 2008.
He also made seven concert tours of Australia and New Zealand and
returned to Britain, Holland and Germany for concerts, beginning in
1974.
He appeared at the Senate Theater in concert several times and this
recording is taken from some of those concerts. The DTOC audience was
exceptional and respectful of the performer; there is very little
audience noise on this recording, just the occasional quiet cough.
ABOUT THE MUSIC
Many pieces on the CD have probably never previously been
recorded on theater organ. “Calling All Workers” is a march by the
famous Eric Coates, composer of the London Suite with its well-known
Knightsbridge March. This was used by the BBC as the theme song for the
daily radio program “Music While You Work” to increase productivity in
wartime. “The Silken Ladder’ (La Scala di Seta) is a comic overture
from a comic opera and it features several false starts and
re-iterations as if the conductor is taking the musicians back a few
bars and there is some simulated laughter written as well. This is a
digitally demanding piece.
Classical and romantic composers’ works are also featured and quite
possibly this is the only theater organ recording of some of them,
though the Bach, Debussy and Jeremiah Clark may have possibly appeared
on others’ CDs. “Hot Dog” is a re-creation of Sidney Torch’s famous
recording. The medley of Franz von Suppe overtures was introduced in
the concert recorded here as “A Bowl of Suppé but when played in
Toronto is was called “A Bowl of Soup – eh?”
Tracks 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15 and 16
were included since almost all are items that are far from the usual theatre
organ repertoire. However, they were sourced from a 1980 recording that though
described as stereo was in fact mono. They have been digitally enhanced to
provide a stereo effect. We hope that the listener will find these tracks as
enjoyable as the ones recorded in full stereo.