Ketèlbey: Original Historic Recordings Vol. 2

Somewhere in the vaults of pre-talkie cinema there must be a ghost still cueing up “In the Mystic Land of Egypt” as the villain twirls his mustache. Naxos’s second volume of historic Ketèlbey recordings brings that ghost back to life, crackle and all, and the results are — how to put this gently — a decidedly mixed bag of exotic incense and stale potpourri.

Ketèlbey knew his audience. He was, after all, a working professional who scored silent films for a living before he became the purveyor of drawing-room orientalism that made him rich. Born in Birmingham, trained at Trinity College of Music (he won a scholarship there over young Gustav Holst, a fact he never tired of mentioning), Ketèlbey had real artistry — he could have written harder music. He chose not to. There’s the whole story.

This collection leans hard into the “méditation réligieuse” vein, and here the results turn genuinely peculiar. “The Sacred Hour,” sung by Peter Dawson in that burnished, oaken bass-baritone of his, has real dignity — Dawson could make a laundry list sound like scripture, and he nearly redeems the piece’s harmonic simplicity through sheer vocal weight and unhurried phrasing. Nellie Wallace’s “Sanctuary of the Heart” is another matter. Wallace was a music-hall comedienne, not a concert singer, and her attempt at hushed reverence here comes off as vibrato-laden and, frankly, a bit much — every phrase wrung dry, nothing left for the ear to discover on a second hearing.

Dennis Noble brings welcome elegance to “In the Mystic Land of Egypt,” his diction crisp against the murky surface noise of a source album pushing ninety years old. You can practically smell the incense in Ketèlbey’s chromatic haze — parallel sixths sliding under a modal tune borrowed wholesale from the Orientalist toolkit that Saint-Saëns and Delibes had already worn smooth. Ketèlbey himself turns up at the piano for “Wedgwood Blue,” a confection so pretty it borders on Wedgwood parody, and conducts his own concert orchestra through “Bells Across the Meadows” with the unhurried assurance of a man who knew exactly how long to let a tune breathe before the next crescendo.

The three-movement In a Fairy Realm is where the sugar content becomes genuinely dangerous. “The Moonlit Glade” drifts pleasantly enough. “The Queen-Fairy Dances” — a waltz so twee it practically curtsies — will test the patience of anyone over the age of nine. “The Gnomes’ March” at least has some rhythmic snap to it, tubas lumbering along under the flutes like something out of a provincial pantomime, which is more or less what it is.

Florence Smithson’s contributions — “Fairy Butterfly” and “King Cupid” — belong to an entirely vanished vocal tradition: the fluttery Edwardian soubrette style, all portamento and coy hesitation, charming in the way an antique postcard is charming. You wouldn’t want a whole evening of it. Robert Easton’s “A Dream of Christmas” is a genuine curiosity, cobbling together carol tunes with the shameless efficiency of a man assembling a Christmas pudding from whatever’s in the pantry — “The First Nowell” jostling against “God Rest Ye Merry” with barely a modulation to smooth the seams.

Best of the lot, oddly, is “Algerian Scene,” with Albert Sandler’s violin — sweet-toned, unfussy, wonderfully idiomatic salon playing — set against Ketèlbey’s own direction. Sandler had exactly the light touch this repertoire wants: no vibrato excess, just a singing line and impeccable timing on the rubato. It’s the one track here that transcends its era rather than merely documenting it.

Transfers are serviceable — Naxos hasn’t performed miracles on source shellac that was never going to sound better than it does, hiss and surface noise present throughout, occasional pitch wobble on the older sides. Anyone wanting modern, fully resuscitated Ketèlbey should still turn to the old Marco Polo studio recordings under Adrian Leaper, or the EMI compilations from the 1970s revival, which offer the tunes without the crackle.

But that’s rather beside the point of a set like this. What you’re buying is testimony — the actual voices and violins that filled cinemas and drawing rooms when this music was new, before irony got hold of it. Judged as archaeology, it’s valuable. Judged as an evening’s listening, it flags badly after the fairies show up. Volume 1 had better tunes and, crucially, fresher surfaces. This one is for specialists, nostalgists, and anyone who has ever wondered what music-hall reverence actually sounded like. Recommended with reservations — bring your own sugar tolerance.