Word: mantovani
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...there is no doubt that the taste of the companies-and of the customers-is gradually improving. Says Columbia Artists President Frederick C. Schang Jr.: "They start listening to Mantovani. In time they want Kostelanetz, which is a step up. or maybe the Boston Pops. Then maybe they will venture on to a big-time symphony orchestra playing Tchaikovsky. After that, one of these days, they'll even go for Beethoven-and they are caught. That's the way it's done in this country...
...clock radio in the softly shadowed bedroom clicked on at 7:30 sharp, and the sleepers in the twin beds stirred slightly to the slushy beat of Mantovani and Softly as in a Morning Sunrise. The husband got up first to put on the coffee and slip a record on the hifi. As his wife relaxed for a few minutes more, planning her day, she could just hear the treacly organ notes of Music for Meditation dripping from the living-room Bozak...
...idea: spare the listener the sound of the human voice, except at decent intervals, i.e., no oftener than every 15 minutes through the day and every half-hour in the evening. In between. WPAT. plays carefully chosen, well-groomed music, mostly the massed strings and muted brass of the Mantovani-Kostelanetz style, nothing more popular than show tunes or more classical than a Brahms waltz...
...Mantovani was born in Venice in 1905. He inherited his taste for the lyrical side of music from his father, who was once concertmaster for Toscanini, Saint-Saens and Mascagni. When Paolo was four, the family went to England on an opera tour and decided to stay. Paolo showed talent on the piano, then the violin, and gave solo recitals before settling into the salon-music business. Over the years he gained the respect of London's music world, began broadcasting, and became Composer-Playwright Noel Coward's musical director...
Nobody can explain Mantovani's sudden ascent from a better-than-average bandleader of average popularity, except that in 1951 he added a couple of dozen strings to sweeten up his orchestra, and recorded a schmalzy old waltz called Charmaine. It was a period when makers of LP records were discovering the possibilities of mood music. Mantovani's "new music" was apparently just what thousands of people wanted to hear when they were not really listening. It still is. Today, London Records claims, sales have topped...