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[0:00] Paul Lazarus: Hi, this is Paul Lazarus. In the 1980s, I produced and hosted a radio series called Anything Goes, a celebration of the American musical theater. Now, the Broadway Podcast Network is bringing back these shows. Today, the conclusion of a two-part look at the career of the remarkable Broadway orchestrator Hans Spialek. Spialek orchestrated many of the most famous shows of the 20s, 30s, and 40s. He worked with such notable composers as George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, and Cole Porter. This program was originally broadcast in 1983.

[0:44] Hans Spialek: What do you think of today's, you know, now with all the sound systems and the microphones, does that change the theater?

[0:50] Paul Lazarus: Well, of course it changes the theater. Now, I'll give you just a little example. When a show like On Your Toes, or Babes in Arms, or take any of the shows where there are songs that became standards when they played, at the end of the show, the orchestra plays, you know, I madly love the shows. We call it the exit march. You always saw people standing in the aisles, you know, facing the orchestra and singing with the orchestra. It was a traditional thing in the musical theater. Today, they blow you out of the theater. You know, when they say, da-da-da-da-da, that's where the theater changed. I'll show you, for instance, Annie. If I were to orchestrate it, or at that time, when I was orchestrating, I don't blame Don Walker, he did a show, he did a wonderful job, but that was the fashion.

She sings, they say that falling in love is wonderful, it's wonderful, so to say. No, I would put, you know, I would put the warm strings up. No, she sings wonderful, so to say. You know, the brass section, get the brass, yeah.

[2:15] Hans Spialek: Isn't it true?

[2:16] Paul Lazarus: Yeah, that's right.

[2:18] Hans Spialek: And whatever anybody says, never mind how young or how old we are, there's always a spark of romance in us, you know, that we want to hear. You feel warm when you see a couple making love and saying, you know, I love you, that you really feel warm and it gives a little lump in your throat. Nobody can convince me it isn't so.

[2:41] Paul Lazarus: I think you're right. I'm glad you're, and this is missing today.

[3:36] ♪ Musical number: "Quiet Night" — performed by Joshua Shelley and the 1954 revival cast of On Your Toes ♪

[5:58] Paul Lazarus: You're listening to Anything Goes with Paul Lazarus and an interview with Broadway orchestrator Hans Spialek.

[6:02] Hans Spialek: I never do an orchestration for a singer without afterwards, after the reading, I have to ask him, do you feel comfy? Tell me if you don't. You know, you can do certain instruments, you cannot, there are certain voices, they cannot, for instance, we're using this show in On Your Toes, the bass, oh boy, have you ever heard of an instrument like that?

[6:26] Paul Lazarus: I think I did hear it. I heard it in some of the dances.

[6:30] Hans Spialek: And there were only two singers you could mix it with, in my experience, with all the shows. There was only Ethel Merman and Dennis King, if you remember him.

[6:38] Paul Lazarus: Oh yeah, sure.

[6:40] Hans Spialek: He was an American, he was married to an angel, and he sang this song, Spring is here, that was a bass solo with him, and it made a beautiful combination. I always ask, please, this is the time to tell me, you know, at the reading, tell me, are you really comfy?

[7:00] Paul Lazarus: So you really think the orchestration should really make the singer comfortable?

[7:04] Hans Spialek: Oh, it makes the singer, makes the singer, gives a certain inspiration, too. They sometimes, they wait for certain figures, and when they go out of town, we were shown, the flute player or the thing doesn't play, they ask, what happened to that figure?

[7:18] ♪ Musical number: "It's Got To Be Love" — performed by Unknown performer ♪

[9:12] Paul Lazarus: Before the revival of On Your Toes, I asked Hans Spialek about his working relationship with composer Richard Rodgers, who he did many, many shows with.

[9:22] Hans Spialek: Dick never gave me... Never. He walked around fighting his nerves, you know. And never made any comments and never said to me...

[9:34] Paul Lazarus: This is Richard Rodgers, yeah.

[9:34] Hans Spialek: It's true. When we had... The only time was on... Yeah, after Too Many Girls. After Too Many Girls, he sent me a telegram. He said, Thanks. Here's to the next one. Dick. He sent it the day we met. That's all I ever get. So finally, you know, I got a little bit up in this business too. I became sort of somebody. So we had the readings to Pal Joey. And everybody applauded me. Even Gene Kelly. And all that. And he didn't say a word. So finally, you know, I said, This is Dick. You don't like it. Why don't you tell me? He says, Who told you? If I wouldn't like it, you wouldn't be here. That was the only comment I ever had.

[10:30] Paul Lazarus: What about Larry? What about Larry Hart? What was he like in terms of...

[10:36] Hans Spialek: After each number they played, he'd come up to me and hit me on the shoulder. Good boy. Good boy. Good boy. He was very short. He was almost shorter.

[10:46] Paul Lazarus: And what the town. Let me tell you something about Too Many Girls. Too Many Girls had no opening chorus. And finally, Abbott insisted we want an opening chorus. It was a college show.

[11:02] Hans Spialek: Yeah, I know. Whatever it is. So one morning, this was a rehearsal, and Hans says, Dick says, Come. We went to the orchestra pit. He says, We have to write an opening chorus. And we need it the latest tomorrow.

[11:22] Hans Spialek: It was in the morning. So I went down, he was sitting at a piano and was playing. And I took it down, you know, like you're a stenographer takes down, so I took the notes down, you know. Then he says, all right, take Larry, you go out to the box office, there's an office there, you give me Tommy, you know, what is it? I love you, I love you, I know, know all we want, you know, so give me Tommy. And I said, you know, in ten minutes, not even ten minutes, she wrote the opening chorus, and I had my mouth open. I said, Larry, how, how could you do that? She said, well, I said, makes me a lyric writer.

[12:06] ♪ Musical number: "Heroes In The Fall" ♪

[14:07] Paul Lazarus: "Heroes in the Fall" from Too Many Girls on Ben Bagley's album, Rogers and Hart's Too Many Girls. And this is Anything Goes, Paul Lazarus and Jeff Lunden. And you're listening to a pre-recorded interview with the orchestrator of the current revival of On Your Toes on Broadway and an orchestrator whose work goes back to the 20s, Hans Spialek.

[14:32] Hans Spialek: I had a show called One for the Money.

[14:37] Paul Lazarus: Oh yeah, I've heard of this.

[14:43] Hans Spialek: There was a sequel to it, it was Two for the Show. They did One for the Money and then they did Two for the Show. We needed for the change I've seen, we needed somebody quick, you know, a dancer. So who was there? A tap dancer with his girl. I come out to it. I did a dance, a tap dance, and some number, and all that. He comes to the reading rehearsal, and that little snuggy thing starts, stops dancing. So the conductor says, what is this? The orchestration stinks. That's all I need. You know, I'm very soft-spoken, but when it comes to something, I can't stick it. So he says, you, you who knows nothing in his whole life but two or three steps and built his whole life, you talk to somebody who has to study years and years, day and night, and has to go through, you have to have a right to say, if I would have the right to say that, I would drive you off right to the stage and kick you out of the theater. You know who that was? Gene Kelly.

[16:01] Paul Lazarus: No, this is not the end of the story. About two or three years later on, I go to the run-through of Pal Joey.

[16:13] Hans Spialek: Oh, and you did the orchestrations for that too?

[16:17] Hans Spialek: And there's that little punk. And he did the most wonderful job. And I never hesitated to say so. I never hesitated to say when something is bad, and I never hesitated to go on a stage. I ran right backstage and went to Gene and says, you're just, he looked at me, that coming from you, you know he was a hulker, this is 40, almost 40 years ago. That coming from you, this is something to me, you know. And then we became the best of friends.

[16:56] Paul Lazarus: Yeah, he was wonderful. See how things change in the theater.

[17:05] ♪ Musical number: "You Took Advantage Of Me" — performed by Gene Kelly and Vera Ellen ♪

[18:00] Paul Lazarus: From the film, Words and Music, you heard Gene Kelly and Vera Ellen singing "You Took Advantage of Me," a Rogers and Hart song. Unfortunately, I don't have any recordings of Mr. Kelly in Pal Joey. And even sadder, I don't have many recordings featuring the work of my guest today on Anything Goes, orchestrator Hans Spialek. Primarily his oeuvre encompasses the years 20s, 30s, and 40s, when not too many original cast recordings were being made. So we don't have direct examples of his work for you. Apart from Rogers and Hart and many other great composers, Spialek's probably next and most deep collaboration was with composer-lyricist Cole Porter.

[18:59] Paul Lazarus: Did you enjoy working with Porter? I mean, was he fun to work with?

[19:02] Hans Spialek: Oh, no, he was wonderful to work with. He always calls me, you know, with a typical English accent, oh, my boy, my boy, oh.

[19:11] Paul Lazarus: He had style, didn't he?

[19:13] Hans Spialek: Oh, yeah. And then, of course, it was the tragic accident, you know. He had about a hundred operations. When I did the show for him, You Never Know, and we had the first reading we had in the ballroom for You Never Know. And he came down, he was dressed out. Oh, my boy, you know, my boy. But you could see.

[19:43] ♪ Musical number: "At Long Last Love" ♪

[22:44] ♪ Musical number: "At Long Last Love" — performed by Bobby Short ♪

[24:07] Paul Lazarus: My guest today on Anything Goes, Spialek is just filled with wonderful stories of the great composers and lyricists of the past, and recalled one evening with, once again, Cole Porter. He also had a song. It was called I Happen to Like New York. Yes, I love that song. Now this I did strictly, and it was written that way, in the Ravel style. You know. He was crazy about the orchestration, and do you know what he did? He hired the orchestra after rehearsals for a half an hour, and he sat on the stage with a glass of, you know, he drank, he had a glass of, and had the orchestra play I Happen to Like New York. He himself sitting on the bare stage. This is it. Cole Porter sitting on the stage, listening to his own song with champagne. That's tremendous.

[27:30] Paul Lazarus: Mr. Spialek, who knew Rogers and Hart, Porter, Gershwin, Eumanns, defended their skills as musicians in response to a question about Tin Pan Alley-type composers. All those men, Gershwin, Cole Porter, Rogers, were first-class, first-class musicians. They were studied musicians. You had piano parts, nothing could fit on, and if you did nothing else but double your piano part in the orchestra, you know, give, say, violins the melody, give the other second-round things accompaniment, but when the bass, the bass, you have an orchestration already. And forget about Tin Pan Alley. This is a myth, and it never existed.

[32:32] Paul Lazarus: Slotter on 10th Avenue, Richard Rogers' classic composition. And that wraps up a look at the work of Broadway orchestrator Hans Spialek. And my guess, even though I'm not 100% sure, is that what we just played does represent Mr. Spialek's orchestration of that work. And that, of course, from On Your Toes, the show that is currently being revived on Broadway, directed once again by its original director, Mr. George Abbott, and featuring the orchestrations in their basically original form of Hans Spialek.

[33:25] Paul Lazarus: You've been listening to the conclusion of a two-part look at the career of Broadway orchestrator Hans Spialek. Associate Producer Jeff Lunden. Anything Goes! Backstage with Broadway's Best is produced and hosted by Paul Lazarus. For more information, visit anythinggoespl.com. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate and follow us. Thanks for listening.