Conductor John McGlinn has Passed Away

[dayao]

Posted: 2/14/09 at 5:22pm

Sad news from friends in London: Conductor and musical archivist John McGlinn has passed away. McGlinn was the music director for the off-Broadway productions of Jerome Kern's SITTING PRETTY (1989) and THE CAT AND THE FIDDLE (1990). McGlinn was very active in the recording studio in the 1980's and his complete recordings of Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein's SHOW BOAT and Cole Porter's ANYTHING GOES are still considered among the best cast albums ever. His recordings with Kim Criswell are especially wonderful. He will be greatly missed.

John McGlinn 9/18/1953-2/14/2009

Updated On: 2/14/09 at 05:22 PM

[Paul W. Thompson]

Posted: 2/14/09 at 5:55pm

Oh, how sad! He made wonderful contributions to musical theater. And he wasn't all that old, either.

[Chip12]

Posted: 2/14/09 at 5:57pm

Its sad for anyone to die before their time, but was he really such a huge theatre person? I'm actually asking - you could call me kind of a theatre n00b.

[Paul W. Thompson]

Posted: 2/14/09 at 6:03pm

In the 80s, at the dawn of the digital recording age, his work was considered very significant. It is likely that the Hal Prince "Show Boat" revival would not have happened without McGlinn's 3-CD recording. His scholarship was extremely thorough, at a time when original orchestrations that were thought lost or unimportant were re-emerging and being made available again. And I'm sure the people at Encores! would agree that McGlinn's work helped make concert stagings of classic shows what they are today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McGlinn

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=144214&source=CLOFO
Updated On: 2/14/09 at 06:03 PM

[dayao]

Posted: 2/14/09 at 6:10pm

Yes, John McGlinn was, in the world of people who know and love musical theater, a huge theater person. Besides being a fine conductor, he devoted much of his life to the preservation of America's Musical Theater heritage and his recordings allow today's audiences to hear music by such great composers as Gershwin, Kern & Porter as it was first heard in the theater. For that alone his contribution is huge by any standard but he was also a rather jolly person who always showed great enthusiasm and joy in his work and he nurtured some of the 1980's greatest musical talent, including Kim Criswell and Brett Barrett. If we judge the importance of theater by on stage talent alone, McGlinn is no Patti Lupone but his legacy will endure and will be appreciated by many generations to come much longer than any performer, in my opinion. Below is a list of McGlinn's most famous recordings:

Studio/Concert Cast Albums:
Annie Get Your Gun
Anything Goes
Brigadoon
Kiss Me Kate
Show Boat
Sitting Pretty

Anthologies:
Cole Porter Overtures
Gershwin Overtures
Jerome Kern Treasury
Jerome Kern Overtures
The Busby Berkeley Album
Songs Of New York
Broadway Showstoppers
plus an appearance on Jerome Kern Revisited Vol. 4

Vocals:
Kim Criswell – The Lorelei
Thomas Hampson – Night and Day; Kurt Weill On Broadway
Kiri Te Kanawa – Kiri Sings Gershwin
Frederika Von Stade – My Funny Valentine

[TheCharleston]

Posted: 2/14/09 at 6:14pm

Chip - I need a new sock puppet to bring home, for the kids to play with.

Can I wrap you up and take you?? You're the most darling sock ever.

[Chip12]

Posted: 2/14/09 at 6:17pm

Wow! He sure accomplished a lot - he will be missed.

[Chip12]

Posted: 2/14/09 at 6:17pm

P.S. Charleston, I'm ignoring you.

[Gypsy9]

Posted: 2/14/09 at 6:20pm

John McGlinn's SHOWBOAT is nothing short of magnificent. It is a memorable tribute to McGlinn's genius in the studio.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/14/09 at 6:21pm

Chip--learn to STFU on threads involving genuine grief or other emotions--or people will think of you as both a sock puppet AND an aSshole.

RIP, Maestro, and thank you for the all the work you did restoring great music.

[Paul W. Thompson]

Posted: 2/14/09 at 6:24pm

It is hard to think of John McGlinn without the phrase, "in an old Warner Brothers warehouse in Secaucus, New Jersey," echoing through my head. Those of a certain age, and those who read CD liner notes, will know exactly what I mean.

[esparza 333]

Posted: 2/14/09 at 6:40pm

A musical icon in his own right. His body of work speaks for itself. He will be missed and thank you for the music.

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 2/14/09 at 7:56pm

Very sorry to hear about McGlinn's passing. As Show Boat may be my favorite musical of all time, his 3-CD (records in those days) recording forms the bedrock of my SB archive. EVERY note of EVERY version was included (not in the body of the recording, but as an addendum) -- so you can play it however you wish. I understand that he had negotiated with the powers that be for a recording of another Kern gem, The Cat and the Fiddle, but he held out for recording the entire show or nothing. Since it would have run over one CD, it never happened.

[husk_charmer]

Posted: 2/14/09 at 8:01pm

PJ-
I actually think Chip was being legit. A lot of my hardcore theatre friends had NO idea who he was.

[TulitaPepsi]

Posted: 2/14/09 at 8:02pm

Very sad news. McGlinn was way ahead of everybody in his re-discovery of forgotten scores and original orchestrations. I especially enjoy his non-Criswell recordings very much.

Paul, wasn't there a lot more material in that crate? I seem to recall that it contained numerous unknown songs that I think are still unheard.

Why did McGlinn stop his recordings? No money?

[Paul W. Thompson]

Posted: 2/14/09 at 10:02pm

Yes, I think there was a lot that still hasn't been fully resurrected. Tams-Witmark and Warner Bros. Music and T.B. Harms are all part of huge corporations now, and they don't see the importance. And with all recording sales going down lately, the labels weren't going to record archival scores to sell 3,000 copies of Kristen Chenoweth in "Sally."

[Chip12]

Posted: 2/14/09 at 11:26pm

PJ sent me a post demanding I apologize to everyone in this thread and said I was "belittling" McGlinn's life. So, I'm very sorry. I meant no disrespect, but since I don't know much about theater, I wanted to know more about him and then I posted a kind, mornful post.

[TheCharleston]

Posted: 2/14/09 at 11:27pm

Google is your friend.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/14/09 at 11:29pm

A thread like this should NEVER be made about YOU. It's about John McGlinn, a great artist who passed away.

Now go away and don't come back until you've listened to one of his recordings.

No response necessary OR desired. Thank you for not responding.

[PiraguaGuy2]

Posted: 2/14/09 at 11:33pm

You asked for her to apologize to the thread and then when she did so you...got MAD at her?

[TheCharleston]

Posted: 2/14/09 at 11:37pm

Provoking Pal Joey is clearly the smartest thing you have ever done....

(sarcasm)

[WishingOnlyWounds2]

Posted: 2/14/09 at 11:48pm

May he rest in peace.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 2/14/09 at 11:54pm

The recording of SHOW BOAT came as the crest of the wave of the boom period was happening. Between 1987 and 1994 EMI, Sony, BMG and MCA issued most of the major cast albums (and a lot of minor ones) on CD, joined in the stores by new digital remakes of classic shows. Leading the way was McGlinn with his note-complete recording of SHOW BOAT, which was a best seller for EMI. His follow-ups, ANYTHING GOES, KISS ME KATE, ANNIE GET YOUIR GUN and BRIGADOON did not sell the same numbers but sold well enough.

I also highly recommend his Busby Berkley album (recreating 10 classic routines from the WB films of the 1930s) and his Jerome Kern Treasury.

If you don't know these recordings go online or over to the library and listen. You'll discover a wealth of material that until these discs came out had never been recorded.

The reason that there are no more of these recordings being done is economic. These studio cast albums are expensive and as more and more appeared (some by McGlinn, some like the Gershwin series on Roxbury/Nonesuch by other conductors) the started selling less and less. How many people bought SITTING PRETTY? Or TIP TOES?

[Paul W. Thompson]

Posted: 2/15/09 at 12:04am

Thanks for your input, frontrow. I knew you would have something appropriately thought through and informative to post.

But elmore, if that is true, that is the most horrible thing I have ever read! How absolutely awful. In so many ways. God rest his soul. God bless all of us.

[elmore3003]

Posted: 2/15/09 at 12:18am

My information is most likely the source for everything that's followed today. I was notified around 3:30 by a friend of John's late Uncle Frank who had been called from McGlinn's apartment by a detective looking for his next of kin. Russell Warner was also called and he then called me and confirmed this.

At that point I posted the info on CastRecordingList as well as my Facebook page, and I emailed everyone for whom I had an address who had either worked with John, knew John, or been burned by John. This is not the place or time to be his critic and I, as one who worked with him for nearly 20 years, am most likely his largest critic. I think his SHOW BOAT is a great achievement, but I'm also aware of his failings as scholar, researcher, musician and friend. I believe I am most saddened by the fact that the breach in our friendship is now irreparable.