Post tease: "Speak, and the world is full of singing" -- isn't it a shame this fine singer is prevented from continuing this lovely song?

In these unglamorous surroundings, our guy records his most famous role.

Speak, and the world is full of singing,
and I am [or "I'm"] winging
higher than the birds!
Touch, and my heart begins to crumble!
The heavens tumble,
darling, and I --

by Ken

I expect everyone recognizes this wondrous musical moment, and though I don't recall hearing or reading anyone else say so, I can't be the only witness to it who always hopes against hope that the song might be allowed, if just this once, to go on. Stopping it from going on should take something pretty remarkable, but I think we can agree that "pretty remarkable" is a fair description of what happens at just the point where we've left off.

We'll come back to this, but for now --


IF YOU CAN'T QUITE PLACE THAT MOMENT,
THIS ONE'S SURE TO BE A DEAD GIVEAWAY

(I think it's safe to say that this is the song our tenor was recording when the photo was taken.)

And oh, the towering feeling,
just to know somehow you are near.
The overpowering feeling
that any second you may suddenly appear.

WE NEED TO TAKE THEM IN REVERSE ORDER -- SO . . .

DON'T LET THE PICTURE FOOL YOU, WE'RE IN LONDON!
IN FRONT OF THE HOUSE AT 27-A WIMPOLE STREET

During one of the more celebrated sessions in recording history, the making of the Original Broadway Cast album of My Fair Lady on Sunday, Mar. 25, 1956 (10 days after the show opened at the Mark Hellinger Theater), John Michael King -- the originator of Lerner and Loewe's Freddy Eynsford-Hill -- records "On the street where you live," the song for which he'll always be remembered.

LERNER and LOEWE: My Fair Lady: late in Act I --

With orchestral introduction and Freddy's recitative,
"When she mentioned how her aunt bit off the spoon"


Bill Shirley (voice of Freddy); with Mona Washbourne (Mrs. Pearce); Original Soundtrack Recording, André Previn, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded 1963

Jerry Hadley (Freddy); with Meriel Dickinson (Mrs. Pearce); London Symphony Orchestra, John Mauceri, cond. Decca, recorded in Henry Wood Hall, London, February and May 1987

Or just . . . the song --


John Michael King (Freddy); Original Broadway Cast recording, Franz Allers, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded in Columbia 30th Street Studio, Mar. 25, 1956

Leonard Weir (Freddy); Original London Cast recording, Cyril Ornadel, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded Feb. 1, 1959

[AFTERTHOUGHT: Going back to Jerry H in the Decca recording, I suppose I should have said something about that unfortunate accent he's sort-of-affecting, especially since it's going to be an issue again down below. I was thinking, though, that I could just let these performances speak for themselves. In the case of Jerry H's, though I'm still not overwhelmed, I was pleasantly surprised to like them better than I remembered. Nevertheless, mightn't somebody at the recording sessions have worried a little about the singers' damned vowels?
[FURTHER TO THE PRECEDING: Peeking in the Decca album booklet, I see that an "accent coach" is credited! Given that the Higgins of the performance is Jeremy Irons and the Pickering, Sir John Gielgud (at 83!), two of the more memorable speakers of the English language of whom we have aural record, I'm guessing their accents didn't need much coaching. Still -- ]

UPDATE: For anyone who doesn't know, the My Fair Lady OBC album was made just before Columbia would have made the recording in stereo, so canny Columbia Masterworks a&r chief Goddard Lieberson took advantage of the show's transplantation to London in 1958 to make a second "original cast" recording, in 1959, with mostly the same principals: Rex Harrison as Henry Higgins, Julie Andrews as Eliza Doolittle, Stanley Holloway as Alfred P. Doolittle, Robert Coote as Colonel Pickering, but not John Michael King as Freddy. He was replaced quite capably by the Australian tenor Leonard Weir, though as with everything except the recorded sound the OBC album is thought by most everyone to be better than the OLC one -- no shame considering that the OBC album is one of the great recordings of all time. Personally, I'd hate to be without either.

On the subject of Freddy, we might recall that in the George Cukor-directed film version of My Fair Lady the role was played by -- of all people! -- the future greatest-of-all-Sherlock Holmeses, Jeremy Brett [left], who apparently expected to be singing as well as acting. (He was enough of a singer that his stage roles back then included Count Danilo in The Merry Widow, a darned serious singing role.) However, he was cast so late that he found his musical numbers had already been recorded, by Bill Shirley, much as all of Eliza's singing was dubbed for Audrey Hepburn by Marni Nixon.


NOW, SPEAKING OF "THE OVERPOWERING FEELING
THAT ANY SECOND YOU MAY SUDDENLY APPEAR" --

As a matter of fact, now, in Act II, we're back in front of 27-A Wimpole Street, having just witnessed the scene inside the home of Prof. Henry Higgins, in which Higgins and his friend Colonel Pickering and his servants have been celebrating -- in the great number "You did it!" -- his previous night's triumph in passing off his "guttersnipe"-conversion project, Eliza Doolittle, as a young lady of distinction, thanks to his exhaustive tutelage in speaking proper English. Liza, witnessing the celebration unnoticed, has been shocked and humiliated by the way she's talked about, and heads out the door to the street, where of course she "suddenly appears" to the perpetually loitering and love-struck Freddy, who in fact has just been singing -- what else? -- a reprise of "On the street where you live."

Freddy has gotten as far as the start of the final stanza, "People stop and stare. They don't --," and as the orchestra completes the stanza, a brief dialogue ensues:

FREDDY: Darling!
ELIZA: What are you doing here?
FREDDY: Nothing. I spend most of my time here. Oh, don't laugh at me, Miss Doolittle, but this is the only place --
ELIZA: Freddy, you don't think I'm a "heartless guttersnipe," do you?
FREDDY: Oh, no, darling! How could you imagine such a thing? You know how I feel! I've written you two and three times a day telling you. Sheets and sheets. Eliza --

And then this happens:

Imagine that Julie Andrews -- if we could see her in costume as Eliza Doolittle, probably carrying a little suitcase -- has just stormed out of Professor Higgins's house and run smack into the hopelessly smitten Freddy.

FREDDY: Speak, and the world is full of singing,
and I am winging
higher than the birds.
Touch, and my heart begins to crumble;
the heavens tumble,
darling, and I --

LIZA: Words, words, words! I'm so sick of words!
I get words all day through,
first from him, now from you.
Is that all you blighters can do?

Don't talk of stars
burning above.
If you're in love,
show me!
Tell me no dreams
filled with desire.
If you're on fire,
show me!

Here we are together
in the middle of the night.
Don't talk of spring;
just hold me tight.
Anyone who's ever been
in love will tell you that
this is no time
for a chat.

Haven't your lips
longed for my touch?
Don't say how much --
show me, show me!
Don't talk of love
lasting through time.
Make me no undying vow.
Show me now!

Sing me no song;
read me no rhyme;
don't waste my time.
Show me!
Don't talk of June;
don't talk of fall;
don't talk at all.
Show me!

Never do I ever
want to hear another word --
there isn't one
I haven't heard.
Here we are together
in what ought to be a dream;
say one more word
and I'll scream.

Haven't your arms
hungered for mine?
Please don't explain [note the rhyme of "mine"
with Liza's lapsing-into-Cockney "expline"] --
show me, show me!
Don't wait until
wrinkles and lines
pop up all over my brow --
show me now!

John Michael King (Freddy); Julie Andrews (Liza); Original Broadway Cast recording, Franz Allers, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded in Columbia 30th Street Studio, Mar. 25, 1956

Leonard Weir (Freddy); Julie Andrews (Liza); Original London Cast recording, Cyril Ornadel, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded Feb. 1, 1959

Bill Shirley and Marni Nixon (voices of Freddy and Liza); Original Soundtrack Recording, André Previn, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded 1963

Jerry Hadley (Freddy); Kiri Te Kanawa (Liza); London Symphony Orchestra, John Mauceri, cond. Decca, recorded in Henry Wood Hall, London, February and May 1987

[AFTERTHOUGHT: Wouldn't it be nice for once to have a performance in which Freddy doesn't slow down at all on "the heavens tumble, and I --" so that Liza is genuinely stopping him cold? Just because we don't get to hear what follows doesn't mean Freddy doesn't know. -- Ed.]


WHY ARE WE DETOURING THROUGH MY FAIR LADY?

Fair question, even though I warned you that such a detour was in the offing. I can't explain further now, but in time --

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