Haunted Heart- A Schwartz & Dietz favourite: Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz were a composer and lyricist team whose many songs ended up in the 1953 MGM musical " The Bandwagon " with " That's Entertainment" rivalling " There's No Business Like Show Business" as the flag waving favourite for the entertainment industry. Schwartz started life as a lawyer , then had a fine career as a composer and also became a Hollywood film producer. Howard Dietz a dedicated craftsman with words had a lengthy career as a publicist with MGM Pictures where it was said he wrote lyrics on the back of MGM Stationery.
In 1948, they collaborated on a musical revue called " Inside USA" based on a popular book by John Gunther. Haunted Heart is from that show and is a most tender and evocative love song that laments the fact that the singers haunted heart won't let her be free and that ghost within her has captured her completely. Given the nature of the lyrics , it must be sung with consummate sincerity and conviction or it could risk becoming maudlin.
Jane Monheit, a promising cabaret and jazz singer does treat the song with the tenderness it demands with every word uttered passionately yet controlled. Her performance forces you closer and closer to listen attentively. The response of the audience at the Rainbow Room is evidence of the spellbinding quality of her performance. Certainly the hushed string arrangement only enhances the mood conveyed by the piece itself and Jane Monheit's reverent treatment. The song was once made popular by Perry Como and Jo Stafford but this version is the best I have been able to unearth. This is not a song for the cynical but for those who still maintain a spark of romance in their private moments.. Other songs like " I See Your Face Before Me" and " If There is Someone lovelier Than You" provide further evidence of this writing team's ability to create some of the most deeply romantic songs of the Twentieth Century
LINK: http://youtu.be/oYLI0tfiBpU
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Link: http://youtu.be/oYLI0tfiBpU
The Jane Monheit version is quite lovely and the string arrangement is absolutely stunning.
ReplyDeleteThere is another version by Renee Fleming (with only Fred Hirsch at the piano) which is equally captivating. It's available on You Tube.
The song itself, of course, is a masterpiece - a jewel of great rarity and beauty which deserves the treatment given it by both Monheit and Fleming.
While I love Jo Stafford beyond words, I find her version of this great song a little too detached. Brilliant, nevertheless, but just not quite the introspection by the other two artists mentioned.