REVIEW POTPOURRI – Music: The Penguins; Writer: Alfred Kazin; TV Show: Dragnet

The Penguins

Peter Catesby Peter Cates

The Penguins

I own a ten inch 78 (Dootone 348) containing two songs performed by the doo wop vocal group, the Penguins – Hey Senorita and Earth Angel. It was released in late 1954 and, in early 1955 in an ironic twist of commercial fate, side one’s Senorita, even though pleasant enough, would be ignored by disc jockeys in favor of Earth Angel soaring to #1 on the rhythm and blues charts for three weeks with 4 million copies sold by 1966 and very musically deserving of its success.

At the beginning, the group consisted of the following singers:

Lead tenor Cleveland Duncan (1935-2012), Curtis Williamson (1934-1979), Dexter Tisby (1935-2019), Bruce Tate (1937-1973), vocalist Williams, Gaynel Hodge and the late, great singer Jessie Belvin, who died very young, shared credit in the writing of Earth Angel.

In 1958, the group signed a contract with Mercury Records where the musically similar Platters would score even greater success while the Penguins own sales were already waning.

In 1955, an all white group, the Crewcuts, recorded their own version for Mercury, scored an even greater success on the pop charts and began their own rise to fame.

Alfred Kazin

Alfred Kazin

Alfred Kazin (1915-1998) stated in his Journals on March 22, 1960, a pre-requisite for truly worthwhile writing:

“Without some kind of innocence, no writing is possible. One must give oneself to the world, uncomplainingly, no matter what….”

Interesting­ly, he complained constantly in these Journals, but still remains one of a handful of writers, most of whose books I have read. One gentleman who knew him commented to me back in the 1980s that “Alfred is not a nice man.”

On the other hand, Southern writer Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964) invited a friend to lunch at her Milledgeville, Georgia, farmhouse and informed her that “Alfred Kazin would be joining them and that he was a sweetie.”

Dragnet

Jack Webb

Lee Marvin

One of the most underrated examples of early 1950s film noir suspense black and white entertainment are the episodes of Dragnet. One had Lee Marvin portraying a serial killer who’s also a vegetarian and takes Jack Webb’s Joe Friday and his partner to dinner at a then-existing restaurant in Los Ange­les.

However Marvin’s character, portrayed with precision-honed calm and based on an actual individual, would still be sentenced to the gas chamber which was a frequent punishment for murderers in the California of that decade.

 

 

 

REVIEW POTPOURRI: Franklin Pierce

Franklin Pierce

Peter Catesby Peter Cates

Franklin Pierce

The 14th President Franklin Pierce came from New Hampshire, was born with a silver spoon in his mouth having a father who was a big wig in state politics, started practicing law at 22, won a seat in the State House at 24, and became its Speaker of the House at 26.

He attended Bowdoin College, in Bruns­wick, where he fell in love with Jane Apple­ton, daughter of the college p resident. Unlike her gregarious husband, she was very religious, painfully shy and an invalid most all her life. She despised anything to do with politics and, like a few other former First Ladies, did not enjoy living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue .

Jane Appleton Pierce

They had three sons; one died as a baby, the second at three years old, and the third, who was their absolute pride and joy and only living child up to when Pierce was elected president, was with his parents on a train from Boston to Concord, New Hampshire, in January, 1853, two months before the inauguration when their car went off the track down a ravine. Miraculously his parents escaped with minor injuries but he was crushed to death before their eyes at the age of 11.

At Bowdoin, Pierce was a classmate of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Later Hawthorne wrote a campaign biography of his good friend in 1853 and made the following observation:

“I have come seriously to the conclusion that he has in him many of the chief elements of a great ruler. His talents are administrative, he has a subtle faculty of making affairs roll onward according to his will and of influencing without showing any trace of his action….He is deep, deep, deep. ”

Unfortunately, others didn’t feel the same way. Even though Pierce abhorred slavery, he didn’t think, as did Millard Fillmore, that the federal government had any right to interfere in the South. He was pretty much more anxious to please others and blow the way the wind blows, following the advice of his father and party leaders.

Additionally, he was a close friend of Jefferson Davis, later President of the Confederacy.

In 1863 on July 4th, [after his time as president was over, he continued to be involved in politics] he gave a speech in Concord, New Hampshire, condemning the useless bloodshed of the Civil War just when word came in of the Union victory at Gettysburg. He alienated his supporters even further.

His wife died at the end of that year.

The next year Pierce took his friend Hawthorne on a trip to the White Mountains to help the writer’s frail health.

But Hawthorne died one night in an adjoining hotel room. At Hawthorne’s funeral, Pierce was snubbed sharply by the other New England writers and not included among the pallbearers.

In very poor health, Franklin Pierce died on October 8, 1869, at 65.

REVIEW POTPOURRI: Al Martino, Tribute to Jonathan Winters

Al Martino

Peter Catesby Peter Cates

Al Martino

Frank Sinatra

Al Martino (1927-2009) became Capitol records answer to Columbia’s Jerry Vale and RCA’s Sergio Franchi, not to mention the ascendancy during the early ‘30s of Russ Columbo and the ‘40s with Frank Sinatra and Perry Como. I would include here the nowadays very underrated Tony Martin.

Martino scored a major hit in 1953 with Here in my Heart and, when he heard that RCA was planning to get his friend Mario Lanza (1921-1959) to record it, he called the older singer and pleaded with him to hold off, which Lanza did.

Martino also had some connection with the Mafia, which bought out his contract with Capitol and then demanded he give them $75,000 to “protect their investment.”

Vic Damone

Martino was initially offered the role of singer Johnny Fontane in The Godfather by producer Albert Ruddy. When Francis Ford Coppola signed on as director, he offered the role to singer Vic Damone.

Martino again sought assistance from the Mob; Damone heard about it and quietly withdrew from the film (He balked at any unwanted attention from the Mob and also decided that he was being paid too little.).

A 1967 LP, Mary in the Morning (Capitol ST 2780), contains not only the title song which was a megahit for Ed Ames the same year but also beautifully recorded by Glen Campbell; and featured covers of ten other songs – Love Me Tender, Love Letters in the Sand, My Love Is Stronger than My Pride, Unchained Melody, Red Is Red, Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You, Release Me, I Dream of You, Now and Making Memories.

Jerry Vale

He sang with the kind of voice that wasn’t as effusively cloying as Jerry Vale or Jim Nabors and, within its own quieter realm, a very pleasant one – in small doses.

Much of the content can be accessed on Youtube.

Tribute to Jonathan Winters

Jonathan Winters

An immensely fascinating documentary from 2000 and produced by PBS pays tribute to the life of comedian Jonathan Winters (1925-2013) and features interviews with Winters, his wife Eileen, daughter Lucinda and son Jan, singer Andy Williams and – no relation – comedian Robin Williams. It too can be seen on Youtube along with huge numbers of other Winters appearances.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

REVIEW POTPOURRI: Millard Fillmore

Millard Fillmore

Peter Catesby Peter Cates

Millard Fillmore

The 13th President Millard Fillmore (1800-1874) was born into grueling poverty, in the Finger Lakes region of Western New York State, to Nathaniel (1771-1863) and Phoebe Millard Fillmore.

Fillmore was truly a self-made man in his endeavors to improve himself. He studied law and clerked for a judge who just happened to be his father’s landlord, one of the wealthiest men in the County and a cheapskate who paid young Millard very little. When Fillmore, on his own initiative, took on a paying client as her attorney to earn some badly needed money, the judge fired him.

Fillmore also subscribed to a local library and read almost all of the books on the shelves. At the age of 18, he enrolled in the class of a 20-year-old schoolteacher, Abigail Powers (1798-1853), whom he would fall in love with and marry seven years later.

By a combination of his wife encouraging him and his own endeavors, he arose in the ranks of New York state politics to serve in its legislature, as a representative from Buffalo, which would be his home base for most of his adult life, and to become State Comptroller, just before being picked by the Whigs as Zachary Taylor’s running mate.

Fillmore served two separate terms in Congress from 1833 to 1841 and appointed as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Taylor ignored his vice-president most of his 16 months in office. After Taylor’s death, his cabinet, per tradition, offered their resignations, expecting to be kept on, but Fillmore accepted those resignations.

During his years in office, he sent Commodore Matthew Perry on an 1853 trip to Japan, which up to then had been a closed society, and was successful in opening it up for trade.

Fillmore also stopped France’s attempt to annex Hawaii, eased sectional tensions between Texas and New Mexico and appointed Mormon leader Brigham Young as the first governor of the Utah territory.

To his discredit, Fillmore supported the Compromise of 1850, which stopped the extension of slavery in the western states and territories and enforced the Fugitive Slave Act. While being personally opposed to slavery, he didn’t believe the federal government had any right to interfere in the South.

Abigail Fillmore

Fillmore’s wife Abigail established the first White House library and held literary salons, entertaining such writers as Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray and Washington Irving, but had frail health due to a broken ankle and couldn’t stand for very long periods of time; daughter Mary (1832-1854) assumed most other duties as a very charming hostess and talented musician on the harp, piano and guitar.

Fillmore was defeated in his re-election bid so he and his wife planned a tour of the South, but Abigail came down with a cold after being outdoors too long at Franklin Pierce’s inauguration, and died on March 30, at D.C.’s Willard Hotel. Daughter Mary died a year later of cholera.

The couple had a son Millard Powers Fillmore (1828-1889) who became a lawyer and who never married. After he died , his will directed that all of his correspondence, including that of his father, be burned and this act has aroused much curiosity.

After leaving office, the former president traveled to England where he was received by Queen Victoria who described him as the most attractive man she ever met.

In 1858, he married a wealthy widow, Caroline McIntosh (1813-1881), with whom he also had a very happy marriage, but she demanded he sign a prenuptial agreement.

Fillmore experienced very good health until he suffered a stroke and died shortly after, at 74, in 1874. Three U.S. Senators attended his funeral including Maine’s Hannibal Hamlin.

Millard Fillmore was heavily criticized for his weak stand against slavery, in particular by Harry Truman who called him “a weak, trivial thumb-twaddler who would do nothing to offend anyone.” But later historians have rightfully credited him for his tact and moderation during an era of grueling tensions and violence leading up to the Civil War.

REVIEW POTPOURRI – Films: Memory & Harry Brown; Show: Love that Bob

Liam Neeson

Peter Catesby Peter Cates

Memory

Memory is a 2022 film starring Liam Neeson as a very skilled contract killer who is encountering ominous moments of forgetfulness and has an older brother already incapacitated by Alzheimer’s.

He is assigned two hits, one being a corrupt ac­countant and the other an underage teenage girl from Mex­ico. He disposes of the accountant but draws the line at children.

The organization he works for then comes after him.

The story also has local police, FBI agents and investigators from Mexico. The story mainly takes place in El Paso but, interestingly, the scenes in Mexico were filmed in Bulgaria.

Very entertaining.

* * * * * *

Michael Caine

Harry Brown

Emily Mortimer

A 2009 film, Harry Brown stars Michael Caine as the title character, a retired military officer living in a South London apartment complex overrun by gangs and drug dealers.

When a friend is brutally murdered by them and the police display little response for “lack of evidence “, he takes matters into his own hands a la Charles Bronson/ Clint East­wood.

The film was poorly paced and bedeviled by prolong­ed scenes of graphic violence, the very few redeeming qualities being the acting of Caine and Emily Mortimer as a detective who’s the only one on the force willing to see justice done.

* * * * * *

Love that Bob

Bob Cummings

Nancy Kulp

A 1950s comedy show, Love that Bob, ran from 1954 to 1959 and starred Bob Cum­mings as a womanizing photographer who refuses to settle down. Cast members included Rose­mary de Camp as his widowed sister with whom he lives, Duane Hickmann as her son and Ann B. Davis as the photographer’s secretary.

Frequently appearing were Lyle Talbot and King Donovan as friends of Bob, and Nancy Kulp (better known later as Miss Hathaway on the Beverly Hillbillies) as a lovesick plain Jane contributed immensely to what was, for me, the most hilarious comedy show of that decade, not to mention Cummings also portraying the photographer’s obnoxiously flirtatious grandfather.

Episodes from the show abound on Youtube.

REVIEW POTPOURRI: President Zachary Taylor

Zachary Taylor

Peter Catesby Peter Cates

Zachary Taylor

For all the fascination of the first 11 characters to occupy the White House, they did not grab my interest to quite the same degree as #12, Zachary Taylor (1784-1850), affectionately known as “Old Rough-and-Ready”.

The unsigned essayist in Volume 4 of the American Heritage Book of the Presidents and Famous Americans astutely made the case for Taylor’s phenomenal jump to fame during the mid-1840s as the Whig Party nominee for president:

“After nearly forty years of relative obscurity as a United States Army officer, Zachary Taylor suddenly found himself propelled to prominence by the war with Mexico. He had long been respected by his colleagues for his obvious ability to lead soldiers and for his bravery and effectiveness as a frontier commander. Although Andrew Jackson told James Polk that Taylor would be ‘the man to lead our armies ‘ in any war with England, junior officers criticized General Taylor’s lack of organization. But General Taylor was at his best once a fight was under way, improvising, and inspiring his men. It is said his sudden appearance on the battlefield at Buena Vista, and his coolness while his clothes were ripped by bullets, were enough to rally the American Army from the verge of defeat. He became an instant legend and a potential presidential candidate. ”

During his presidency, he stood firmly on California and New Mexico being admitted as states on their own terms instead of those dictated by the Henry Clay compromising Congress – and he knew they’d be free ones; thus he ticked off both Clay and his other fellow Whigs – and, although Taylor was a Southerner from Kentucky and a slaveholder, he alienated the Southern Democrats who were hoping for the expansion of slavery in those western states. When the South was talking about secession, Taylor even threatened to use military force to put down any revolt.

(Interestingly Taylor’s daughter Sarah got married in 1835 to future Confederacy President Jefferson Davis but died within four months from malaria at the age of 21 . Taylor was at first miffed when his daughter and Davis married without the permission of her parents, and, even though Davis also contracted malaria and almost died, Taylor blamed him for Sarah’s death. But years later he came to have a high regard for his son-in-law. )

Margaret Taylor

Zachary Taylor married Margaret Mackle Smith (1788-1852) in 1810. In addition to Sarah, they had five other daughters and a son. Two of the daughters died about the same time during very early childhood from what was termed “bilious fever” in 1820, then one of the hazards of frontier life when Taylor was serving at a military outpost.

Taylor’s wife, known affectionately as Peggy, was hoping that, after her husband resigned from the military, they could enjoy a much-needed retirement and was very upset when he felt called to run for president. During his administration, she let another daughter Mary Elizabeth (1824-1909) assume the duties of hostess and retired to her suite, receiving only a handful of visitors.

For decades, Margaret Taylor was the only First Lady of whom no photo or sketch existed until 2010 when a daguerreotype plate turned up and was verified as being of her.

Son Richard Taylor (1826-1879) served as a general in the Confe­derate Army during the Civil War while his uncle Joseph Pannell Taylor (1796-1864) was a general in the Union Army.

On July 9, 1850, Zachary Taylor died from gastroenteritis which was believed to have been caused by eating some uncooked fruit and vegetables; he was 65.

 

 

REVIEW POTPOURRI – Conductor: Charles Munch

Charles Munch

Peter Catesby Peter Cates

Charles Munch

Not too long before his death in 1962, Boston Globe music critic Cyrus W. Durgin wrote the fascinating liner notes on the RCA Victor LP recording session for the Schumann Spring Symphony and Manfred Overture featuring Charles Munch(1891-1968) conducting the Boston Symphony.

Mr. Durgin is describing the chaotic details of musicians practicing, of cables and trunks of recording equipment strewn everywhere and of most of the 2,613 seats in Symphony Hall removed prior to this October morning as RCA’s recording team of Richard Mohr, Lewis Layton and audio administrator Al Pulley keep scurrying back and forth between the main floor and upstairs recording booth:

“Ten o’clock precisely. The seeming chaos of tuning stopped abruptly. Charles Munch, score and baton in hand, dressed not in his usual rehearsal jacket but in a beautifully tailored light gray suit, mounted the stand. Over the loudspeaker came the voice of Mr. Mohr. ‘Quiet, please….Stand by. ‘Then the code numbers of the first ‘take. ‘Dead, dead silence. A tiny red light, on a pedestal down at Dr. Munch’s right, winked on.

“From the horns and trumpets burst the first half of the opening theme of Schumann’s B-Flat Symphony. A large, commanding gesture from Munch brought in the whole orchestra in a tutti of richness, power and majesty. The second half of the theme, and so on through the introduction, exposition, free fantasy, recapitulation and coda which constitute the formal structure of the movement. ”

In the last paragraph, Mr. Durgin quotes from a couple of letters Schumann himself wrote on this Symphony:

“I wrote this Symphony towards the end of the winter of 1841, and, if I may say so, in the vernal passion that sways men until they are very old, and surprises them again with each year…”

To a conductor who was preparing the Spring Symphony for performance – “Could you infuse into your orchestra…a sort of longing for the Spring, which I had chiefly in mind when I wrote it?”

I own four copies of this recording – the mono and stereo LPs, a cassette and the CD set of Munch conducting 19th century German repertoire. With respect to the CD transfer which I initially thought superior to the LPs and cassette, I have now changed my mind and am quite thrilled by the stereo LP sound.

Schumann’s Manfred Overture was composed in 1848 and has a grim mood of tragedy pervading it but it is a very exciting piece into which Munch and the Boston Symphony musicians threw themselves with brilliant abandon.

Charles Munch wrote a book on conducting in which he stated that every individual standing in front of 100 or more players should feel “still struck to the heart by fear and panic…a formidable transport of anguish ” before a concert or recording session. Only then is a conductor truly making progress and advancing in understanding.

In rehearsals, Munch was meticulous about going over every note but when the recording session or concert occurred, he could really let loose and no two concerts were exactly alike.

A favorite piece of Munch was the Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique and, when on tour with the Boston Symphony, he conducted it ten times; according to one player, each performance was different and special, as though the piece was being heard for the first time.

Charles Munch replaced Serge Koussevitzky (1874-1951) as music director of the Boston Symphony in 1949 and was replaced by Erich Leinsdorf (1912-1993) in 1962. But he continued to guest conduct and record in the United States and Europe.

In 1967, France created the Orchestre de Paris and appointed Munch as music director. A year later, he was touring with that orchestra in this country, led a November 6 concert in Richmond, Virginia, and later that evening died of a heart attack at his hotel room. He was 77.

REVIEW POTPOURRI: Pierre Monteux

Pierre Monteux

Peter Catesby Peter Cates

Pierre Monteux

Beethoven’s 4th Symphony has exerted charm for me for more than 50 years since I obtained a powerful recording by Pierre Monteux (1875-1964) and the London Symphony, from when he was 86 years old, had just been appointed the Orchestra’s music director with a 25-year contract and still worked with the energy of men half his age until a fall in the bathtub which led to his death during the summer of 1964 (Some Mainers with long memories would still recall Monteux’s Domaine School, Downeast, in Hancock, where he spent summers teaching conducting for over 20 years. It is also still opened).

Having already developed an interest in duplicates, I did not let the high quality of Monteux’s conducting distract me, even with limited funds, from acquiring other recordings of a Symphony that was one of Beethoven’s most serene masterpieces; even the rhythmically exciting 1st, 3rd and 4th movements sustain the composer’s serene mood in composing it at a time when financial pressures, not to mention the occupation of Vienna by Napoleon’s troops and his own growing deafness, would have destroyed lesser men.

I have among my own pile of duplicates, Monteux’s early 1950s San Francisco recording and a CD of his Israel Philharmonic broadcast and distinguished ones of Toscanini, Szell, Solti, Jochum, Krips, Ormandy, Weingartner, Walter, Steinberg, Cluytens, Maazel, Dorati, Bohm, Sanderling, Karajan, Konvitschny, Kubelik, Moralt, Leinsdorf, Zweden, Leibowitz etcs.

One that stands out in a recent hearing is an ancient late ‘40s Victor Red Seal LP featuring Sir Thomas Beecham (1879-1961) conducting the London Philharmonic in a 1945 recording. More than any other conductor, Beecham enjoyed making records even more than doing concerts, took his time making them and achieved many fine ones that are well worth hearing and owning.

He conducted a Beethoven 4th that communicated its joyous spirit , delectable beauties and perky rhythms. The London Philharmonic was an orchestra that he founded in 1932 for recording purposes and hand-picked the finest musicians in London.
When war broke out between England and Germany in 1940, Beecham departed for Australia and then the United States where he led the Seattle Symphony from 1941 to 1944, guest-conducted at the Metropolitan Opera and did engagements with at least 18 other orchestras.

Beecham had very strong opinions about most subjects and could express them quite wittily and at times abrasively, alienating a number of fellow Maestros. Sir Adrian Boult considered Beecham repulsive, Sir John Barbirolli, untrustworthy. But he and Monteux were friendly.

A couple of Beecham quotes:

“A musicologist is a man who can read music but can’t hear it.”

“Beethoven’s 7th Symphony is a bunch of yaks jumping about.”

Beecham was married three times and his last wife was 53 years younger.

The Beecham Beethoven 4th can be heard on Youtube.

REVIEW POTPOURRI: James K. Polk

James K. Polk

Peter Catesby Peter Cates

James K. Polk

A Jacksonian Democrat, the 11th President James Knox Polk (1795-1849) promised to be a one-term leader and to do what needed to be done in that self-allotted time span. His style was secretive, in working quietly behind the scenes.

But he accomplished what he set out to do.

Among his achievements was the westward expansion of the United States into California and Oregon at the cost of a war with Mexico and some diplomatic hostilities with Great Britain over the expansion of Canada below British Columbia.

President Polk also put into effect the Walker Tariff of 1846 which greatly reduced the taxes on foreign goods which the Whig Tariff of 1842 had implemented, much to the anger of northern industrialists, who didn’t believe in the free market as Polk and his fellow Democrats did.

Finally, although Polk was a slave owner, he avoided the topic as much as possible in his speeches and policy decisions, much to the annoyance of certain southerners.

In the end, by holding to a mostly secretive below-the-radar management style, he managed to antagonize the radical Whigs and radical Democrats, both accusing him of mendacity in his secrecy.

Sarah Polk

First Lady Sarah Childress Polk (1803-1891) was born into a very wealthy family in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and sent away to the Moravian Institute, in Salem, North Carolina, then considered one of the finest private schools in the country.

The couple got married on New Year’s Day in 1824 and she was the totally supportive help mate whose advice her husband sought more often than from fellow politicians.

However, like a number of other First Ladies, she avoided political discussions like the plague at social gatherings. And, as a result, she got on well with visitors who were among themselves the bitterest enemies.

In her ever-fascinating, at times gossipy book, America’s First Ladies, Christine Sadler writes very captivatingly of Mrs. Polk, skillfully pinpointing how this presidential couple was truly joined at the hip:

“Rugged old Sam Houston once said in exasperation, and perhaps after he had imbibed a dram too much that the only fault with James Knox Polk, the president who literally worked himself to death, was that he was ‘addicted to the drinking of plain water. ‘ Some felt much the same way about Polk’s handsome wife, Sarah. Her disciplined goodness was apt to bore and then to irritate lesser mortals.

“She was vivid to look at-a real Spanish-beauty type with the air of a high-born Donna, and her dresses were of magnificent fabrics in gorgeous colors – but in personality she was determined to be colorless. She was gracious, democratic, affable, and pulled no conversational bloopers. She was well-educated and some have said that in some respects she was a better politician than her husband, but ladies of her day did not discuss politics – not if they were real ladies. Sarah Polk, with her belief in the non-controversial, would not have discussed it anyway. Her conversation, at which she was considered quite good, ran to exclamatory sentences such as, “Sir, I’ve never known it otherwise!’ and to little come-ons as, “How so, Sir?”

Sarah’s firmly Biblical Presbyterianism meant no booze, cards and dancing at the Polk White House and, to avoid further unnecessary expenses, no refreshments at all.
After one particular reception, the hungry and thirsty guests were able to adjourn to the home of a newly-found family friend Dolly Madison, who satisfied their appetites.

By the time the Polks left the White House in March 1849, his workaholic habits had destroyed his health. He died three months later at the age of 54; Sarah outlived him by 42 years and died in 1891 at 88.

REVIEW POTPOURRI – Pianist: Sviatoslav Richter

Sviatoslav Richter

Peter Catesby Peter Cates

Sviatoslav Richter

Ukrainian-born pianist Sviatoslav Richter (1915-1997) was largely self-taught until, at the age of 23, he began studying with German-born pianist Heinrich Neuhaus at the Moscow Conservatory. Neuhaus saw Richter as the genius he had been waiting his entire life for and later claimed that he basically had nothing to teach him.

Richter’s keyboard artistry was a mix of super human virtuosity, a keen, vibrantly alive musicality and a humongous yet carefully chosen repertoire that ranged from Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven to the major Russians Tchaikovsky, Glazunov, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev and Shostakovich and the Englishman Benjamin Britten.

Interestingly he loved Haydn but cared very little for Mozart, only performing the younger composer’s 20th Piano Concerto and two or three others.

I have a CD of Czech radio broadcasts (Monopole MONO005) from the mid-1950s featuring Richter performing the Beethoven 1st and 3rd Piano Concertos, the only ones of the five of which the pianist left recordings. His playing was vigorous, delicate when called for, and keenly responsive to the beauties in every note, bar and chord.

The conductor Bretislav Bakala (1897-1958) conducted the Brno State Philharmonic in both works and did the kind of conducting that captured one’s attention in a manner that was exceptional, giving the impression that he and Richter were on the same wavelength page. The sound was of radio broadcast quality but serviceable enough.

Richter did later stereo recordings of both works, the first in 1961 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra led by Charles Munch, the third, twice – the first time in 1963 with Kurt Sanderling and the Vienna Symphony and a second one with Riccardo Muti and the Philharmonia Orchestra in England during the mid 1970s.

There are also broadcasts of Richter doing both concertos with other conductors and orchestras circulating on cd and accessible on Youtube.

I mention this only because Richter is so extraordinary that anybody with the least interest in great classical pianists just might get captivated by him enough to want to collect or at least hear every single piece he ever recorded live in concert and in the studio.

Richter was not a man to let journalists near him except on rare occasions but, during his last few years, made himself available for a series of interviews that resulted in a three-hour documentary about his life which can be seen on youtube and divided in two parts.

A choice list of other Richter recordings would be the Beethoven Cello Sonatas with Mstislav Rostropovich, the Brahms and Franck Violin Sonatas with David Oistrakh, the Brahms 2nd, Bartok 2nd and Prokofiev 4th Piano Concertos with Lorin Maazel conducting the Orchestra de Paris, Rachmaninoff’s 2nd Piano Concerto with either Kurt Sanderling or Stanislaw Wislocki, the Tchaikovsky 1st with Herbert von Karajan and Schubert Lieder with baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. A special favorite record is the 1969 Beethoven Triple Concerto for Violin, Cello and Piano, in which he collaborated with Oistrakh, Rostropovich and with Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic.

In 1945, he fell in love with singer Nina Dorliak, whom he had accompanied in recital, and they lived together as husband and wife for the rest of his life but never legalized that relationship.

He and Nina would entertain guests with dinner parties and record listening marathons of one or more complete Wagner operas often extending far into the night.

Finally, much to his annoyance, Richter remembered the name of everybody he ever met even briefly in his adult life, going back decades to elevator operators and cab drivers.