by 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 […]
by 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 […]
by 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 […]
by 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 […]
by 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 […]
by 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 […]
by 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 […]
by Peter Cates John Tyler The 10th former President John Tyler (1790-1862) did forge important treaties with Great Britain and China and brought about the admission of Texas as a state. But he had a stubborn streak in his independence and refusal to compromise on his own principles, which quickly led to the resignations of […]
by Peter Cates Leonard Bernstein The musical genius Leonard Bernstein was born August 25, 1918, in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He would achieve fame as the composer of West Side Story, as the first native-born conductor of the New York Philharmonic, as a teacher with his televised Young People’s Concerts and as a pianist with immense sight […]
by Peter Cates William Henry Harrison Former President #9, William Henry Harrison (1773-1841) achieved renown as an army captain in command at Fort Washington, Ohio, when he was in his 20s; as a governor in the Indiana Territory during the early 1800s; and being promoted to Major General after defeating the Indians in a battle […]