Entries by Peter Cates

REVIEW POTPOURRI – Writer: Nathaniel Parker Willis

by Peter Cates Nathaniel Parker Willis Writer Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806-1867) was born in Portland where his father had moved the family from Boston to take a job as editor of a Maine publication, The Eastern Argus, before returning to Boston when Nathaniel was ten. Willis became one of the most well-known and best paid […]

REVIEW POTPOURRI: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

by Peter Cates Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Henry Wadsworth Longfelloow had a gift for dramatic tension as well as a unique sense of the potential narrative possibilities in a descriptive poetic setting. An example was his 1866 poem, God’s Acre, yet another term for cemetery, and the starker words, graveyard and burial ground. I offer the […]

REVIEW POTPOURRI – Composer: Robert Schumann (1810-1856)

by Peter Cates Schumann Abendlied and Traumeri with Arthur Fiedler conducting the Boston Pops. RCA Victor Red Seal , 12-0017, 12-inch 78 shellac record, recorded 1940s. German composer Robert Schumann (1810-1856) composed masterworks of symphonies, concertos, solo keyboard, chamber music, choir and lieder. Pieces to introduce anyone new to his music would include the Rhenish […]

REVIEW POTPOURRI: Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler & Oklahoma Round-Up!

by Peter Cates Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler Offenbach: Tales of Hoffmann; Barcarolle, “Oh, Night of Love.” Side 2 Arthur Pryor’s Band – Suppe: Fanitza Selection. Victor. 16827. Ten-inch acoustically recorded 78 rpm. Offenbach from November 22, 1909; Suppe, from June 7, 1910. Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880) and Franz von Suppe (1819-1895) are each represented by three […]

REVIEW POTPOURRI: John Greenleaf Whittier

by Peter Cates John Greenleaf Whittier After barely making ends meet for decades, Quaker poet/abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) hit paydirt in 1866 with the publication of Snowbound, an account of an 1800s family stuck inside the farmhouse during a beautiful blizzard and getting some quality time during its duration. I plan to write about […]

REVIEW POTPOURRI – Soprano: Mirella Freni

by Peter Cates Soprano: Mirella Freni On Sunday February 9, the soprano Mirella Freni died from the combination of strokes and a degenerative disease she had been suffering for a number of years. I have been a fan of her records ever since first hearing one of her singing a Verdi aria over 50 years […]

REVIEW POTPOURRI: The great pianists Peter and Rudolf Serkin

by Peter Cates The great pianists Peter and Rudolf Serkin Peter Serkin (1947-2020) and his father, Rudolf Serkin (1903-1991), achieved fame as classical pianists of immense distinction. I saw each of them perform twice in concert and found their musicianship quite special for different reasons. Before writing about Peter, who died recently of pancreatic cancer, […]

REVIEW POTPOURRI – Composer: Dmitri Shostakovich

by Peter Cates Shostakovich Symphony No. 13, “Babi Yar” Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) based his 13th Symphony on the poem, ‘Babi Yar,’ by Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933-2017). Babi Yar is the ravine near Kiev, Ukraine, where over 34,000 Jewish men, women and children were murdered by Nazi Einsatzgruppen death squads during late September 1941. However, […]

REVIEW POTPOURRI: Gilbert and Sullivan Weekend

by Peter Cates Gilbert and Sullivan Weekend The D’Oyly Carte Opera Company; London, 430144-4, cassette, selections recorded between 1959 and 1973. Playwright Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836-1911) and composer Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (1842-1900) began a collaboration that produced 14 comic operas from 1871 to 1896, several of which are still produced often around the […]