by Peter Cates Above Suspicion written by Joe Sharkey; published 1993, St. Martin’s Paperbacks, 310 pages. Above Suspicion is the account of an eastern Kentucky woman, Susie Smith, murdered back in 1989 by the area FBI agent, Mark Putnam, also a married man with whom she was having an affair. The murder case has sustained […]
by Peter Cates The Native Poets of Maine S. Herbert Lancey, editor. Published in Bangor, Maine, by David Bugbee and Company in 1854. 324 pages. The above anthology from so long ago is a sizable representation of poets born in our Pine Tree State and some of their works; the most well-known is Portland’s Henry […]
by Peter Cates A live link from London’s Barbican Centre A live link from London’s Barbican Centre that I watched this past Sunday, March 10, 2019, and available on YouTube until June 10, 2019; this includes two intermission features from host Rachel Leach. Live: Mozart Piano Concerto No. 22 (with pianist Till Fellner) and Bruckner […]
by Peter Cates Lush Life John Coltrane, tenor sax Heritage, 513289L, CD, 1987 reissue of sessions from 1957-58. One of the greatest saxophone players in the history of jazz, John Coltrane (1926-1967) left a huge recorded legacy, each listing imbued with consistently high quality. Lush Life gathers five previously available selections from the late ‘50s […]
by Peter Cates Strauss Waltzes conducting the Vienna Symphony; Madacy, MKC 1825, cassette. Conductor Josef Krips (1902-1974) was distinguished by his work in helping to rebuild the Vienna State Opera during the post-World War II years; he also made many recordings of the Central European repertoire-Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert etc. – that were released in this […]
by Peter Cates When I wrote about E.B. White’s Elements of Style for my February 14, 2019, column, I expressed my intent to devote another column or more in coming weeks, not only because of his phenomenal quality and quantity of writing, but also of the many years he and his wife lived in Maine. […]
by Peter Cates Vivaldi Various Concertos Karl Ristenpart conducting the Chamber Orchestra of the Sarre; Nonesuch H-71022; stereo LP, recorded early 1960s. Karl Ristenpart (1900-1967) was one of the most solid interpreters of Antonio Vivaldi’s music, along with that of Johann Sebastian Bach and others. He made a large number of recordings between the early-to-mid-’50s […]
by Peter Cates E.B. White The Elements of Style (with William Strunk, Jr.), 4th edition – Longman Publishers; 1935, 1959, 1979, 1999; 95 pages. Although Elwyn Brooks White (1899-1985), better known as E.B. White, was born in Mount Vernon, New York, the family vacations during his childhood in Maine’s Belgrade Lakes, the routines of farm […]
by Peter Cates This past Sunday, February 3, was the 60th anniversary of the plane crash that claimed the lives of all four passengers on board shortly after takeoff near Clear Lake, Iowa – singers Buddy Holly, 22; Ritchie Valens,17; and Big Bopper, 28; and pilot Roger Peterson, 21. The details can be found via […]
by Peter Cates Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade William Stenberg conducting the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra; Capitol P 8305, LP, recorded 1955. William Steinberg had a style of conducting in which the most often recorded works (and I still persist in my fascination with duplicates of favorite pieces of music) sounded freshly minted; his LP of Scheherazade kept me […]