by Peter Cates This week I am focusing on the recordings of the Violin Concerto of Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847), conceived in 1838 and completed and first performed by the composer’s concertmaster, Ferdinand David, of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, where Mendelssohn was music director from 1835 to 1847. David also proved invaluable with his advice on […]
by Peter Cates David Halberstam The Fifties Villard Press, 1993, 733 pages A maxim that underscored journalist David Halberstam’s work ethic was that being a professional meant doing the work one loved on the days one didn’t feel like doing it; this combination of passion and painstaking self-discipline resulted in roughly 22 books and countless […]
by Peter Cates Something a little different this week: Beethoven’s 5 Piano Concertos were a very significant body of work because they both consolidated the best of what the composer learned from his predecessors — Haydn, Mozart etc. – and broke new ground on the expansion of the piano’s technical possibilities and musical depths. These […]
by Peter Cates Count Basie Prime Time Pablo, CD, recorded January 18-20, 1977. Jazz pianist/bandleader Count Basie (1904 -1984) appeared in the 1943 film, Stage Door Canteen, performing with singer Ethel Waters and his orchestra and doing a captivating solo turn. I say captivating because, whenever his short , stubby fingers touched a key, he […]
by Peter Cates Gershwin Music Zubin Mehta, New York Philharmonic with soloists. Teldec cassette. Zubin Mehta, now in his 82nd year, has achieved fame via his directorships of the Los Angeles, New York and Israel Philharmonics, Bavarian State Opera, etc., and a truckload of recordings. The above is a decently performed program of the great […]
by Peter Cates Scandinavia Laserlight, 79 675, cassette, released 1991. The Laserlight label began releasing very inexpensive cassettes and CDs during the late ‘80s and focusing mainly on classical music. Scandinavia, a musical grab bag centered on Norway, Sweden and Finland, contains the 2nd Peer Gynt Suite and two Elegiac Melodies of Norway’s Edvard Grieg and […]
by Peter Cates Alex by Conrad Wilson; Mainstream Publishing, 1993, 159 pages. This biography has a special fascination because Alex and I were good friends during the early ‘80s – Alex being the late Scottish conductor, Sir Alexander Gibson (1926-1995), whose recordings, guest appearances and 25 years as music director of both the Scottish National […]
by Peter Cates Bruckner Symphony No. 8 Anton Nanut conducting the Ljublana Symphony Orchestra; Stradivari Classics, SCD-6059, CD, recorded 1980s. If I had to pick only one conductor whose recordings I could take to a desert island, it would be Anton Nanut (1932-2017) . He conducted almost every piece of music as if it were […]
by Peter Cates Bjarne Brustad Violin Concerto No. 4 William Walton Violin Concerto Camilla Wicks, violin, with Herbert Blomstedt and Yuri Somonov conducting the Oslo Philharmonic, Simax PSC 1185, CD, live broadcasts. The 4th Violin Concerto of Bjarne Brustad (1895-1978), one of Norway’s leading 20th century composers, is a meandering exercise full of dramatic, pounding […]
by Peter Cates Beethoven Pastoral Symphony and Leonore Overture No. 3 Wilhelm Furtwangler conducting the Turin Radio Orchestra of Italy; Urania URN 22.227, CD, from a 1952 broadcast and issued 2002. Wilhelm Furtwangler (1886-1954) was one conductor now considered by more collectors and listeners to classical recordings to be very close to the greatest who […]