REVIEW POTPOURRI by Peter Cates Duke Ellington Blue Light Columbia CL 663, 12- inch vinyl mono LP, released 1955. From nine Brunswick 78 sides recorded between 1934-1939. Blue Light gathers several lovely disks of the quieter jazz of which the Duke was a master. One […]
REVIEW POTPOURRI by Peter Cates Prokofiev and Bartok 3rd Piano Concertos Boris Krajny, piano, with Jiri Belohlavek conducting the Czech Philharmonic; Stradivari- SCD-6068, CD, released 1989. Boris Krajny (1945-) is a Czech-born pianist who has performed in this country a few times […]
REVIEW POTPOURRI by Peter Cates Hangmen Also Die starring Brian Donlevy, Walter Brennan, Anna Lee, Gene Lockhart, etc.; directed by Fritz Lang; United Artists; 1943; 135 minutes. Hangmen Also Die was produced to depict the June, 1942, assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi Protector of Czechoslovakia, a major architect of the Final Solution and, in […]
by Peter Cates Elgar String Quartet played by Aeolian String Quartet; Violin Sonata, played by violinist Alan Loveday and pianist Leonard Cassini – Dover Publications HCR-ST-7011, 12-inch stereo vinyl LP, recorded early ‘60s. Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934) was perhaps best known as the composer of Land of Hope and Glory, a very much sung World […]
Berlioz Damnation of Faust Daniel Barenboim conducting the Orchestre de Paris, Chorus, and Children’s Chorus with soloists Placido Domingo, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Yvonne Minton, etc.; Deutsche Grammophon 2709087, recorded 1978, three 12-inch vinyl stereo LPs. This magnificent, very colorful work of at least two hours is not an opera, because it is unstageable, instead being “in […]
by Peter Cates Mahler Symphony No. 9 Carlo Maria Giulini conducting the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra; Weitblick- SSS0140-2, 2 CDs, from live concert of February 9, 1973. I have already commented at length on the late great conductor Carlo Maria Giulini in this column. He displayed a very high level of power, beauty and clarity […]