by Peter Cates The Five Scamps The Five Scamps, The Fishing Song; and Good Lover Blues. Columbia 30168, ten-inch 78, recorded 1949. The Five Scamps were an African American group of singers and instrumentalists who began performing informally in a WPA work camp in 1936 but then the story ends there until 1946, when their […]
by Peter Cates Johanna Fiedler In the Introduction to her 1994 memoir, Arthur Fiedler: Papa, the Pops, and Me, the late Johanna Fiedler (1944-2011) writes the following about being in New York City and watching the live CBS TV presentation of her father conducting the Boston Pops at the 1976 Bicentennial 4th of July concert […]
by Peter Cates Ken Marvin A ten-inch 78 (Mercury 6373) features two country and western songs – (A Heartsick Soldier on) Heartbreak Ridge; and Missing in Action; both sides focused on a soldier fighting in Korea and the horrors of separation from home, wife and family amidst the noise of exploding shells. The listed singer […]
by Peter Cates Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli Pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920-1995) had, like Vladimir Horowitz and Sviatoslav Richter , a superhuman lightning speed virtuosity at the keyboard that brought much deserved fame. Unlike Horowitz and Richter who left several different performances of certain pieces that varied in style and tempo, Michelangeli would record, for example, […]
by Peter Cates Barbra Streisand Although there was a time when I was quite enthralled by certain Barbra Streisand albums, such as 1969’s What About Today; the early 70s Stoney End, and Barbra Joan Streisand (especially Michel Legrand’s The Summer Knows from the movie Summer of ’42); and 1975’s Classical Barbra, I have not found […]
by Peter Cates Franz Liszt One of the very first classical records to give pleasure to me during seventh grade was a 12-inch 78 (Columbia Masterworks 12437) of the Second Hungarian Rhapsody, by Franz Liszt (1811-1886), as performed by Eugene Ormandy (1899-1985) with the Phildelphia Orchestra and recorded April 18, 1946. Lasting just under 10 […]
by Peter Cates Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) spent a number of years as a boy in Raymond, Maine, with an uncle, Dr. Richard Manning, who built a huge mansion with lavishly expensive wallpaper, fireplaces and Belgian glass windows – local natives referred to it as “Mannning’s Folly.” It was later used as a church […]
by Peter Cates George Szell Bizet’s opera Carmen was considered one worthy of meticulous study for aspiring conductors by the perfectionist Maestro George Szell (1897-1970) who held dictatorial Music Directorship of the Cleveland Orchestra from 1946 until his death from bone cancer. I own a shelf of different sets of Carmen as sung by such […]
by Peter Cates Clark Gable Clark Gable (1901-1960) might not have achieved the same level of greatness as, for example, Sir Lawrence Olivier, Rod Steiger, George C. Scott and, among the living, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branaugh, when it came to getting inside the skin of a range of different characters; but […]
by Peter Cates Perry Como Perry Como – That Christmas Feeling; Winter Wonderland. Recorded August 8, 1946. RCA Victor 20-1968, ten-inch 78 disc. I might be jumping the gun here seasonally speaking but I found the key words of That Christmas Feeling most apt in the 78 years and 10 days since this record was […]