REVIEW POTPOURRI by Peter Cates Handel’s Messiah Walter Susskind conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus; Musical Heritage Society MHS 582/ 583/ 584, three LP set, recorded September 22-24,1958. Being in the Easter spirit, I offer comments on this Messiah set since the music is appropriate to both Christmas and this week’s observances. Conductor Walter […]
REVIEW POTPOURRI by Peter Cates Human Desire starring Glen Ford, Gloria Grahame, Broderick Crawford, etc.; directed by Fritz Lang; Columbia Pictures, 1954, 91 minutes. Human Desire was directed by the German-born Fritz Lang (1890-1976), whose fame in his homeland with a few classics, examples – M and Metropolis, preceded his highly successful career in the […]
REVIEW POTPOURRI by Peter Cates Dvorak Symphonies 4, 5, and 6; Overtures In Nature’s Realm, My Country and Carnival; Istvan Kertasz conducting the London Symphony Orchestra; Vox Box SVBX 5138, three 12-inch LPs, recorded 1967. Back in my early classical record collecting days during the ’63-’64 years, a peak listening experience was the 9th Symphony, […]
Cover Up starring Dennis O’Keefe, William Bendix, Barbara Britton, etc.; directed by Alfred E. Green; released by United Artists, 1949, 83 minutes. As obvious from the title, Cover Up is from the film noir tradition of ‘40s and ‘50s black and white movies, imbued with suspense, evil, violence, etc. I have been wanting to see […]
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 […]