by Peter Cates

Joyce Butler

In an 1995 textbook anthology, Maine, the Pine Tree State from Prehistory to the Present, the late Kennebunk historian Joyce Butler provided an essay on family and community life from 1783 to 1861.

A few items:

Saco was originally Pepperelborough, “a rough lumbering town.”

The missionary Paul Coffin considered Union “a place for young men to make themselves.”

A tradesman in Falmouth bought 7,800 acres between the Saco and Ossipee Rivers in 1787 for under a thousand dollars, a purchase that later became the town of Hiram.

Dancing, Blind Man’s Bluff, and backgammon were some of the social activities enjoyed by the wealthy classes in Portland.

A 15 year old teenager from Denmark, Rufus Porter, walked the 106 mile round trip to Portland to seek his fortune.

Richard Wagner

Parsifal was Richard Wagner’s last opera and given its world premiere in 1882 at Bayreuth, the opera house in Germany that was built to the composer’s specifications and to this day is a mecca for opera lovers.

It has a plot centered on a mythical King Arthurish knight, Parsifal, and his search for the holy grail (During the 1970s, Monty Python did its own version of this holy grail search, resulting in a very hilarious film.) and runs five hours, quite a lengthy evening.

The opera has provoked extreme reactions in its history – composers Gustav Mahler and Claude Debussy found it the greatest experience of their life while Igor Stravinsky and novelist Mark Twain detested it.

I myself enjoy the music in this opera and have not bothered to follow the story line, being of the belief that appreciation of the music should come before trying to figure out the plot and its characters. When the music is firmly in the listener’s mind and heart, then further study is fruitful.

During the last month, I listened to three different recordings of Parsifal, each of them of exceptional merit. The first one is from 1950, and features Vittorio Gui conducting an Italian language production at La Scala in Milan with tenor Africo Baldelli in the title role and the legendary soprano Maria Callas as the significant woman Kundry.

The second set, from 1973, presents Sir Georg Solti leading the Vienna Philharmonic with Rene Kollo as Parsifal and Christa Ludwig as Kundry. #3 from 1981 has Herbert von Karajan directing the Berlin Philharmonic, Peter Hofmann’s Parsifal and Dunja Vejzovic’s Kundry.

Good news for thrifty listeners- all three recordings can be heard on YouTube.

Al Hibbler

Jazz singer Al Hibbler (1915-2001) recorded a 1954 ten inch lp of six selections for Columbia Records House Party series with Duke Ellington and his orchestra and gave performances to be savored slowly; they included two Great American Songbook classics, Don’t Get Around Much Anymore and The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise, which was frequently heard during the dark days of World War II.

Nancy Wilson

Nancy Wilson (1937-2018) appeared on a memorable 1970 episode of Hawaii Five-O, Trouble in Mind, as a nightclub singer with addiction problems. Even in that role, she conveyed wonderful stage presence singing with a small combo.

A 1991 Co­lumbia cassette, With My Lover Beside Me, is an album of songs by lyricist Johnny Mercer and singer/composer Barry Manilow. As with her numerous other albums, this one comes highly recommended.

by Peter Cates

Ladislas Farago

A 1954 book War of Wits, by journalist Ladislas Farago (1906-1980), is an account of intelligence networks during World War II. What gave Farago’s book interest was his own work in South Am­erica and his access to many spies and agents who were eager to tell their stories.

One such incident tells of an elderly German couple who owned an inn along the Kiel Canal which connected the Baltic Sea with the North Sea.

Sailors and officers from Nazi submarines would often drop in for a glass of beer before going on a dangerous mission against the allies which the innkeeper offered free to them as a patriotic gesture. In return, these men would sign their names in a guest book as a memento of their visit.

When the coast was clear, the innkeeper would take the guest book down into the cellar and through a tunnel to a neighboring house where British agents had radio transmitters to relay information on these U boats from the names in the register.

On a different topic yet having some relevance to the hospitality industry of inns along German canals, Ten Restaurants that Changed America, a 2016 book by Paul Freedman, chose the hotel/restaurant chain of Howard Johnson’s as one of the ten topics and mentions one item dear to the appetites of so many Mainers – “The fried clams…were originally quite unusual…not an easy sell at first…Virtually unknown outside of New England…promoted…at the 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair. It took a further concerted campaign to win acceptance – this was not a case of simply providing what people already were accustomed to consuming. The fact that the class would become a fondly regarded signature item of Howard Johnson’s was an accomplishment, not an accident.”

Scandal

I recently finished binging on all seven seasons of the ABC television series Scandal, which ran from 2012 to 2018. The most memorable character was Eli Pope, who, under the code name of Rowan, ran an off the books black ops agency known as Control.

Rio Bravo

A 1959 classic western, Rio Bravo, had Howard Hawks directing and an all star cast of John Wayne, Ricky Nelson, Dean Martin, Angie Dickinson, Walter Brennan, Ward Bond and Claude Akins.

Dimitri Shostakovich

Dimitri Shostakovich had completed his 4th Symphony in 1936 just when Joseph Stalin was beginning his bloody purges of millions. That same year the dictator had attended the premiere of Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth and stormed out in a rage before the presentation was finished.

Given the circumstances, the composer held off on the world premiere of the 4th Symphony until 1961.

The work is scored for more than 100 instruments , including extra brass and percussion. It is powerful music with some very loud climaxes but it ends with about 5 minutes of the quietest , most exquisitely heavenly notes scored for hushed strings, muted trumpet and the celeste which looks like a small piano but sounds like chimes.

A 2005 youtube video features Semyon Bychkov conducting the WDR Orchestra in Cologne . It is a very exciting performance.

Since 2017, Maestro Bychkov has been Music Director of the Czech Philharmonic . Born in 1952, he grew up in the former Soviet Union but, due to the growing anti-semitism of the government – Bychkov is Jewish- he left the country in 1974 with 100 dollars in his pocket, settling in Vienna to further his musical studies.

by Peter Cates

Dylan and Vee

At a 2013 concert in St. Paul, Minnesota, Bob Dylan paid tribute to Bobby Vee (1943-2016), who was in the audience. Dylan played piano as part of Vee’s backup band for two gigs in 1959 and the two singers had remained friends and performed together on occasion over subsequent decades.

Dylan, who had performed with so many legends in concerts, described Vee as “the most beautiful person I’ve ever been on the stage with.”

One could point out a world of difference between Bobby Vee’s Rubber Ball and Bob Dylan’s Mister Tambourine Man; it would also be a waste of time and space. Instead one admires the tribute from one American music statesman to another.

The interest in Bobby Vee came after recently listening to a Liberty seven-inch 45 record of two of Vee’s megahits back in the very early ‘60s when he and two other Bobbys, Rydell and Vinton, were bombarding the Billboards and airwaves.

The songs, Run to Him; and Walkin’ with My Angel, were written by Gerry Goffin and his ex-wife Carole King, they being famous for But Will You Love Me Tomorrow. And both songs were given superb production work by the Liberty records founder Snuff Garrett (He signed to the label singer Julie London and Alvin and the Chipmunks) with some of the finest session players in the business and the Johnny Mann Singers doing backup.

Even more impressive was Vee’s singing with a beautifully projected vocal register, clear articulation, characterful phrasing and vibrant warmth. Not only did I listen to my very good copy of the 45 but also to the remastered sound, derived from the original source material during later decades, to be heard on YouTube which had outstanding sound lacking in the old 45s.

I also listened to Youtubes of Vee’s very captivating hits, Rubber Ball, and the classic The Night Has a Thousand Eyes and several others that weren’t quite as good as material but were still given top notch arrangements.

At the 2013 concert, Bob Dylan sang an early hit of Bobby Vee, Suzie Baby, and it can be heard on YouTube, along with Vee’s original recording. I actually liked Vee’s better. Dylan’s own singing at the age of 72 just wasn’t what it used to be but it was an important historical moment.

The two singers did critique each other’s musicianship in a pithy manner:

Dylan – Vee “had a metallic, edgy tone to his voice and it was as musical as a silver bell.”

Vee- Dylan “played pretty good in the key of C.”

Bobby Vee died in 2016 at the age of 73 from Alzheimer’s which he had been suffering from for several years. His wife died the previous year from a kidney ailment.

Lorin Maazel

Conductor Lorin Maazel (1930-2015), for good or bad, has been one of the most fascinating individuals who ever directed a symphony orchestra. He succeeded George Szell (1897-1970) as music director of the Cleveland Orchestra in 1971, staying ten years before becoming director of the Vienna State Opera and, as far as I am concerned, successfully followed perfectionist Szell’s very hard act.

In 1976, Maazel and the Clevelanders recorded a set of the Brahms 4 Symphonies, Haydn Variations and Tragic and Academic Festival Overtures. It was reviewed in high fidelity along with another set of the Symphonies and 2 Overtures but lacking the Haydn Variations that was released the same year and featured Eugen Jochum (1902-1987) leading the London Philharmonic.

Both sets were trashed by the record critic whose ears, as far as I was concerned, were screwed on wrong. I own shelves of different Brahms Symphonies and I have found that both Maazel and Jochum conducted very exciting performances that brought out the balance of rip-roaring romantic emotions in Johannes Brahms’s own psyche and the sternly crafted architecture that this composer imposed, based on his admiration of the 18th century examples of Bach, Handel and Haydn.

The sets remain among my favorites. Both Jochum and Maazel conveyed a love of this composer’s inspired music but brought a differently personalized individuality to the performances, unlike some conductors of recent years who copy cat each other with dull performances and wouldn’t let themselves go emotionally if their lives depended on it.

There are, however, some annoying quirks in Maazel’s conducting of these pieces – a ridiculously fast tempo in the last movement of the 1st Symphony, some limp phrasing in the first movement of the 2nd movement that drags it out and, at odd moments, a ho-hum manner with phrasing and detail.

But these annoying moments are few. All in all, a set worth seeking out for the curious listener.

During Maazel’s Cleveland years, he recorded prize-winning sets of Prokofiev’s complete Romeo and Juliet ballet and Gershwin’s complete Porgy and Bess, along with a really good Beethoven 9 Symphonies that was pretty well ignored by the critics.