Sviatoslav Richter

by Peter Cates

Sviatoslav Richter

Ukrainian-born pianist Sviatoslav Richter (1915-1997) was largely self-taught until, at the age of 23, he began studying with German-born pianist Heinrich Neuhaus at the Moscow Conservatory. Neuhaus saw Richter as the genius he had been waiting his entire life for and later claimed that he basically had nothing to teach him.

Richter’s keyboard artistry was a mix of super human virtuosity, a keen, vibrantly alive musicality and a humongous yet carefully chosen repertoire that ranged from Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven to the major Russians Tchaikovsky, Glazunov, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev and Shostakovich and the Englishman Benjamin Britten.

Interestingly he loved Haydn but cared very little for Mozart, only performing the younger composer’s 20th Piano Concerto and two or three others.

I have a CD of Czech radio broadcasts (Monopole MONO005) from the mid-1950s featuring Richter performing the Beethoven 1st and 3rd Piano Concertos, the only ones of the five of which the pianist left recordings. His playing was vigorous, delicate when called for, and keenly responsive to the beauties in every note, bar and chord.

The conductor Bretislav Bakala (1897-1958) conducted the Brno State Philharmonic in both works and did the kind of conducting that captured one’s attention in a manner that was exceptional, giving the impression that he and Richter were on the same wavelength page. The sound was of radio broadcast quality but serviceable enough.

Richter did later stereo recordings of both works, the first in 1961 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra led by Charles Munch, the third, twice – the first time in 1963 with Kurt Sanderling and the Vienna Symphony and a second one with Riccardo Muti and the Philharmonia Orchestra in England during the mid 1970s.

There are also broadcasts of Richter doing both concertos with other conductors and orchestras circulating on cd and accessible on Youtube.

I mention this only because Richter is so extraordinary that anybody with the least interest in great classical pianists just might get captivated by him enough to want to collect or at least hear every single piece he ever recorded live in concert and in the studio.

Richter was not a man to let journalists near him except on rare occasions but, during his last few years, made himself available for a series of interviews that resulted in a three-hour documentary about his life which can be seen on youtube and divided in two parts.

A choice list of other Richter recordings would be the Beethoven Cello Sonatas with Mstislav Rostropovich, the Brahms and Franck Violin Sonatas with David Oistrakh, the Brahms 2nd, Bartok 2nd and Prokofiev 4th Piano Concertos with Lorin Maazel conducting the Orchestra de Paris, Rachmaninoff’s 2nd Piano Concerto with either Kurt Sanderling or Stanislaw Wislocki, the Tchaikovsky 1st with Herbert von Karajan and Schubert Lieder with baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. A special favorite record is the 1969 Beethoven Triple Concerto for Violin, Cello and Piano, in which he collaborated with Oistrakh, Rostropovich and with Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic.

In 1945, he fell in love with singer Nina Dorliak, whom he had accompanied in recital, and they lived together as husband and wife for the rest of his life but never legalized that relationship.

He and Nina would entertain guests with dinner parties and record listening marathons of one or more complete Wagner operas often extending far into the night.

Finally, much to his annoyance, Richter remembered the name of everybody he ever met even briefly in his adult life, going back decades to elevator operators and cab drivers.

Leonard Bernstein

by Peter Cates

Leonard Bernstein

The musical genius Leonard Bernstein was born August 25, 1918, in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He would achieve fame as the composer of West Side Story, as the first native-born conductor of the New York Philharmonic, as a teacher with his televised Young People’s Concerts and as a pianist with immense sight reading ability.

My earliest memory of him is the megahit 1959 Columbia LP of him conducting Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, from the piano, and An American in Paris. Bernstein became inspired by Gershwin as a teenager but had certain reservations as revealed in the following comment:

“He has left music none of which is dull, much of which is mediocre and some of which is imaginative, skillful and beautiful. There is rightly much controversy as to its lasting value.”

Bernstein’s father and mother were Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine, Samuel Bernstein becoming successful as a manufacturer of beauty supplies (He expected his son to follow him into it; when the young man refused, Sam at first refused to pay for his music lessons, but seeing his son’s talent and persistence, finally relented.).

In 1939, Bernstein was one of a tiny handful of students admitted to Fritz Reiner’s conducting class at the Curtis Institute of Music, in Philadelphia. Reiner’s conducting, particularly via the Chicago Symphony recordings he made between 1953 and 1962 when he was its music director, has thrilled me for decades with its searing clarity and beauty but the Hungarian-born Maestro had a renowned reputation for being a holy terror with orchestra players and students in his classroom.

When the Maestro auditioned a potential student, he would fling open a musical score on the piano and direct the student to play it. Bernstein passed the audition with flying colors and was the only student to get an A from Reiner.

Bernstein later commented that Reiner hammered home the importance of knowing every note in a composition more than all the players combined.

However, both conductors had radically different bodily movements in front of an orchestra. Reiner made very tiny movements with his baton, avoided perspiration and cued with his eyes. Bernstein jumped all over the podium, throwing his entire body and soul into the music and once fell off the podium during the climax of Tchaikovsky’s very exciting Francesca da Rimini.

It is reported that Reiner was once watching Bernstein grate on TV with a friend and commented, “He didn’t learn that from me.”

Composer/critic Virgil Thomson wrote, “He shagged, he shimmied and, believe it or not, he bumped.”

In 1940, Bernstein met the legendary Boston Symphony conductor Serge Koussevitzky who mentored him like a father.

Other milestones during the 1940s:

In 1943, New York Philharmonic conductor Artur Rodzinski appointed Bernstein his assistant. That same year guest conductor Bruno Walter took ill before a concert and the 25 year old Bernstein substituted and achieved a smashing success with musicians, critics and the audiences at Carnegie Hall and those listening to the radio broadcast.

In 1944, Bernstein’s Jeremiah Symphony and musical On the Town had their acclaimed premieres.

In 1945, Bernstein replaced Leopold Stokowski as Music Director of the government funded New York City Symphony which gave very inexpensive concerts and his 3 years were renowned for their adventurous programming and musical quality.

Bernstein’s many recordings with the New York Philharmonic during his tenure from 1958 to 1969 and in later years with such orchestras as the Israel and Vienna Philharmonic number in the hundreds and, whatever faults, they all have an emotional intensity and individuality.

Most can be accessed via YouTube and are on cd.

Five particularly outstanding recordings for beginners are his first LP coupling of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite and a very powerful Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet just after becoming music director of the New York Philharmonic; his Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony from the early ‘60s; the Beethoven Emperor Concerto with pianist Rudolf Serkin and 5th Symphony from the same years (I have never heard a better Beethoven 5th) and the 1980s live Tchaikovsky Pathetique Symphony with its very slow tempos that only contribute to greater eloquence.

On October 14, 1990, Leonard Bernstein died from a combination of heart attack, emphysema and other ailments at his apartment in Manhattan. He was 72 and, because of his constant cigarette smoking, had been suffering from emphysema since he was 29.

Highly recommended are the biographies by David Ewen and Joan Peyser.

by Peter Cates

Vivid memories of our first TV

I have vivid 1950s memories of some very engaging shows that were syndicated to the five channels that came in on the television sets in East Vassalboro (I should add that we were the last family in the village to get a TV set – a bulky used Philco which my grandmother Annabelle Ingraham Cates purchased for $30 from our local repairman, Richard Dowe, who was based in South China, and it arrived in early November 1959. For myself, it was the equivalent of the Second Coming, heaven on earth.).

Upon arrival, the usual sibling spat; I wanted us to watch the Three Stooges, then part of the nightly Mighty 90 show, hosted by Maine country and western singer Ken McKenzie, from 5 to 6:30 p.m., on the Portland CBS affiliate WGAN, channel 13 Mondays through Fridays. The others were screaming for Popeye on the Portland NBC affiliate WCSH, channel 6. For some very mysterious reason, I got my way and the other siblings, previously unacquainted with the Three Stooges, were roaring with laughter and forgot all about Popeye.

In addition to the Three Stooges’ 20 minute episodes, the show would feature other 1930s-40s Columbia Screen Gems shorts starring such comedians as Hugh Herbert, Leon Errol, Andy Clyde. etc., each evening, interspersed with Cowboy Ken chatting with the children gathered in the studio.

Around Christmas, Santa Claus would answer letters from kids around the state; I wrote one and heard my name mentioned on the air, which led to feeling on cloud nine for at least a week.

One of the sponsors of the show was our own Farrington’s Clothing Outlet right here in South China and a very busy store during those years.

The last half hour was given over to an action show, one of five such series rotating weekly. They included the following: The Adventures of Sir Lancelot, starring British actor William Russell. The Adventures of Casey Jones, with Alan Hale Jr., later better known as the Skipper on Gilligan’s Island.

The Rough Riders, with Kent Taylor, Jan Merlin and Peter Whitney, itself a very gripping western dealing with three men who rode throughout the post-Civil War West dispensing justice to outlaws. I remember one episode in which Highway Patrol star Broderick Crawford did a guest appearance as a very evil murderer. Ivanhoe, starring Roger Moore, later, of course, 007 (James Bond) after Sean Connery.

The Buccaneers with Robert Shaw, who would later achieve even greater fame during the early ‘70s in the film classics, The Sting and Jaws.

Some more memories in the following weeks.

Jacqueline Du Pré

by Peter Cates

Sir Malcolm Sargent

Sir Malcolm Sargent

Sir Malcolm Sargent (1895-1967) conducted a huge number of fine recordings from the 1930s to not long before he died in 1967.

Ones that particularly stand out are a 78 set of a Vieuxtemps 5th Violin Concerto with Jascha Heifetz from the early 1930s and their stereo remake in 1961 coupled with one very beautiful performance of Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy, itself highly recommended as a piece for newcomers to classical music.

Sargent also conducted violinist Ruggiero Ricci in two different and very distinguished recordings of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, one in 1951 and a stereo remake ten years later.

He collaborated with violinist Albert Sammons in a wonderful 1940s 78 set of Frederick Delius’s evocative Violin Concerto and, during the 1960s, with the renowned Jacqueline Du Pré (1945-1987) in the same composer’s Cello Concerto.

Sargent recorded the complete Handel’s Messiah 4 times – in 1946 for Columbia, in 1955 and 1959 for Angel and in 1965 for Reader’s Digest. He conducted live performances annually for decades. In addition to the four different sets, I have his 1932 Victor 78 of two choruses from the oratorio .

Sargent was gifted as a conductor of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas such as HMS Pinafore and the Mikado. His 1930s set of all five Beethoven Piano Concertos with Artur Schnabel (1882-1951) was the first complete one with that pianist’s interpretive wizardry as a performance standard difficult to equal.

Sir Malcolm became popular as the conductor of the annual London Proms concerts, replacing Sir Henry Wood (1869-1944) in 1947 until his own death in 1967, when he was suéceeded by Sir Colin Davis (1927-2013).

Sir Thomas Beecham

Sargent and his good friend, the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham (1879-1961), would often meet for lunch and ex­changed gossip about their romantic escapades; because of Sargent’s taste for expensive clothes, Beecham referred to him as Flash Harry.

Although singers and soloists enjoyed working with him, orchestral players had issues with Sargent’s arrogance and general disregard for their well-being, especially with tenure. Several friends considered him a “cad” and “bounder ” while his own son was estranged from him for years.

Because of the earlier-mentioned philandering, one woman warned her friends never to take a cab with the Maestro.

Sargent’s health declined during his last years due to pancreatic cancer but he did a successful guest concert with the Chicago Symphony a few months before his death.

Many of Sargent’s recordings and broadcasts can be heard via YouTube.

Andrew Jackson

by Peter Cates

Andrew Jackson

The seventh former President Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) has drawn much controversy during the more than 180 years since his years at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue from 1829 to 1837. His stand against the abolition of slavery, his being a wealthy plantation owner with slaves at his large Tennessee mansion known as the Hermitage, his signing into law the forced removal of native Americans from their ancestral lands in Georgia and Alabama to the Oklahoma Indian Territory (resulting in so many deaths from disease and malnutrition on the Trail of Tears) and his abrasive uncouth personality alienated many of the more socially refined ladies and gentlemen during his lifetime.

However, his list of accomplishments include a few milestones. As general of the American forces stationed in the Gulf Coast during the War of 1812, he drove the British out of that area during the 1814 Battle of New Orleans, itself becoming the title of a 1958 Columbia Records megahit 45 by the late Johnny Horton (1922-1960) which many kids in East Vassalboro, including myself, owned and played constantly, much to the annoyance of our parents.

As President, Jackson fought and won against the establishment of a National Bank which he rightfully saw as benefiting only the wealthy. He was also the only president to pay off the national debt during his administration. Needless to say, he resonated with the common folks.

When he first arrived at the White House, he threw open the doors to large crowds outside and got more than he bargained for. The inside partygoers busted every window in the White House, Jackson himself narrowly escaping through a kitchen window.

Only when the servants brought food and kegs of beer outside to the Rose Garden did the melee subside.

Interestingly by some weird twist of fate, Jackson’s vice-president was also South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun who stayed on in the job after former sixth President John Quincy Adams was defeated in his own re-election bid, but Jackson and Calhoun would have a falling out and Jackson would appoint Secretary of State and future eighth President Martin Van Buren as Veep for the second term.

Rachel Jackson

Andrew Jackson’s wife Rachel (1767-1828) died one month before Jackson moved into the White House. She had been married previously for several years to an abusive man and, trying to escape from that relationship, had moved back to her mother’s home. That husband filed for divorce, after which she and Jackson got married in 1791, only to find out that Hubby One had been mistaken when he told Rachel the divorce had been granted without confirmation from the court.

When the divorce finally came through, the Jacksons had a second ceremony in 1794.

When Jackson ran for president, his political enemies viciously slandered the couple as big amiss and the distress caused Rachel much suffering and depression and may have led to her death at the age of 61.

As did her predecessor, Elizabeth Monroe, Rachel disliked political life but was supportive of her husband when he was a Senator from Tennessee, much preferring life at the Hermitage. She once commented that she would much prefer to be a doorkeeper in the heavenly house of the Lord to living in the White House palace.

A niece Emily Donelson (1807-1836) served as hostess for most of her Uncle Andy’s years in the White House until her early death from tuberculosis.

On June 8, 1845, Andrew Jackson died from heart failure at the Hermitage. He was 78.

A closing detail — Jackson fought for the removal of the Electoral College.

Emily Donelson