by Peter Cates

Kenneth Roberts

Kenneth Roberts

Kennebunk’s Kenneth Roberts (1885-1957) wrote the historical novel Boon Island in 1956. Boon Island is a ledge 300 by 700 feet in the Atlantic Ocean, 14 miles south of Kennebunkport and, since 1811, has the tallest lighthouse in New England.

The novel is based on the December 1710, shipwreck of the Nottingham from Greenwich, England, when it was blinded during a northeaster after 137 days at sea, and the crew’s struggle for survival against the ravages of the freezing sub zero temperatures, no food and its own dog eat dog human nature impulses.

The first person narrator Miles provided one telling description:

“I hoped that when the northeaster blew itself out, the sea would grow calm, but it didn’t. When the wind swung, it backed into the northwest and west, meaning that bad weather had only temporarily abated. We were free of driving snow and rain, but breakers still roared deafeningly on the north and west. They pounded less on the south and east, but still they pounded, throwing off manes of white foam. The wind seemed colder than on the night we were wrecked.”

Another Roberts novel Northwest Passage was made into a truly classic 1940 film starring Spencer Tracy, Robert Young and Walter Brennan.

Roberts also was known for his activities on behalf of dowsing. Finally, during his writing career, he wore out several copies of Roget’s Thesaurus.

Best book of heroes

A 1958 anthology Good Housekeeping’s Best Book of Heroes and Heroines has chapters from books of such authors as Carl Sandburg (Lincoln), Dorothy Canfield Fisher (Paul Revere), and Helen Keller (autobiography).

The selections that interested me the most were those on how Daniel Boone (1734 – 1820) outsmarted the Shawnees while in their captivity; and how Walter Reed (1851-1902) figured out that yellow fever was caused by mosquitoes, not through contact with victims of the fever.

Will and Ariel Durant

Will and Ariel Durant’s 11 volume The Story of Civilization has sold millions of sets through its introductory offerings to members joining Book of the Month Club. The books lend themselves best to browsing due to the 800 or more pages in each volume yet are written in a very interesting narrative style leading to compulsive reading .

The fifth volume, The Renaissance, tells of the number of good hospitals in Italy, starting with one opened in Siena in 1305 and “famous for its size and services.” Milan and Venice soon followed with highly competitive ones; Florence had 35 hospitals during the 1400s. Most all of them were models of architecture and adorned with art on their walls. Generous support came from the public and private benefactors within the ranks of both the church and nobility.

When Martin Luther visited Italy in 1511, he happily noted “the excellent food and drink, careful attendants, and learned physicians…beds and bedding are clean.”

by Peter Cates

John Dos Passos

Celebrating Independence Day, I found the following paragraph in the first chapter of the 42nd Parallel, a 1937 novel by John Dos Passos (1896-1970):

“U.S.A. is the slice of a continent. U.S.A. is a group of holding companies, some aggregations of trade unions, a set of laws bound in calf, a radio network, a chain of moving picture theatres, a column of stock-quotations rubbed out and written in by a Western Union boy on a blackboard, a public library full of old newspapers and dogeared history books with protests scrawled on the margins in pencil. U.S.A. is a set of bigmouthed officials with too many bank accounts. U.S.A. is a lot of men buried in their uniforms in Arlington Cemetery. U.S.A. is the letters at the end of an address when you are away from home. But mostly U.S.A. is the speech of the people.”

Dos Passos had a unique gift for combining actual slices of history, similar to news reels, with his fictitious characters in his various novels. He was a committed socialist during his younger years but then switched to a conservative world view after a friend of his was cold-bloodedly murdered by Stalin’s assassins during the Spanish Civil War.

Duster

Episode 7 of the current season of the Max TV series Duster, in its recreation of the 1970s, has a depiction of the reclusive multi-millionaire Howard Hughes (1905-1976) who has paid a million dollars for the tape of former President Richard Nixon (1913-1994) authorizing the 1972 Watergate burglary of the Democratic headquarters. While the depiction of the transaction is fictitious, other aspects in the episode are historically correct – those being Hughes depicted as delusional, totally unkempt with long hair and beard and yet a germaphobe who insists that all guests wash their hands at least four times.

Not depicted was Hughes lashing out at former Maine Senator Owen Brewster (1888-1961) during a 1947 Congressional hearing when the Senator tried to unsuccessfully back him into a corner.

Very highly recommended for its intelligent scripting and credible character development.

Giulio Setti

Saint-Saens: Samson and Delilah – Dawn now Heralds the Day (L’Aube qui Blanchit); Gounod: Romeo et Juliette-Prologue. Giulio Setti conducting the Metro­politan Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Victrola Red Seal 4152, ten-inch 78, recorded between late ‘20s and early ‘30s.

Giulio Setti (1869-1938) worked in opera houses in Italy, Egypt, Germany and Argentina before arriving at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1908 as a gifted chorus master.

The above 78 showcases his ability to draw very eloquent ensemble music making on both excerpts. In 1935, Setti returned to Italy.

Eddie Fisher

Eddie Fisher – Lady of Spain; and Outside of Heaven. RCA Victor 20-4953, ten-inch 78, recorded 1952.

Eddie Fisher

Eddie Fisher (1928-2010) was a typically 1950s heartthrob singer of novelty pop songs such as Dungaree Doll, and the above Lady of Spain, which scored big time on the top 40. The pulsating plush arrangements of Hugo Winter­halter (1909-1973) helped immensely with Fisher’s musical success.

Fisher was first married to singer/actress Debbie Reynolds before leaving her to marry Elizabeth Taylor, who in turn would leave him to marry Richard Burton. His career started to tank during the 1960s while his and Reynolds’s daughter, actress Carrie Fisher refused to speak to her father for over 30 years.

In his autobiography, Fisher pays tribute to his Music Director Hugo Winterhalter and tells sadly of the older man losing his will to live after his son Hugo Junior is killed in 1969 while serving in Vietnam. He also collaborated during the less commercially successful ‘60s in a musically very good album for RCA Victor with the phenomenal arranger Nelson Riddle.

Jimmy Dorsey

Jimmy Dorsey

Jimmy Dorsey – Charley, My Boy; and Johnson Rag. Columbia 38649, ten-inch 78, recorded 1949.

In 1949, clarinettist Jimmy Dorsey (1904-1957) assembled a very good group of studio musicians, including Jack Teagarden’s younger brother Charlie on trumpet and pianist Dick Cary, and recorded several captivating Dixieland tunes for Columbia which were quite the contrast to his earlier Decca discs of mostly lyrical and sometimes bland music from the Big Band years (Younger brother Tommy’s records for Victor with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Jo Stafford , Buddy Rich and others were much more musically interesting.).

Patti Page

by Peter Cates

Patti Page

Patti Page – Because Him is a Baby; Goodbye Charlie; Mercury 71510, seven-inch vinyl 45, recorded 1959.

Patti Page (1927-2013), along with Doris Day (1922-2019), were two fabulous golden girls of 1950s pop music in combining outstanding musical and commercial success in pop singing (Time and space limits me from naming several other personal favorites).

Born Clara Ann Fowler, in Oklahoma, one of her first musical gigs came at the age of 18 in her native state on a 15-minute local radio show sponsored by the Page Milk Company – hence her stage name. During the late ‘40s, she sang with a band in Chicago led by Benny Goodman who gave Peggy Lee a jumpstart in her career.

The windy city was also the home of Mercury Records where Page would record for over ten years. How Much is that Doggie in the Window; and The Old Cape Cod were huge hits during her Mercury years.

Interestingly, this 1959 coupling is one of Miss Page’s rarer records. The two songs combine her gifts for beautiful contralto singing and songs dealing with immature adults – (Because Him is a Baby) – and disloyal lovers — (Goodbye Charlie) – who cause chaos, themes similar to her 1951 megahit Tennessee Waltz, where “My friend stole my sweetheart from me.” (Around the same year, comedy band leader Spike Jones did his own Tennessee Waltz utilizing a chorus of cackling old ladies.).

The arrangements on the 1959 disc were imaginative ones by the gifted Pete Rugolo (1915-2011) with lovely woodwind and brass details. He did phenomenal scorings for the progressive big band jazz leader Stan Kenton whose music making was otherwise quite the distance from that of Miss Page.

In 1962, she appeared in the comedy film Boys Night Out with James Garner and Kim Novak and lent considerable charm to her role as a suburban wife.

The Accountant

During two successive evenings, I viewed the 2016 suspense film The Accountant and the 2025 The Accountant 2, starring Ben Afleck, as an autistic genius level accountant and highly lethal assassin of bad people, Christian Wolff.

Two films of his I have seen previously are the 2002 thriller Changing Lanes with Samuel L. Jackson and Amanda Peet; and the 2006 Hollywoodland in which Afleck portrayed actor George Reeves (1914-1959) who was the star of the justly successful TV series, The Adventures of Superman, which ran from 1951 to 1957.

The bio film was quite fascinating in its depiction of Reeves’s struggles with typecasting and Afleck’s facial resemblance to Reeves but at the same time the film was difficult to watch because I was so used to Reeves as Superman and couldn’t accept Afleck’s credibility in the role.

The merits of both Accountant films are of different degrees. The 2016 film has much in the blood and gore and narrow escapes which sustains interest at that level. The remake of 9 years later, while still dealing with highly dangerous criminals, has a much more nuanced development of character in Christian Wolff’s confronting of issues in his personal life and relationships. The visibly late middle aging of Ben Afleck, now 53 years old, is brought very consummately to bear in his portrayal of Wolff and his relationship with his younger brother Braxton, aptly portrayed by Jon Bernthal, from whom Christian was estranged for several years; Braxton is also a similarly lethal killer who doesn’t quite have the moral qualms of Christian.

However, he is immensely helpful to Christian as they reconcile and head to a remote Mexican compound to rescue several dozen children kidnapped by traffickers who now plan to massacre them for purposes of expediency.

Good supporting roles were provided by Portland native Anna Kendrick and John Lithgow in the 2016 film and J.K. Simmons in both 2016 and the remake.

***

Donizetti: La Favorita – Una vergine (Like an Angel); Florencio Constantino, tenor; Victor Red Seal 64090, ten-inch one-sided acoustic shellac disc, recorded May 22nd, 1907.

Tenor Florencio Constantino (1869-1919) didn’t have the pipes of Enrico Caruso but he did have a lovely lyrical high, middle and low register and gave a very nice performance of this aria. He had a solid career until a 1917 lawsuit resulting in a nervous breakdown led to his early death in a Mexico City hospital.

***

Jimmy Dorsey – Holiday for Strings; and Ohio; Decca 18593, ten inch 78, recorded 1944.

Clarinettist/bandleader Jimmy Dorsey (1904-1957) and older brother of Tommy Dorsey (1905-1956) recorded a very jazz swing rendition of David Rose’s famous Holiday for Strings and brought a captivating scoring for the brass section to a piece of music that is still crappy.

Side 2’s Ohio is a decent pop standard from the World War II years and featured in a 1944 musical, Four Jills in a Jeep.

Jimmy’s own records didn’t quite have the vibrant beauty of Tommy’s but he did have the immensely enjoyable singer Kitty Kallen, unfortunately not featured here.

by Peter Cates

Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland – Music for the Theatre Suite; Howard Hanson conducting the Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra; Victor Red Seal M-744, three 12-inch 78s, recorded 1940.

Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland (1900-1990) completed his Music for the Theatre in 1925 during the summer months at New Hamp­shire’s Mac­Dowell Colony for the Arts. It is a beautifully introspective work with lovely passages for each section of the orchestra.

Howard Hanson (1896-1981) was Director of the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester from 1924 to 1964, a noted composer himself and an outstanding conductor of 20th century American music. This 1940 recording, for my taste, is even better performance-wise than the 1960s stereo recording of Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, despite that younger conductor’s close friendship with Copland, because of Bernstein’s over-emotional approach and lack of sensitivity to this music’s quieter moments.

The Hanson 78s can be heard at Archive.org on the Internet.

Gloria Lynne

Gloria Lynne – He Needs Me; Everest LPBR-5128, 12-inch LP, recorded 1961.

Singer Gloria Lynne (1929-2013) emerged during the 1950s and ’60s when other fine African-American vocalists such as Dinah Washington, Della Reese, Sarah Vaughan, Nancy Wilson, Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick were achieving much deserved success in jazz and pop music. Lynne had a uniquely lyrical delicacy to her voice similar to that of Nancy Wilson.

Her renditions of I Thought About You, The Lamp is Low, If You Love Me and others on this 1961 Everest album conveyed this quality nicely, with the superb arrangements of Jimmy Jones and his Orchestra.

Two Sibelius 78s:

Finlandia – Artur Rodzinski conducting the Cleveland Orchestra; Columbia Masterworks 11178, 12-inch 78, recorded 1940.

Swan of Tuonela – Leopold Stokowski conducting the Phildelphia Orchestra; Victor Red Seal 7380, 12-inch 78, recorded 1937.

Finland’s still justifiably greatest composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957), according to the great Maestro Eugene Ormandy who visited with him during an early 1950s concert tour of the Philadelphia Orchestra in Scandinavia, had shelves of records and a top notch phonograph in his living room.

Castine Maine’s David Hall commented in a 1967 Stereo Review piece that the music of the Finn in its celebration of the rocky coast, woods and meadows reminded him of the Penobscot Bay area encompassing Deer Isle, Blue Hill and, of course, Hall’s own favorite village. I once asked if he and the composer ever met; the reply: “I once had the opportunity but chickened out!”

Artur Rodzinski conducted a joyously bristling performance of Finlandia which has become Finland’s own national anthem equivalent of the Star Spangled Banner. In the late ‘50s, Ormandy recorded Finlandia with his Philadelphians and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir which has been my own favorite for more than 60 years.

In 1936, Leopold Stokowski invited Eugene Ormandy to be his co-conductor in Philadelphia, as he admired what Ormandy was achieving with the Minneapolis Symphony . In 1938, Stokowski resigned.

The 1937 Victor shellac featuring Stoky’s interpretive magic in Sibelius’s Swan of Tuonela is well worth hearing via YouTube, especially for the hauntingly eloquent English horn.

Stokowski later rerecorded the Swan with a studio orchestra for Victor and hired Mitch Miller, then one of the finest players of both the oboe and English horn in the country and later more famous for the Sing Along LPs on Columbia Records.

Some more about Sibelius:

The composer told violinist Yehudi Menuhin that Bela Bartok was his favorite 20th century composer.

When German pianist Wilhelm Kempff visited Sibelius, he played the Hammerklavier Sonata which was the composer’s favorite Beethoven piece.

Enrico Caruso

Enrico Caruso

The widow of legendary tenor Enrico Caruso (1873-1921), Dorothy Caruso published a biography of her husband in 1945, titled simply Enrico Caruso His Life and Death.

Although a native New Yorker, she lived much of her adult life in France and Italy. During the late 1930s, she did humanitarian relief work in the Maritime Alps feeding and clothing impoverished families.

In the conclusion to her husband’s biography, Mrs. Caruso wrote:

“When I returned to this country [in 1942] I found that Enrico was not forgotten but living as if he had never died. Twenty-five years is a long time [the couple eloped in 1917] but my memory of him is as clear as if he had left me an hour ago. With every word I wrote he walked into the room. The more I wrote, the more clear those years became.

“I never reread his letters after his death. I never looked at them until I began the book and realized that they were the best illustration of his thought. Because he was such a silent man and thought before he spoke, I think I have remembered everything he said.”

Caruso’s unfailingly down to earth personality is conveyed in an exchange with his good friend John McCormack. When the Irish tenor greeted him with “How’s the world’s greatest tenor this morning?”, Caruso replied, “I didn’t know you were now a baritone.”

With his earnings, Caruso was a secret pal to many. A cleaning lady at the Met Opera was overheard telling a friend that her husband had fallen off a scaffolding and she didn’t know how she would be able to support their family with several children. She found a wad of hundred dollar bills in her winter coat.

by Peter Cates

Johannes Brahms

Brahms Symphony 1 – Hermann Scherchen conducting the Vienna State Opera Orchestra; Classaphonic-CL-68. 12 inch lp, recorded mid to late 50s.

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was already sketching a First Symphony in 1853 as his friend Robert Schumann was praising the then young composer as the great new hope in music who would provide “yet more wondrous glimpses into the mysteries of the world of the spirit.” The sketches eventually grew into the magnificent First Piano Concerto in 1857.

Another 19 years elapsed when Brahms presented his First Symphony in its 1876 World Premiere in a rural town in Germany where several friends were eagerly awaiting its performance.

The Symphony met with resounding success and has been performed and recorded countless times since then, being still a favorite with audiences. Having already admitted in earlier columns that Brahms has been my favorite composer for decades, I am certainly biased in finding things to enjoy in this recording, as with batches of other Brahms 1sts in my collection, whether good, bad or indifferent.

Hermann Scherchen conducted a performance that was uniquely captivating for its foreboding grandeur in the opening movement, its sweet sentiment in the second movement, the dancing, slightly melancholy delicacy in the 3rd movement and the jubilation in the concluding 4th movement. Scherchen also speeded up tempos even more quickly than Leonard Bernstein and Eugen Jochum on their justly acclaimed recordings towards the end of the 4th Finale- he could be perverse with tempos and phrasing- but this recording ended up being such a pleasure that I have played it at least 4 times since yesterday.

John Josselyn

John Josselyn

The adventurous English aristocrat John Josselyn (1608-1675) traveled to New England twice, 1638 and 1663, and his massively detailed An Account of Two Voyages to New-England provided ground breaking research on animals, plants and native American life.

An example – he wrote interestingly about the homes in tribal villages, as conveyed in the following sentence:

“Their houses which they call Wigwams, are built with Poles pitched into the ground of a round form for most part, sometimes square, they bind down the tops of their poles, leaving a hole for smoke to go out at, the rest they cover with the bark of trees, and line the inside of their Wigwams with mats made of rushes painted with several colors, one good post they set up in the middle that reaches to the hole in the top, with a staff across before it at a convenient height, they knock in a pin on which they hang their Kettle, beneath that they set up a broad stone for a back which keepeth the post from burning; round by the walls they spread their mats and skins where the men sleep whilst the women dress their victuals, they have commonly two doors, one opening to the South, the other to the North, and according as the wind sits, they close up one door with bark and hang a Dears skin or the like before the other.”

Josselyn also told tall tales about seeing pre-historic creatures such as sea lions and serpents and spotting a mermaid or two. In addition, he portrayed the harsh deadly New England landscape and climate as heaven on earth.

There is an anecdote where he started chewing a wasp’s nest, thinking it was a pineapple. His face became so swollen and disfigured that his friends recognized him only by his clothes.

Josselyn’s second visit in 1663 lasted several years until he eventually returned to England where he first wrote New-England Rareties Discovered in 1672 and An Account two years later.

In 1675 John Josselyn died at the age of 67, fulfilling a French proverb he lived by – “Travail where thou canst, but dye where thou oughtest, that is, in thine own Countrey.”

D.L. Miller

A few years ago, I wrote about the 99 cent Somerset/Stereo Fidelity LPs created by the Pennsylvania businessman D.L. Miller back in 1957. In addition to the classical recording sessions he brokered with such orchestras as the London and Hamburg Philharmonics, Miller created an immense and very profitable catalog of LPs by the 101 Strings which were inevitably transferred to cassettes and CDs. Three particular titles- With Love from London, Symphony for Lovers and Gypsy Campfires – were part of my parents otherwise small record collection.

Nelson Riddle conducted the 101 Strings in one of their finest recordings, one I’ve played numerous times.

Miller sold the label to an English businessman who changed its name to Alshire. A cassette release, The Best of 101 Strings (Alshire, ALSC-5373), features a dozen rhythmically pulsating arrangements of such pop staples as Moon River, I Left My Heart In San Francisco, The Way We Were, Lara’s Theme from Doctor Zhivago, etc.

* * * * * *

I highly recommend the recently streamed film Conclave, which depicts the secret proceedings at Vatican City as the Cardinals are choosing a new Pope. Ralph Fiennes heads a superb cast as the chief moderator of the proceedings.