by Peter Cates

Shostakovich

Symphony No. 13, “Babi Yar”

Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) based his 13th Symphony on the poem, ‘Babi Yar,’ by Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933-2017). Babi Yar is the ravine near Kiev, Ukraine, where over 34,000 Jewish men, women and children were murdered by Nazi Einsatzgruppen death squads during late September 1941. However, poet Yevtushenko used the massacre as a jumping off point in his denunciation of the anti-Semitism that had continued to exist in Russia.

Meanwhile, Shostakovich had read Babi Yar and other poems by the author and used it and four others – Humour, In the Store, Fears and Career – as sub-titles for each of the four movements in this Symphony, which he completed in the summer of 1962; movements 2 – 5 were finished in six weeks. It lasts just over an hour and is scored for bass male singer, chorus of basses, three flutes, piccolo, three oboes, English horn, three clarinets, E flat clarinet, bass clarinet, three bassoons, contra bassoon, four French horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, tympani, triangle, castanets, whip, woodblocks, tambourine, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, bells, tam tam, glockenspiel, xylophone, two harps, celesta, piano and full string contingent of violins, violas, cellos and double basses.

When Shostakovich finished the work, he sang the entire Symphony for Yevtushenko in a private meeting, accompanying himself on the piano. The poet later wrote, “If I were able to write music, I would have written it the way Shostakovich did. His music made the poem greater, more meaningful, and powerful….In a word, it became a better poem.”

Shostakovich commented most tellingly about the anti-Semitism that continued to exist in Russia that was alluded to in an earlier paragraph:

“People knew about Babi Yar before Yevtushenko’s poem, but they were silent. And when they read the poem, the silence was broken. Art destroys silence.”

The composer also shared his feelings about Yevtushenko’s writing and its underlying themes:

“Morality is a sister of conscience. And perhaps God is with Yevtushenko when he speaks of conscience. Every morning in place of prayers, I re-read or repeat by memory two poems by Yevtushenko – Career and Boots.” (Time and space do not allow room to print them here.)

Needless to say, the fact that this Symphony was in preparation caused a firestorm among the Soviet leadership, with Nikita Kruschchev going ballistic (and the October ’62 Cuban missile crisis just a few short months later). But the concert took place and caused an absolute sensation. Three or four more followed and then it was suppressed. One of Shostakovich’s greatest interpreters, and close friend, Yevgeny Mravinsky, bowed out for unknown reasons so the great conductor, Kirill Kondrashin, stepped to the podium and his performances were released on LPs. There were several years of waiting but the score was eventually smuggled to the west where it received its American premier and first recording in January 1970, from bass soloist Tom Krause and Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra.

The Symphony has received a number of distinguished recordings during the last 50 years and some of them can be heard on YouTube, including those of Kondrashin, Ormandy, Haitink, and Barshai, which I recommend highly.

The February 1 Met Opera Porgy and Bess of George Gershwin has been postponed by the Waterville Opera House until February 15 due to another event held there. I heard the broadcast on the radio, via the WQXR radio station computer link, and plan to see it then!

by Peter Cates

Les Majorettes De Shawinigan

MG-4853; 45 vinyl record, release date unknown.

This record came into my possession because of its inclusion in boxes of records doomed otherwise to the dumpster. It doesn’t have the name of any record label, just the listed catalog number, and features the enthusiastic pounding notes of a marching band of majorettes playing woodwinds, brass and percussion.

Their concert consists of Johnny Mercer’s Autumn Leaves, Artie Shaw’s Begin the Beguine, Glenn Miller’s In the Mood and Franz von Suppe’s Poet and Peasant Overture; the tunes might be recognized if the titles aren’t. This recording session may also have been paid for by the school sponsoring the band, if not from donations of folks in the community, with the 45 rpm aimed at families and friends of the musicians.

What drew my interest was not so much the listening experience as the name of Shawinigan, which is a city in the Province of Québec, on a set of natural falls along the Ste. Maurice River. It is 248-miles northwest from our Waterville and 90 miles southwest of Québec City and has been a major industrial hub in the Québec province since the late 1890s, when it attracted the interest of two wealthy entrepreneurs, themselves gentlemen of historical interest and worthy of digression for a couple of paragraphs.

The first, John Edward Aldred (1864-1945), was president of Baltimore Gas and Electric and the owner of a vast estate in Nassau County, Long Island, New York, which is listed as a historical site, because of its exquisitely sculpted grounds by the famous Olmsted brothers (that family’s firm was involved in the design of Acadia National Park and those in the cities of both Portlands, in Maine and Oregon, and in Shawinigan’s own parks). That estate is now a monastery.

The second individual was Hubert Biermans (1864-1953), the Dutch-born director of the Belgo-Canadian Paper and Pulp Company, who also amassed a fortune with his involvement in this firm, based in Brussels, Belgium, and its projects in other parts of the world such as Leopoldville in the Belgian Congo. He owned several homes and spent much time during his last years on the island of Monaco.

Both saw potential in the hydroelectricity that could be generated by the falls and spear-headed the establishment of a power grid infrastructure, through a Montréal firm, for Shawinigan’s economic future. They were proved right. The paper, electrical power, and different chemical and textile industries boomed.

Allowing for downturns during the Great Depression of the 1930s and the gradual dwindling of industry starting in the 1960s through the ‘80s, the quality of life was high, jobs were plentiful and the wages among the best in Canada. Shawinigan was the first Canadian city to see the installation of electrical streetlights.

During the 1950s, there was a proliferation of independently-owned men-only bars and taverns that prevailed until the early ‘80s, when women broke that gender barrier.

Another source of income since the early 1900s has been the city’s hospitality industry due to tourism and it has received major boosts and construction of tourist attractions in the last 30 years from the Canadian government.

I noticed the absence of any books on the city’s own history and on Aldred and Biermans, and hope that some talented historians and/or biographers might get attracted to them as subjects.

by Peter Cates

Respighi: Fountains of Rome/Pines of Rome

Franz Andre conducting the Belgian National Radio Orchestra; Telefunken TC-8002, vinyl budget-priced LP from the late 1950s.

For people starting to listen to classical music, I would more readily recommend the Respighi Pines and Fountains of Rome over most Beethoven and Brahms Symphonies. These two pieces have the most colorful sounds, the loveliest strands of melody, and a very vivid sense of location.

The fountains are four spread around the historical city and musically evoked at different times of day, while four different rows of Rome’s magnificent pine trees are treated the same. The Fountains were premiered in 1916 during World War I, while the Pines received their debut in 1924. Both demand extraordinary virtuosity from a full symphony orchestra but have become immensely popular, receiving numerous recordings since then.

I have several different ones but, for some mysterious reason, was particularly drawn to Franz Andre (1893-1975), who was arguably the most prominent and busiest conductor in Belgium’s cultural life for almost 40 years, yet not that well-known in the United States. He delivered exceptionally exciting renditions that stand alongside those of Arturo Toscanini, Fritz Reiner, Eugene Ormandy Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa, to mention a few. Several of Andre’s recordings of other works can be heard on YouTube but not the Respighis. However, E-bay and other vendors have copies of the LP for sale.

Some facts about the composer, Ottorino Respighi (1879-1956) – He had a fascination with languages as well as music and collected dictionaries.

He took piano under his father’s tutelage but was quite undisciplined in his habits. However, his father was startled one day to find his son playing the very difficult piano work, Symphonic Etudes, with total mastery.

He suffered from narcolepsy and would suddenly and frequently fall asleep.

He married one of his composition students in 1919 when she was 25 and he was 40. She outlived him by 60 years and died at 102, in 1996.

by Peter Cates

Handel’s Messiah

Donald Neuen conducting the Eastman Chorale and Philharmonia, Word, SPCN 7-01-892910, three lps, recorded 1984 at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.

Handel’s Messiah has been recorded numerous times with choirs and orchestras ranging from huge to very small. I have a number of these sets and found at least something good in each of them, because, like so many other masterpieces, it is infinitely and inexhaustibly rich in its musical and spiritual content.

Donald Neuen, still living in his early 80s, worked with the great choirmaster Robert Shaw, taught at Eastman School of Music and UCLA, and led choral groups and workshops all over the country.

For this recording, Neuen took the unusual step of rotating eight different soloists for various arias instead of the usual quartet of soprano, contralto, tenor and bass. This approach gave an extra freshness to this performance with different singers on various numbers. The bass Thomas Paul’s Thus Saith The Lord was quite the nice dynamic contrast to baritone James Courtney’s The Trumpet Shall Sound.

Both the performance and recording make this one of the better Messiahs and it can be recommended, along with ones conducted by Eugene Ormandy, Sir Thomas Beecham, William Christie, Harry Christopher, Neuen’s colleague Robert Shaw and several others. It is also available through various internet outlets and tracks can be auditioned on youtube.

Frank De Vol

and the Rainbow Strings

The Old Sweet Songs of Christmas; Columbia CL 1543, lp, recorded 1960.

Frank De Vol (1911-1999) was not only an arranger/conductor for Capitol, Columbia and other record labels, but also appeared in films and on TV as an actor. Fans of Martin Mull’s very funny short-lived late ‘70s series, America 2-Night, might remember De Vol as the poker-faced bandleader Happy Kyne.

The album contains 26 famous Christmas carols and popular songs in sweet string arrangements bordering on the syrupy and best taken in small doses.

The Irishman

The new Martin Scorsese film, The Irishman, is 210 minutes of swiftly moving drama starring Robert De Niro as a ‘house painter’ (pseudonym for hitman) for mobster businessmen, Joe Pesci, as one of the bosses and Al Pacino as Teamsters leader, Jimmy Hoffa. Each of the three gentlemen delivers the kind of performance in which every glance and movement of the character he plays communicates. And every other detail of this brilliant and, of course, violent movie repays close study.