by Peter Cates

Heckle and Jeckle

4 cartoons, posted on YouTube.
From 1946-1952.

Paul Terry

Among the funniest animated characters, right up there with Foghorn, Wiley and Bugs, were two blisteringly arrogant magpieish partners in crime, Heckle and Jeckle. These semi-birds/buzzards of too many feathers were among the creations of animator Paul Terry (1887-1971); he launched Terrytoons, which included Mighty Mouse and Farmer Alfalfa, with his lazy dawg, and a host of other such beings. I remember some of these from my 1950s childhood, when they and other such suitable, syndicated programs were scheduled during the Monday through Friday children’s hour between 5 and 6:30 p.m. and on Saturday mornings.

The four very hilarious examples of their unique scorched-earth humor were the following:

The Uninvited Pests – 1946. Farmer Alfalfa and his lazy, good-for-nothing, very loyal and endearing dawg are trying to have a family picnic but the two pestulants are fighting hard battles to keep them derailed.

King Tut’s Tomb -1950. Arguably the funniest visit to Tut’s underground museum of Egyptian mummified cadavers. The choreography of the magpies and mummies are worth the time spent .

Bulldozing the Bull -1951. H and J see huge profit potential for their homemade hot tamales inside the food court of a bullfight astrodome; unfortunately, they don’t have enough pocket change for admission from the beer-bellied ticket seller. And his personality might seem nice upon initial acquaintance but, once they connive at getting in for free, his true colors are quickly seen in all their deadly glory.

Ned Sparks

He even uses the bull as an agent of his wrath. But the giftedly manipulative birdbrains convince the bull to deploy his wrath towards the ticket seller.

Off to the Opera -1952. Heckle and Jeckle deliver a comic rendition of Rossini’s Barber of Seville that holds its own with the one of Bugs Bunny and his arch nemesis, Yosemite Sam.

Actor Ned Sparks (1883-1957) did captivating voices for both conbirds from the mid-’40s to early ‘50s.

Author Joe Sharkey

by Peter Cates

Above Suspicion
written by Joe Sharkey; published 1993, St. Martin’s Paperbacks, 310 pages.

Above Suspicion is the account of an eastern Kentucky woman, Susie Smith, murdered back in 1989 by the area FBI agent, Mark Putnam, also a married man with whom she was having an affair. The murder case has sustained interest since then with films, other books and droves of media coverage while this title was turned into a film a year ago. Meanwhile the author Joe Sharkey has been working on an updated edition.

I have dipped into it as I frequently do these days with the many read and unread books around here, not finishing that many.

The author has a gift for narration and a sense of humor. So I offer an example referencing the criminal element in those Kentucky mountains:

To a bank robber, eastern Kentucky offers unusual challenges and unusual opportunities. In some ways, it is not an ideal place to rob a bank. For one thing, the region has an FBI office, and bank robbery has been a federal crime since John Dillinger’s days. For another, robbing a bank is usually a daylight pursuit requiring the capacity to get away in a car – not an easy task in a place where the roads run up one side of a mountain and wind down the other, and the nearest interstate is two hours of bad road away.

But on the other hand, banks in isolated mountain settlements tend to be guarded with about as much fortification as a hot dog stand, in towns without full-time police protection. So they draw free-lance opportunists who haven’t always clearly thought through their plans, such as the robber who hid on a bank roof to pounce on the driver from the Piggly-Wiggly store making his night deposit – and missed, knocking himself out cold in the parking lot. Or the hapless gang who held up a bank on Peter Creek, found themselves stranded when the getaway driver got lost en route, politely borrowed a teller’s car keys, and ran out of gas a half mile down the road.

I notice the rave reviewers mention nothing about the humor.

by Peter Cates

A live link from London’s Barbican Centre

Bernard Haitink

A live link from London’s Barbican Centre that I watched this past Sunday, March 10, 2019, and available on YouTube until June 10, 2019; this includes two intermission features from host Rachel Leach.

Live: Mozart Piano Concerto No. 22 (with pianist Till Fellner) and Bruck­ner Sym­phony No. 4 – Lon­don Sym­phony Orchestra under the direction of Bernard Haitink .

World-renowned conductor Bernard Haitink celebrated his 90th birthday on March 4, and, with guest-conducting engagements scheduled over the next several weeks, verifying that he remains at the top of his game being a consistently fine interpreter, as he’s been for the last 60 or more years, of a wide range of symphonic music.

Till Fellner

The Mozart and Bruckner have the glistening freshness of someone discovering this music for the first time. I have an earlier home-recorded cassette of the Maestro’s mid-’80s Boston Symphony 22nd PC with Alicia di Larrocha, while my first Bruckner 4th was his 1960s LP. These earlier performances prove his commitment to glistening freshness, even though, being human, he can’t achieve it every time. I have some examples of when he can be dull.

Nevertheless, this link is recommended for all fans of the conductor and for the mo­ments of so many people showing their love and consideration for him.

I offer a few examples of his extensive recorded legacy, including his 25-plus years as music director of the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam:

Brahms 2nd Piano Concerto with Claudio Arrau.

First Mahler 9th Symphony.

First Richard Strauss Heldenleben.

And London Philharmonic Beethoven 2nd and 9th Symphonies; and Shostakovich Leningrad and 10th Symphonies.

Josef Krips

by Peter Cates

Strauss Waltzes

conducting the Vienna Symphony; Madacy, MKC 1825, cassette.

Conductor Josef Krips (1902-1974) was distinguished by his work in helping to rebuild the Vienna State Opera during the post-World War II years; he also made many recordings of the Central European repertoire-Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert etc. – that were released in this country, mostly on London and a few other labels. And they were consistently good.

Johann Strauss

The above cassette has a program of 13 Waltzes by the great Johann Strauss, Jr. (1825-1899), excluding the justly classic Blue Danube, Tales from the Vienna Woods and Emperor Waltz, but containing the charming Million Embraces, Lagoon Waltz, Where the Lemons Bloom, Thousand and One Nights, AND the intriguing title You Only Live Once, no relation to 007. The Vienna Symphony sounds smaller-scaled in number of players but handles the tricky rhythms of this music with ease.

Krips had quite the appetite for tasty food and was seen devouring a large bucket of fried chicken for lunch during a recording session. Google photos of his corpulent figure testify to this.

The records of his that stick out in my mind are the two different Brahms First Symphonies and the 4th, Schubert’s 6th, and all Beethoven nine Symphonies and five Piano Concertos, with Artur Rubinstein.

Jim Thompson quote: “What smells good in the store may stink in the stewpot.”

by Peter Cates

Vivaldi

Various Concertos
Karl Ristenpart conducting the Chamber Orchestra of the Sarre; Nonesuch H-71022; stereo LP, recorded early 1960s.

Karl Ristenpart

Karl Ristenpart (1900-1967) was one of the most solid interpreters of Antonio Vivaldi’s music, along with that of Johann Sebastian Bach and others. He made a large number of recordings between the early-to-mid-’50s and his very sudden death from a heart attack on Christmas Eve 1967, during a tour with his Sarre players in Portugal.

Vivaldi wrote a huge quantity of music, also sustained by exceptional quality. There are five Concertos on the above album, the A minor and C Major ones for piccolo with Roger Bourdin; one also in A minor for violin; a D minor for two violins and an F Major for three violins, featuring the Sarre concertmaster Georg-Friedrich Hendel in all three works, Klaus Schlupp as second violinist in the D minor and F Major, and Hans Bunte in the F Major. The five Concertos are captivating, the performances top notch.

Some other recent listening experiences:

Chopin’s Opus 10 Etudes and F Major Ballade

Vladimir Ashkenazy, pianist; Hall of Fame, HOF 520, LP.

Vladimir Ashkenazy

The 82-year-old pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy is more active as a conductor for the last 30 years. This LP consists of recordings before the 1962 Second Tchaikovsky Competition, in Moscow, through which he shared first prize with the late pianist John Ogden. They have extraordinary intensity, virtuosity and color, compared to his later Decca/London recordings of the composer that were a bit more aloof .

The last of the 12 Etudes from Opus 10 (there is a later set, Opus 25), known as the Revolutionary Etude, comes from 1831 when the Russian army suppressed Poland’s revolution by attacking Warsaw. Chopin wrote, “All this has caused me much pain. Who could have foreseen it?” It was dedicated to Franz Liszt.

19th-Century Austrian Organ Music

Franz Haselbock, organist; MHS 1972, LP, released 1974.

Anton Bruckner

Side one of the above LP is devoted to the small number of organ pieces composed by Anton Bruckner (1824-1896), an organist himself, whose powerful nine symphonies are staples of the orchestral repertoire. The second side contains selected works of the lesser known organist, Simon Sechter (1788-1867), one of Bruckner’s teachers. This music, while not on the same level as Bach’s, is worthwhile and quite moving.

Franz Haselbock gave fine performances and wrote interesting liner notes. He played the Bruckner Organ of the Piaristenkirche, located in Vienna, Austria, and considered one of its finest. Built 1856-58, it was played by Bruckner several times; hence its name.