The debris field of Buddy Holly’s chartered Beech Bonanza aircraft on February 3, 1959. Internet photo

by Peter Cates

This past Sunday, February 3, was the 60th anniversary of the plane crash that claimed the lives of all four passengers on board shortly after takeoff near Clear Lake, Iowa – singers Buddy Holly, 22; Ritchie Valens,17; and Big Bopper, 28; and pilot Roger Peterson, 21. The details can be found via many sources, conveniently including Google, Wiki etc., of what Don McLean’s 1971 song American Pie aptly referred to as “The Day the Music Died”!

Buddy Holly

I would like to call attention to two fine records of each of the singers – one well-known and one not so well-known:

Buddy Holly recorded the riveting That’ll Be the Day and the much lesser-known love song Every Day and conveyed the most vivid immediacy in his singing. During the mid 1960s, Skeeter Davis did an RCA Victor LP of Holly’s material with his parents attending the studio sessions in Nashville.

Ritchie Valens

The Ritchie Valens La Bamba is justly classic because of its several reappearances in the public eyes and ears while the unknown Little Girl has a romantic tenderness all its own. Interestingly, although his parents were from Mexico, he learned very little Spanish because they spoke English at home.

J.P. Richardson

Big Bopper’s (editor’s note: actual name is J.P Richard­son) Chantilly Lace is one roaring example of his baritone/bass vocalism. His very first documented 45 record Beggar to a King with a higher, softer voice was a later hit for the Cana­dian country singer, Hank Snow.

Waylon Jennings

Editor’s note: Country/­western singer Waylon Jennings was also reportedly scheduled to be on that flight, but gave up his seat to the Big Bopper. The story is told that Jennings gave up his seat on the ill-fated flight in 1959 that crashed, killing Buddy Holly, J. P. Richard­son, Ritchie Valens, and pilot Roger Peterson. They were on their way to Moorhead, Minnesota, for their next concert. Band member Tommy Allsup lost his seat to Valens on a coin toss. Both Jen­nings and Allsup continued on the bus.

by Peter Cates

Eberl Symphony in E-flat Major from 1803

Concerto Koln, YouTube

Anton Eberl

Anton Eberl (1765-1807) was an Austrian composer with 200 works, many of them now lost. He was acclaimed as a pianist and teacher, knew Mozart, was a very close friend of Beethoven and much loved by others during his lifetime.

The composer and his wife traveled to Rus­sia, living in St. Petersburg for several years. But his home was Vienna for most of his life.

Eberl died of scarlet fever in 1807 at the age of 41. Afterwards, for over 167 years, he went into obscurity for mysterious reasons until the slow-moving revival of interest, in 1971, in his legacy. Performances and recordings have peaked during the last decade.

Until hearing the highly recommended above YouTube recently, I did not know of him and his music; the Symphony’s individuality, charm and beauty are undeniable. Concerto Koln’s rendition without a conductor is a very good one.

Company

Original Broadway cast recording, recorded May 3, 1970, Sony/Columbia, cd remastering of original LP released in 1998.

Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Sondheim’s musical, Company, is, for me, one of the finest classical masterpieces in existence, along with Mahler’s 5th Symphony, Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, the Brahms D minor PC, Sinatra’s Watertown, Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, Joni Mitchell’s Blue, the Sibelius’ 7 Symphonies, Beethoven’s own 9 and his 5 PCs, Gershwin’s Concerto in F and the Puccini Tosca and Madame Butterfly with several etceteras. This original Broadway cast recording, supervised by the composer and the phenomenally gifted producer – then employed by Columbia records – Thomas Z. Shepard, is one worth having on the shelf and worth hearing countless numbers of times by a discerning connoisseur of truly beautiful recordings of great music.

Its classics include the eloquent duet, Barcelona, sung by Dean Jones as Bobby, a bachelor living a life of quiet desperation; and Susan Browning as April, a lonely stewardess whose potential for true love keeps being unrequited. Susan Browning died in 2006 at 65 while Dean Jones passed away in 2015 at 65 – both lived good lives and are very much missed .

Others are Being Alive, The Ladies Who Lunch, Little Things You Do Together, Another Hundred People, Getting Married Today, Someone is Waiting, and the opening Overture, one riveting piece of music on its terms, played, cast- sung, and conducted by the exceptionally gifted Harold Hastings, who died of a heart attack in 1973, at the young age of 57.

After a Boston tryout, Company opened at the Alvin Theatre April 26, 1970, generating 690 performances. Mark Kirkeby’s liner notes for the 1998 CD reissue are fascinating, along with Wiki pieces on the musical and Stephen Sondheim.

A quote from the composer- “I was raised to be charming, not sincere.”

by Peter Cates

Bach selections

from The Joy of Great Music, Album 15, FW-515, LP, 1980 series of records usually peddled in supermarket chains.

Johan Bach

The above album contains the following examples of Johann Sebastian Bach, 1685-1750:

Side 1, Saint Matthew Passion excerpts. Soprano Laurence Dutoit, alto Maria Nussbaumer, bass Otto Weiner, with Ferdinand Grossmann conducting the Vienna Chamber Orchestra and Choir.

Side 2, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor; Prelude and Fugue in E-Flat Major. Organist Walter Kraft.

Both originally Vox releases from the 1950s.

Bach’s St. Matthew Passion is roughly three hours long but contains incomparable stretches of beauty in its arias, choruses and instrumental writing. The singers, especially bass Otto Wiener (1911-2000), are in peak form while Grossmann’s Viennese groups do good work. The performance is a large-scaled one, as opposed to smaller ones in recent years, yet a distinctive entry on its own terms and deeply moving.

Walter Kraft

Kraft’s performances of the Toccata, and the E-Flat Prelude and Fugue are solid.

Another LP from the Vox label’s exemplary catalog; the Bartok Bluebeard’s Castle, with Herbert Hafner conducting the Vienna Symphony Symphony, soprano Ilona Steingruber, and bass Otto Weiner again. Vox, OPX 100, 1962 release.

Based on a blood-curdling legend from the Middle Ages, the 1918 opera Bluebeard’s Castle is one roaringly exciting listening experience. This performance is a haunting atmospheric one, despite some critics taking issue with the singing in German instead of the original Hungarian. The 1910-20 World War 1 decade experienced a superb roll call of first performances – Prokofiev’s 2nd Piano Concerto, Janacek’s opera Jenufa, Debussy’s Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, Stravinsky’s Petrouchka, Rite of Spring and Soldier’s Tale and Puccini’s Trittico.

A Goethe quote pertinent to artistic creativity, “To be of all ages, be then of your own.”

by Peter Cates

The Joy of Christmas

Leonard Bernstein, New York Philharmonic and Mormon Tabernacle; Columbia MS 6499, stereo LP, recorded 1963.

A Golden Treasury of Christmas Music

Sir Alexander Gibson, chorus and orchestra; Columbia Record Club P2S 5170, two LPs, recorded 1967.

Leonard Bernstein

This week’s Xmas LPs, both released in the 1960s, are very good examples of seasonal music performed with taste, intelligence and vibrant beauty. Joy of Christmas features the late Bernstein, at that time music director of the New York Philharmonic, conducting the orchestra and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in their one time collaboration.

The 16 songs include the familiar staples and a few not so well known. High points are the Animal Carol, a lovely one that is not often heard nowadays as during my childhood many decades ago; the strictly orchestral showpiece Carol of the Bells; and an a capella Away in a Manger combining two different musical settings.

Sir Alexander Gibson

Golden Treasury is a two-record set offered in its U.S. release only to members of the now-defunct Columbia Record Club out of Terre Haute, Indiana, most likely as long as they were “members in good standing.” This collection of 36 songs has the late Sir Alexander Gibson, whom I have written about in an earlier issue of The Town Line, conducting an unnamed chorus and orchestra in both carols and popular songs, utilizing traditional and unpredictable arrangements.

Examples include:

• White Christmas, in a choir/orchestral popsy arrangement with trombones added and similar to one that might combine Nelson Riddle and Norman Luboff.
• The Holy City, gently subdued with woodwinds, trumpet, snare drum, and double bass.
• O Holy Night, saxophone, harpsichord and orchestra.
• Hallelujah Chorus, orchestra only.
• Joy to the World, a much more traditional chorus and orchestra but riveting rather than routine.
  And so forth.

The two albums have 10 selections in common. Even though their availability is spotty, they can be bought on internet sites for prices ranging from cheap to grossly overpriced.

Satirical verses from a Tom Lehrer Yuletide song – “On Christmas Day you can’t get sore/Your fellow man you must adore/There’s time to rob him all the more/The other three hundred and sixty four!”

Merry Christmas!

The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir

by Peter Cates

Christmas at the Brooklyn Tabernacle

The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir and Singers, with the London Studio Orchestra; Warner Alliance 9460042, CD, recorded 1995.

Brooklyn, New York’s Tabernacle church has this very good choir as part of its weekly services and worldwide ministry. This cd is one that should please those who enjoy the group’s singing.

The following list of five CDs feature the alto saxophone of the jazz musician Lee Konitz, with comments at the end. 1. Subconscious – Lee, Prestige 0JCCD1862./ 2. Konitz Meets Mulligan, Pacific Jazz. CDP7468472./ 3. Jazz at Storyville, Black Lion BLCD760901./ 4. The Real Lee Konitz, Collectables COLCD6370./ 5. Another Shade of Blue, Blue Note 7234982222.

Still living and, as far as I know, active musically, Lee Konitz had a strong influence on the alto saxophonists Paul Desmond and Art Pepper, although Konitz was younger than both of them. He and Charlie Parker were good friends but he was his own man, whereas other altoists fell under Parker’s Sway. I really like his combination of intelligence, vibrant musicianship and beauty.

The five titles, in addition to more than 200 other ones, attest to his productivity for over 70 years. For reasons of space here, those curious check further on my five very recommended choices.