by Peter Cates

Tchaikovsky

Piano Concerto No. 1
Ida Czernecka, pianist, with Laurence Siegel conducting; Nutcracker and Swan Lake ballet excerpts; Alberto Lizzio cond.; Orbis CCC 001, CD, recording date unknown.

Ida Czernecka was born in 1949 in Bratislava, Slovakia, and has lived there since.

She is well-known there as a pianist and teacher but much below the radar elsewhere. This CD is my introduction to her uniquely exquisite and powerful artistry.

Her Tchaikovsky 1st is one of a distinguished catalog and very compelling. I have played it several times in the last two weeks. Along with many other Eastern European CDs, it too has circulated on numerous, mostly inexpensive labels such as the above Orbis.

Maestro Laurence Siegel is an actual conductor whose name I have seen listed on other recordings but not heard any of them. His collaboration with the pianist is also superb.

Alberto Lizzio is one of several pseudonyms used by the conductor, record producer and con man, Alfred Scholz (1926-1999). The google pieces on him are quite interesting; the performances of Nutcracker and Swan Lake chunks hold their own.

Czernecka’s Tchaikovsky’s 1st and her recordings of Chopin, Mendelssohn and other composers can be heard on YouTube. She is one well worth the listening by those who cherish exceptional pianists.

Tchaikovsky quote: “Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.”

 

 

by Peter Cates

A poem very suited for Mother’s Day from Elijah Parish Lovejoy (written when he was already living in the Mid-West during the 1830s and would be killed on November 7, 1837, by an angry mob for his anti-slavery editorials, two days short of his 35th birthday) taken from the 1854 Native Poets from Maine anthology:

To My Mother.
My Mother! I am far away
From home, and love, and thee;
And stranger hands will heap the clay
That soon may cover me;
Yet we shall meet- perhaps not here,
But in yon shining, azure sphere;
And if there’s aught assures me more,
Ere yet my spirit fly,
That heaven has mercy still in store,
For such a wretch as I,
‘Tis that a heart so good as thine,
Must bleed – must burst along with mine.

And life is short at best, and Time
Must soon prepare the tomb;
And there is sure a happier clime,
Beyond this world of gloom-
And should it be my happy lot-
After a life of care and pain,
In sadness spent, or spent in vain-
To go where sighs and sin are not-
‘Twill make the half my heaven to be,
My Mother, evermore with thee!

His mother, Elizabeth Pattee Lovejoy, outlived him.

Two of Lovejoy’s brothers, Joseph and Owen, published a book about him in 1838.

The sixth President of the United States, John Quincy Adams, wrote an introduction to the volume from which the following two sentences are taken – “Martyrdom was said by Dr. Johnson to be the only test of sincerity in religious belief. It is also the ordeal through which all great improvements in the condition of men are doomed to pass.”

Those who wish to know more about this uniquely great man, born and raised in the then-‘Albion wilderness,’ would find his Wiki piece quite comprehensive on its own terms and a point of departure for further reading.

 

by Peter Cates

The Carol Sudhalter Quartet

Live at St. Peter’s Church; Carol Sudhalter, baritone sax and flute; Patrick Poladian, piano; Kevin Hailey, double bass; and Mike Campenni, drums. Alfa Projects AFPCD194, CD, a recorded live concert, from March 7, 2018, at New York City’s St. Peter’s Church.

Carol Sudhalter, now in her 70s, has gained a much-justified fan base in New York City’s Queens in the last 35 to 40 years as one of the finest jazz musicians on baritone sax and flute. Her quartet, consisting of three extraordinary musicians, include pianist Patrick Poladian, Kevin Hailey on the traditional double bass and Mike Campenni on drums.

They perform nine selections in a 50-minute program; the composers are comprised of such jazz legends as Bill Evans, Sunny Rollins, and Hank Mobley, along with good tunes by pianist Poladian, Carol herself (in which she sings very nicely) and a beauty, Luiza, from the Bossa Nova legend Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Carol is open to bookings here in Maine. For those who run clubs and other such venues, the contact email address is sudhalter.com . Her music making can also be heard on several YouTubes.

This CD is one that holds up with repeat listenings.

Given my perpetual fascination with duplicate recordings of favorite classical works, I offer quick comments on four different renditions of the ever popular Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto, arguably the most famous Piano Concerto ever composed:

A live broadcast featuring Van Cliburn with Istvan Kertesz conducting the Berlin Philharmonic; Priceless C70581, cassette, released mid-1980s. It is a good performance but doesn’t stand out like others. Strange, because Cliburn and Kertesz did exceptional recordings in otherwise separate realms. And there is no information with the tape about anything.

Another Tchaikovsky work is the Violin Concerto in an exciting Yehudi Menuhin/Ferenc Fricsay collaboration with the RIAS Orchestra, of Berlin, possibly the same studio one released elsewhere on Deutsche Grammophon.

A studio CD of pianist Misha Dichter, with Jan Latham-Koenig, a name new to me, conducting the Baden-Baden, Germany, SWF Symphony Orchestra; DDD USCD71845. Misha Dichter recorded this back in the mid 1960s with Erich Leinsdorf conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra for RCA Victor, a solid dramatic performance on its own terms.

Dichter’s re-make is even more exciting and was recorded the same day, March 22, 1988, as the composer’s Second Symphony, the Little Russian, with the gifted well-known David Zinman replacing Latham-Koenig at the podium.

Two CD couplings of Tchai First with the wonderful Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto:

Hiroko Nakamura with Evkeny Svetlanov conducting the USSR State Academy Symphony Orchestra; Sony SK48030, recorded at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall May 23 and 28, 1990.

Geza Anda with Alceo Galliera conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra; Testament SBT 1064, recorded at London’s Abbey Road Studios (the exact same locale as the classic Beatles album in 1969), with Rachmaninoff’s G Major and G Minor Preludes, October 12 – 15, 1953, and January 4, 1954.

The late pianist Hiroko Nakamura possessed an elegant balance of sweet lyricism and tart intensity that added an extra special quality to these much-recorded works. It was a style that didn’t call attention to itself, unlike the differently gauged flamboyance of such virtuoso titans as Horowitz, Richter, Lazar Berman, and Georg Bolet. There were a few moments when her lyricism skirted blandness. But these performances were quite enjoyable. And Svetlanov conducted with lots of excitement and intensity.

She died of colon cancer, at 72, in 2016.

Geza Anda (1921-1976) left a sizable recorded legacy of crown jewels. He had precisely-filleted virtuosity, probing musicianship, commitment to the score, legendary virtuosity and a roaring zest for the good things in life – wine, good hardcover books, records with a high class music system and great conversation for when hard labor was over.

According to one observer, “he disliked sackcloth and ashes.”

The performances of both Concertos, with the superlatively powerful and eloquent conducting of the horrifically underrated Alceo Galliera (1910-1996) and the sizzling two very famous Preludes render this CD an absolute must for listeners who truly care about this music.

Another Jim Thompson quote, from his 1961 novel, The Transgressors, describing a good guy deputy sheriff and a bad guy muscle man, Augie the Hog Pellino, from the Tony Soprano cosmopolitan New Jersey areas, stalking each other in the West Texas nighttime countryside, the sheriff with the greater advantage – “Pellino was doubtless a real handy boy around the big towns, but out here he probably stumbled over his own feet. Set a little trap for him, and he’d run over himself to get into it.”

 

by Peter Cates

Ginastera

String Quartets 1 and 2
Henschel Quartet; Arte Nova-ANO 721250, cd, recorded December 9, 10 and 14, 1999.

Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera (April 11, 1916 – June 25, 1983) was born in Buenos Aries, Argentina, to a Catalan father and Italian mother. In addition to composing a huge legacy of his own music in different forms, he taught much of his life. His students included the well-known Tango composer Astor Piazzolla and classical-pop arranger Waldo de los Rios, whose own 1970s Ode to Joy was a smash hit in the U.S.

The Two String Quartets, from 1948 and 1958, have wild, savage rhythms in the fast movements, haunting mystery and beauty in the slower ones and wondrous moodiness evoking the vast landscapes of Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, etc. I have played both works several times this week, enjoying them more and more.The best approach for new listeners is simply to relax and let the music happen.

The Henschel Quartet was founded in 1988 ; its members were three siblings – brothers Christoph and Markus Henschel on violin, sister Monika as violist and cellist Matthias Beyer-Karlshoj. They are still together, except for a different violinist since Markus left in 2012.

Chopin

2nd Piano Concerto and the Liszt 1st PC
Charles Rosen with John Pritchard conducting the New Philharmonia; Odyssey Y 31529, LP, 1972 reissue of an original 1966 Epic LP.

Charles Rosen (1927-2012) was one extraordinary pianist, very gifted writer on music and other subjects and brilliant teacher who crammed several lifetimes into one. He not only played these Concertos well but wrote the insightful liner notes on the back of the record jacket.

Moussorgsky Pictures

at an Exhibition (Orchestrated by Maurice Ravel); Night on Bald Mountain; Vladimir Golschmann conducting the Vienna State Opera Orchestra; Vanguard SRV-117SD, LP, recorded early 1960s.

Vladimir Golschmann (1893-1972) brought a suave elegance to these two works, so often performed with hyper intensity; and they hold their own against the great number of other recordings of them. His 27 years as music director of the St. Louis Symphony from 1931 – 1958 were very accomplished ones and he treated his players as colleagues, getting very good performances on 78 and LP records.

 

 

 

by Peter Cates

The Native Poets of Maine

S. Herbert Lancey, editor.
Published in Bangor, Maine, by David Bugbee and Company in 1854. 324 pages.

The above anthology from so long ago is a sizable representation of poets born in our Pine Tree State and some of their works; the most well-known is Portland’s Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), but Albion’s Elijah Parish Lovejoy (1802-1837), even though not that famous as a poet, did the ultimate sacrifice in Alton, Illinois, at the hands of an angry mob because of his fearless stand against slavery.

The other names, now mere footnotes in history, include Biddeford’s Grenville Mellen, North Yarmouth’s William Cutler, Exeter’s David Barker, Strong’s Florence Percy, Belfast’s William G. Crosby and Sidney’s Harriet Atwell and so forth and their poems do evoke something of Maine, even if just a couple of lines — the four seasons, joys, sorrows, daily routines.

Most of them in quality are between commonplace and slightly higher. Despite these lackings , this book is fascinating historical documentation of what some people in my native state were thinking and feeling 170 years ago.

I offer one exceptionally vivid poem from Buckfield’s Seba Smith:

The Snow Storm

The cold winds swept the mountain’s height,
And pathless was the dreary wild,
And mid the cheerless hours of night
A mother wandered with her child :
As through the drifting snow she press’d,
The babe was sleeping on her breast.

And colder still the winds did blow,
And darker hours of night came on,
And deeper grew the drifting snow :
Her limbs were chill’d, her strength was gone;
‘O God!’ she cried, in accents wild,
‘If I must perish, save my child !’

She stripp’d her mantle from her breast,
And bared her bosom to the storm,
And round the child she wrapp’d the vest
And smil’d to think her babe was warm.
With one cold kiss, one tear she shed,
And sunk upon her snowy bed.

At dawn a traveller pass’d by,
And saw her ‘neath a snowy veil;
The frost of death was in her eye,
Her cheek was cold, and hard, and pale;
He moved the robe from off the child,
The babe look’d up and sweetly smiled.

There are 13 copies of this book on Book Finder, priced from $26.74 to $116.52.