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.

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 (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.

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.

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.

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”!

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.

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.

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.

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 (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’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.

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.

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.”