by Peter Cates

Something a little different this week:

Beethoven’s 5 Piano Concertos were a very significant body of work because they both consolidated the best of what the composer learned from his predecessors — Haydn, Mozart etc. – and broke new ground on the expansion of the piano’s technical possibilities and musical depths. These two considerations, as edifying as they are, cannot be explored more, due to limited space. What will be done instead is to touch briefly on the merits of each Concerto and to offer one recording that is quite special in and of itself from the shelves of duplicates in my possession.

Ludwig von Beethoven

Concerto no. 1 has a jubilant yet graceful beauty in its assertive rhythms and rich melodic writing. A performance of exceptional quality is the mid-’50s, nicely transferred radio broadcast featuring Sviatoslav Richter, with the gifted but very unknown Bratislav Bakala on the podium, one not to be confused with later Richter releases conducted by Karel Ancerl and Charles Munch. The pianist’s often larger than life virtuosity found a captivating vehicle in this work while Bakala’s astute care for every note matched Richter’s own. A CD is available through Berkshire Record Outlet with the pair’s Beethoven 3rd.

Concerto no. 2, actually composed before the 1st but published after it, is very headstrong in its feisty exhuberance. Rudolf Serkin made three recordings; the first one, from the early ‘50s for Columbia and with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, is my favorite of them. Serkin gave a headstrong performance and a very exciting one, both rhythmically and musically. It is available on a Sony CD through Amazon.

Concerto no. 3 is on a grander scale and one beautiful, powerful creation. The 1949 recording with the relatively unknown Eduard Erdmann and conductor Helmut Muller-Kray shows an especially eloquent, deeply moving understanding of its content. It is part of an inexpensive two-CD set on the historical Tahra label, also containing one of the Schubert Sonatas, and can be found via the above-mentioned Berkshire.

Concerto no. 4 is a masterpiece of sublime introspection. The 1962 collaboration between Van Cliburn and Fritz Reiner leading the Chicago Symphony was the result of several months worth of the most detailed preparation between the pianist and conductor and shows in the gripping performance available on a nicely remastered BMG CD, again available through Amazon.

Concerto no. 5, better known as the “Emperor,” was conceived on a heroic scale never before experienced in the piano repertoire. In addition, it may be the most frequently played of the five works in concert hall and recording studio, due to its very appealing musical scoring. One highly recommendable live performance from 1995 showcases the then 17-year-old Mihaela Ursuleasa, winner of first prize at the Clara Haskil competition in Switzerland, whose much too early 2012 death remains one inexplicable tragedy. Her rendition, with the late conductor, Jesus Lopez-Cobos, has a quality of newly-minted freshness and is a formidably distinctive entry among a large number of distinctive entries. The Claves CD contains a very engaging Mozart 9th Piano Concerto as its discmate and can be bought through Amazon.

Pianist Wilhelm Kempff considered these five Concertos inexhaustibly rewarding for both performer and listener!

by Peter Cates

Gershwin

Music
Zubin Mehta, New York Philharmonic with soloists. Teldec cassette.

George Gershwin

Zubin Mehta, now in his 82nd year, has achieved fame via his directorships of the Los Angeles, New York and Israel Philharmonics, Bavarian State Opera, etc., and a truckload of recordings. The above is a decently performed program of the great Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess selections, sung with feeling by Roberta Alexander and Gregg Baker; and the ever captivating American in Paris and Cuban Overture. His recordings have been a mixture of great, good, average and poor but his best ones have a very exciting, inspired and exactingly precise musicality that wears well.

Along with this album, I recommend his Beethoven Piano Concerto cycle with Ashkenazy and Brahms 1st Symphony, both with the Vienna Philharmonic; the L.A. Beethoven 7th Symphony; and Puccini Turandot and both Toscas.

Bruckner

7th Symphony
Francesco d’Avalos, Philharmonia Orchestra; ASV CD.

Anton Bruckner

Francesco d’Avalos

Anton Bruckner, 1824-1896, composed music as his means of worshiping and praising God – only that! The Sympho­nies, Masses, etc., could be lengthy but their spans of uplifting, heavenly beauty seal his deserved status of greatness.

The 7th Sym­phony moved the Waltz King, Johann Strauss Jr., to declare it one of the finest musical experiences of his own lifetime. The above recording of Francesco d’Avalos can be easily added to a sizable but distinguished catalog that includes Karajan, Haitink, Chailly, Ormandy Giulini and others.

Cold Turkey

starring Dick Van Dyke, Bob Newhart, etc.; 1971, two hours.

Dick Van Dyke

Bob Newhart

A comedy about what happens when a midwest village of the worst chain smokers agree to quit smoking for a month in order to win $25 million. I fell off the couch!

by Peter Cates

Alex

by Conrad Wilson; Mainstream Publishing, 1993, 159 pages.

Conrad Wilson

This biography has a special fascination because Alex and I were good friends during the early ‘80s – Alex being the late Scottish conductor, Sir Alexander Gibson (1926-1995), whose recordings, guest appearances and 25 years as music director of both the Scottish National Orchestra and the Scottish Opera brought him international fame. It was the kind of fame justly deserved through hard work, consistently high quality results, discipline, passion for music and good will towards those he worked with. He was both a great conductor, a fine human being and a gracious friend. And he practiced humility – qualities rare among ego-driven conductors.

I saw him conduct several concerts in Houston featuring works of Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, Mozart, Liszt, Brahms, Elgar, Holst, Mahler, Berlioz, Saint-Saens and Szymanowski. And lots of Sibelius. He didn’t have the clearest beat but he and the players felt it together. I felt that every performance was conducted as if it would be his last, a quality surprisingly less frequent among other certain shining stars of the firmnament.

Sir Alexander Gibson

I own many of his records and CDs, all of them at least very good. Click his name on Amazon for numerous listings, each one highly recommended.

The book recounts his various successes with so many opera productions, especially Puccini; the many concerts featuring Sibelius, the names recounted earlier, and numerous world premieres; and his gifts as both organist and pianist during his early years. He was adept in managing emergencies during actual concerts and productions. Finally, no other conductor in history matches his length of service with an opera house and orchestra at the same time!

I also remember him as a chain smoker but, by the ‘90s, he had quit.

In January 1995, he died from unexpected complications following surgery.

by Peter Cates

Bjarne Brustad

Violin Concerto No. 4

William Walton

Violin Concerto

Bjarne Brustad

Camilla Wicks, violin, with Herbert Blomstedt and Yuri Somonov conducting the Oslo Philharmonic, Simax PSC 1185, CD, live broadcasts.

Sir William Walton

The 4th Violin Concerto of Bjarne Brustad (1895-1978), one of Nor­way’s leading 20th century composers, is a meandering exercise full of dramatic, pounding chords that go no­where; the only Violin Concerto of Sir Wil­liam Wal­ton (1901-1983) is an exciting example of perky, exotic rhythms and emotionally wistful poetry that, for me, gets better with every hearing. Both performances are as fine as is usually the case with the wonderful violinist, Camilla Wicks, and conductors Herbert Blomstedt in the 1968 broadcast of Brustad and Yuri Simonov in a 1985 one of Walton.

Wicks, now 89 and retired since 2005, made her debut playing a Mozart Concerto at 7.

Don Williams

Country Boy
MCA, MCAC-37232, cassette, released 1977.

Don Williams

I first encountered Don Williams (1939-2017) as part of Pozo Seco, an exquisitely accomplished duo that included another singer, Susan Taylor, and in 1969, when I was a high school senior . They released an LP, Shades of Time, consisting of a folk­/country assortment of very fine songs that were finely performed – I have owned a few copies over the last 50 years because I kept letting them go to others.

When he became a purely country singer, I still liked the smoothly soothing voice and delivery but thought the songs were mainly so-so or, at best, okay, thus losing interest in him.

Country Boy, a 1977 studio album was the usual assortment of his trademark love ballads and did not sustain my interest. However, his integrity and personality were of the highest calibre throughout his phenomenally successful career. He was a model husband to his wife of 57 years and wonderful father to two sons!

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World

starring Spencer Tracy, Phil Silvers, Mickey Rooney, Jonathan Winters, Jimmy Durante, Three Stooges and almost every other comedian and numerous actors and actresses alive in 1963; directed by Stanley Kramer; approximately 3 hours, DVD.

This is the funniest, longest, most expensive and most profitable comedy ever produced in cinema history. I have seen it at least 20 times and still laugh myself into a strait jacket.

A few examples of its humor – Buddy Hackett and Rooney in an airplane with the drunk pilot, Jim Backus, knocked out; Jonathan Winters single-handedly destroying a garage; Jimmy Durante driving 1 mph around hairpin curves with no railings and weaving on both sides and several dozen greedheads on a rickety ten-story fire ladder! One final funny – arch con man Phil Silvers licking his smiling cobra chops and spewing, “Try me – I’m gullible!”

Best watched in two or three installments or you will be laughed out!

by Peter Cates

Stan Kenton

Stan Kenton Presents
Capitol T248, mono lp, 1955 re-issue of original 78 singles and a ten-inch LP from 1950.

Stan Kenton

The great Stan Kenton (1911-1979) recorded a batch of singles in 1950 that highlighted the arranging and compositional skills of such SK loyalists as Shorty Rogers, Bill Russo, Frank Marks and Johnny Richards. The titles- Art Pepper, Maynard Ferguson, June Christy, etc., – feature performances by the named individual and exciting ones at that. My favorite, June Christy, has her wonderful voice all over the place, mostly humming but in her inimitably sultry manner.

Copies of the LP start at four dollars, while a few selections from the album can be accessed on youtube.

Robert Benchley

Benchley’s Best
Audio Rarities LPA 110, ten-inch LP, no date of release info anywhere, although I would guess the ‘50s because 10-inch LPs were pretty much discontinued in the US by the late ‘50s, as they were very easy to steal.

Robert Benchley

Robert Benchley (1889-1945) was a writer, a noted wit at the Algonquin Hotel Round Table, an actor, and a radio comedian.

The above LP has four skits from his radio programs, including two of his Flying Broomstick routines and a “lecture” on the history and development of swing music. In fact he begins his talk with the following:

“Tonight, I wish to lecture about the origin and development of swing music, do a survey of 17th century Italian art, and perhaps scramble some eggs…I can speak with authority on swing because I can’t carry a tune either…. The composer who is most responsible for its beginnings is Johann Gottfried Inglenook Gesundheit, who was born in Japan in 1789. It has been written that he was a backwards but friendly child and was taken out of school when he was five years old. ”

Two more – “Why don’t you get out of those wet clothes and into a dry martini?” and “All it takes to make a monkey of a man is to quote him!”

Benchley died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1945 at 56. His son, Nathaniel Benchley (1915-1981) wrote children’s books and a bio of his father, while his grandson, Peter (1940-2006), authored the novel and screenplay, Jaws.

Three copies of the LP are priced from $49 to $75 through Amazon and none of it is available through YouTube, although there are other Bentleys on YouTube in plentiful supply!

Beethoven

Piano Sonatas 7, 9, 30, and 31
Awadagin Pratt, pianist; EMI 7243 5 55290 2 2, CD, recorded 1994.

Awadagin Pratt

Three of these four Sonatas – 7, 30 and 31 are huge favorites of mine, especially 7 with one eloquent second movement Largo that raises goosebumps on my arm every time I hear it. The Pittsburg-born pianist, Awadagin Pratt now 52, gives performances that mix gentle lyricism, the required virtuosity and an interesting silky type of phrasing at odd moments. Other than that, he plays in a straightforward, very honest manner that conveys a genuine love for these works. And they are well worth getting to know.

The entire CD can be heard on YouTube and is priced inexpensively on Amazon.