By chance, while cleaning up my lists of favorite channels on the cable TV DVR, on Music Choice I happened to hear the beginning of a symphony that sounded interesting, by a Swedish composer I couldn’t recall ever hearing before. Kurt Atterberg.
I ended up sitting through the entire piece, and enjoyed it enough to buy a CD copy on Amazon. Here is Atterberg’s 8th symphony, taken from the same performance that I ordered:
Why is Kurt Atterberg’s name not more familiar? When he wrote his 8th symphony in the 40’s, Romantic music was still popular, at least with general audiences.
After ordering the CD I went looking for an answer, and found a possible explanation. Atterberg was believed to be a Nazi sympathizer.
Another musical figure with a Nazi connection, the German conductor Herbert Von Karajan, found terrific success after the war, but Atterberg’s career faded. He stayed on at his day job in Sweden’s patent office, apparently ignored and embittered.
Until February 2 the logo picture in the upper left corner will be the cover of one of my all-time favorite records, a 1971 recording by the BSO of “The Planets” by the English composer Gustav Holst. I am surprised and pleased that Deutsche Grammophon is putting the LP back in print, and my pre-ordered copy will be here on Friday.
“The Planets” is categorized as a suite, and not a symphony, but for all practical purposes a symphony it is. I first heard the Steinberg BSO recording of “The Planets” at the start of my freshman year of college. My roommate Brad played his copy on my then-new Dynaco A25 speakers, and I was totally blown away, as the old saying goes.
The legendary Dynaco A25 speaker, made in Denmark.
I certainly wasn’t unfamiliar with Classical music, but I did not yet have any Classical records in my collection. The previous April I had been in Boston Symphony Hall for the first time — not for a BSO concert, but with my girlfriend to see Randy Newman, whose warm-up acts were Sandy Denny and Martin Mull!
The suite was only 60 years old when I first heard it, and it was unlike any other symphonic music I had ever heard. “The Planets” inspired me to buy Classical records — on budget labels — almost exclusively for a while, including Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos and some Mozart Symphonies. Deutsche Grammophon isn’t a budget label, and for Christmas that year I requested my own copy of the Holst album. My mother worked in Concord, Massachusetts, and she bought a copy at a small record shop in the center of town. I was very excited and appreciative on Christmas morning, and I played the LP many times during the semester break.
Thanks in part to my generation’s embracing of “The Planets,” as well as the popularity of John William’s “Star Wars” score, Holst found his way into the standard symphonic repertoire. I still play my Christmas present from Mom, but those grooves have a lot of mileage on them, and I’m looking forward to having a new pressing. As YouTube sound quality goes, this transfer of an original copy of the LP is about as good as it gets. The record is in excellent condition, and the guy who posted it used a $700 Nagaoka MP-500 phono cartridge.
This video features Linda Ronstadt in the shiny striped dress with hoop earrings that were made famous by photographer Henry Diltz. It also shows why Capitol Records producer Nick Venet had studio musicians, rather than Linda’s band the Stone Poneys, play on her recording of Mike Nesmith’s song, “Different Drum.”
A while back I was contacted by Gary James, who has a Web site called Classic Bands. He asked to interview Prue Bury, and after checking some of his previous interviews I put him in touch with her. Gary transcribes his interviews, rather than posting audio, and here is the link to his conversation with Prue.
Prue Bury, March 4, 1964
I bought the original print of this photo on an eBay/UK auction. It should be here in a couple of weeks. The Australian seller says the date on the back of the picture is March 4, 1964, which places it during the filming of “A Hard Day’s Night.”
I wrote to Prue and said, “I don’t know what pictures you might be missing in your collection. I’m hoping that seeing this one is a surprise for you. It certainly is for me!” Prue replied, “Very much so! Never seen it before, where did it come from?” I don’t know, but perhaps the seller has more information. I’ve had a similar experience a couple of times, where I was shown a photo of myself I’d never seen before, and I had no recollection of it being taken. One of them was from my business trip in Saudi Arabia. I should see if I can find it.
Something worth emphasizing is that knowing everything I do about Prue, her connection to the Beatles may not be the least interesting thing about her, but it is far from the most interesting. Even Prue’s birth is compelling, with her mother carrying her during the family’s flight from occupied Belgium to England. She was born during the last of the Nazi Blitz attacks on London.
As I recall from college history courses, French philosophers, such as Jean Jacques Rousseau, were hugely influential on Thomas Jefferson’s writing of the Declaration of Independence. In fact, going back to the Pilgrims, there has been an intellectual dialogue going back-and-forth between America and Europe, from politics to popular culture and fashion.
Perhaps the most important outcome so far while the Groper-in-Chief holds the highest office in the land is the #metoo movement. Trump is, as yet, untouchable in any way, including his admitted sexual assault. Harvey Weinstein got nailed instead, and it stuck. Finally, the old “he said, she said” trap was broken! Then came the allegation landslide, with Al Franken rather than Trump paying the political price.
I have no doubt at all that most assertions of sexual misconduct are true, with the accused having no acceptable excuse. Putting it all out in the open is good, from the horrors of the Catholic Church’s abuses of kids, to movie stars exposing themselves to women. I also have no doubt there are minor offenses where a sincere apology should suffice.
Although I think that “slippery slope” arguments are often overstated, the distinctions between assault, abuse, and harassment seem to be getting blurred. If it continues to the point where the bar is set so low that normal social interaction is affected, we’ll be heading back towards the repressive mores of the Puritans.
Catherine Deneuve
In France there has been a call for a more nuanced dialogue regarding the dynamics between men and women, where some behaviors may not be socially acceptable, but are privately enjoyed by both parties. And yet in the United States, even that call to clarify the definition of harassment is considered by abuse victims to be offensive, and it has been met with a forceful rejection. So the back-and-forth between the cultures continues.
I’m not expecting women in the United States to adopt the more generous tolerance of men that is held by Catherine Denueve and other women in France. François Mitterrand’s funeral was, after all, attended by both his wife and his mistress. France’s inexplicable appreciation of Jerry Lewis aside, here is something that was hugely popular in France, that elsewhere might be considered unacceptable, even exploitative, entertainment.
I had said my next little retirement project would be getting the Sony 300-disc CD changer working again, but doing that is going to be a more complicated job than I feel like tackling right now, as I recuperate. So instead I freshened up the walnut veneer finish on my 45-year-old Dynaco A25 speakers.
Dynaco A25 with “Aperiodic” port behind the non-removal grill cloth.
The Dynaco’s were made in Denmark, so I felt obliged to use Watco Danish Oil, and I’m very pleased with the results. The speakers still sound great, and now they look pretty good too.
