News for this day in 1982 was preoccupied with military action.

From Lebanon came reports that the Israeli Army was making huge advances against the PLO. While PLO leader Yassar Arafat made an appeal to the Soviet Union and other Arab nations for aid in the wake of swift action by the Israeli's. As of this report, 25 Israeli soldiers were dead, and some 7 were missing.

From Capitol Hill came word there would be no sanctions placed on Israel. The U.S. Navy was re-deploying to other parts of the Mediterranean as a precaution against direct involvement.

Meanwhile, the Falkland Islands crisis was continuing with British and Argentine troops waiting to see who blinks first,

President Reagan was visiting the UK and called for Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, but no such call for withdrawal for The Falkands.

On Capitol Hill - the fight was continuing over the 1983 Fiscal Spending Plan with some calling the same old problem with the same old answers. Others called it the continuing Economic Mess.

And Kermit the Frog made the Commencement Address to the graduating class of Harvard.

All that and a lot more for this day in June, 1982 as reported on The CBS World News Roundup, the 8:00 network news and the 9:00 network news.

Struggles all over, this 12th day of April in 1973. The U.S. lodged a formal protest over PLO radio broadcasts "Hate America" propaganda, whipping up anti-American demonstrations and violence. More fighting in Beirut as the PLO held a funeral for four guerrillas, gunned down by Israeli Commandos.

President Nixon consults with Gen. Alexander Haig over the worsening situation in Cambodia.

On Capitol Hill - the house struggles with rising consumer prices. Chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee Wilbur Mills calls for a roll back to the Phase One spending freeze.

A Federal judge ruled the dismantling of OEO was illegal and further layoffs and firings were put on hold.

Watergate was busily bubbling along. Dr. Armand Hammer's Occidental Petroleum signed an $8 Billion contract with the Soviet Union for Chemical supplies. The Senate votes unanimously for the Vietnam War Memorial. Nixon asks Congress to establish a minimum Unemployment compensation.

And two planes, one a military trainer and the other carrying NASA scientists collided and crashed just outside San Francisco, with 16 confirmed dead as of air-time.

And so it went, this April 12, 1973 as told by NBC Nightly News.

(Alexander Brott - familiar name in Canada but not here)

(Thanks for your help. It keeps posts like this alive)
It's gratifying to know the U.S. wasn't the only country caught up in the Nationalistic Music fervor of the 1930's and 40's, or what I call " . . And The Soil Was Good" music. Seemingly every composer remotely affiliated with Eastman-Rochester or the WPA was cranking out some ode to Paul Bunyan or Winter in New England or a horse-drawn carriage. It seems to have been the same in Canada as well.

Alexander Brott is a well known name in Canadian music circles. As a composer, but also conductor, Brott was Music Director of the CBC Montreal Symphony for a number of years and it's with this orchestra he performed (and recorded) his Sea to Sea, a Canadian Symphonic Suite, It's written in 5 movements: Martimes, Quebec, Ontario, Prairies and British Columbia. It received it's premier on November 26, 1947 and this recording was issued on a 78 rpm set in cooperation with the CBC and RCA Victor in Canada shortly after.

It was recorded again in 1985, again under Brott, but this was the first one and, as far as I know, never reissued.

Vast undiscovered territory, those old creeky 78's.

(Eugen Szenkar - in a word, Mystery)

I'm going out on a limb here. I am staring at a set of 78rpm discs from Argentina, pressed by RCA Victor in Argentina. It's a recording (I assume the first and only) of a work by a composer credited as Juan A. Garcia Estrada. So far so good. The orchestra is listed as Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires, led by Alejandro Szenkar. The discs look to be from 1939-1943. They come with no other information.

Here's where the mystery starts. Alejandro or Alexander Szenkar pops up only in reference to the Teatro Colon Orchestra in Agentinian sites. The tip off is one Argentinian site lists him as "The Hungarian Conductor Alexanker Szenkar". Doing a google search on Szenkar I am immediately led to the legendary Hungarian conductor Eugen Szenkar who fled Germany at the rise of Hitler in 1933 and settled in Russia until 1937. He moved to Argentina and filed for citizenship in 1939 and stayed until roughly 1948 where he moved back to Germany to resume his career. During that time he was very active with Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires and was once invited by Arturo Toscanini to guest conduct the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Various sites claim very little, if anything was ever recorded by this conductor and nothing is mentioned at all about anything he may have recorded in South America, during his stay there or if the name change was the result of citizenship, clerical error or a surge of Nationalism on Szenkar's part.

So I am betting the Alejandro Szenkar listed on the label credit is the same as Eugen Szenkar the exiled German/Hungarian conductor. All indications point to yes, but I've had no substantiation from any source that proves me right. So I am throwing this out to the blogosphere.

The second part of this mystery has to do with which Juan A. Garcia Estrada is this? Wikipedia lists Juan Antonio Garcia as the one who composed this work, Ruralia Argentina. But then Bakers Biographical Encyclopedia lists Juan Agustin Garcia Estrada as the composer of Ruralia Argentina. Juan Antonio is listed as a composer of several pieces for stage and was active until his death in the 1960s. Juan Agustin is listed as having moved briefly to Paris to study with Jacques Ibert before moving back to Argentina and becoming an attorney and abandoning his career.

Needless to say, this one is confusing from the get-go. But one thing is certain - this recording has not been issued anywhere outside of Argentina and it has not seen the light of reissue anywhere in the world.

As a piece of music it's, well . . . . .bland. But as a historic document, it's something else entirely.

In either case, here it is.

(Alexander/Alejandro Szenkar. Coincidence? We think not)

The archive is in trouble. . . big time.