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A Frozen Hell

A must read for people interested in the Winter War. A very solid book. As a Finn I actually find this book quite critical of some of the Finnish political and military moves. And criticism is certainly warranted. Some reviewers have found this book to lack the Russian perspective. That may be true but one must also remember that until very recently there has not been any possibility for Russians to write openly about their Winter War experiences. So, whatever their shortcomings might be, the Finnish materials have thus far been far more reliable...written by free people in a country that, partially due to heroics in the Winter War, remained democratic. I also strongly doubt that Finland could have avoided a full scale war with Soviet Union or occupation. After all, the three Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) made the concessions Stalin required of them, but they were still overrun by Soviets, and then by Germans and then yet again by Soviets. Hardly an ideal result. I give this book 4 stars and withhold the fifth one based on the lack of better maps. Still, this is easily the best book in English about the Winter War.

--World History Hub

This well balanced book chronicles the events leading up to and including the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939-40. Like many I have often heard references to the gallant stand the Finns made against the massive Soviet efforts to conquer them. The scarcity of materials available in print often restricted any further interest. Upon viewing the amazing Finnish movie "The Winter War" I became once again interested in learning more about this topic.

 By fighting Finland showed the world that a nation of 3 million could stand up to over 170 million Russians! The sacrifice of nearly 70,000 men enabled the Finns to retain their independence, even if compromised. Russian losses will probably never been known but must easily exceed 250,000. Trotter discusses the subsequent alliance with Nazi Germany which was controversial for the Finns. Readers will find this an excellent and exciting work on a little known aspect of the Second World War. Highly recommended.

--Reader review

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When one record collector says "KOUSSIE AND THE BEE-ESS-OWE" to another record collector, they both know instantly that they’re discussing a performance by the "Boston Symphony Orchestra" the baton of its greatest Music Director, Serge Koussevitzky. Except for some London Philharmonic and BBC Symphony items made early in his career, and a smattering of air-checks from his rather pathetic final years as a deposed giant (when he was forced to accept guest-conducting gigs in places like Honolulu and the Hollywood Bowl, just to pay the bills), all Koussevitzky recordings were with the BSO. It was HIS orchestra, the way the Philadelphia Orchestra "belonged" to Leopold Stokowski and the Concertgebouw belonged to Mengelberg.

Now, for aesthetic if not anal-compulsive reasons, I would have preferred these catalogues to be in a uniform, dignified format. But after typing out the full names of certain orchestras for the two-hundredth time, I figured: To hell with it – everybody who’s interested enough to read this stuff already knows that virtually all my Koussevitzky offerings will feature the Boston Symphony. And I finally decided to do away with periods (when I remembered to…) – cumulatively, you’d be amazed at how much space they can take up, and how tiresome they can be to type!

So when you see BSO (or B.S.O.), that means "Boston Symphony Orchestra"

Most of the other prominent ensembles can also be reduced to handy, period-less acronyms, too.

But then, what does one do with the New York Orchestra? There used to be two competing orchestras in Manhattan, you know (The New York Philharmonic and the New York Symphony Orchestra), a redundancy maintained largely to satisfy the egos of their competing conductors. Not until the late Nineteen Twenties did common sense prevail and the two bands merge into a single entity identified by the lumpy, grace-less title of "The New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra". In "Collector-ese" this is usually pronounced "the NIP-SO". In the late Fifties, common sense again made one of its rare appearances in that orchestra’s board room, and the ensemble just became "The New York Philharmonic", which is what everybody had been calling it for years anyhow.

Does this make a gnat’s-fart worth of difference? Not really, but for the sake of strict accountability, I have identified all recordings from Mitropolous back as being performed by the "NYPSO" and those made under Bernstein forward as being played by the "NYPO". With me, so far? Good.

Now, I had a bit of semantic, even ontological, trouble with "The Philadelphia Orchestra". Somehow the abbreviation "PO" just doesn’t look right. "The Philly" sounds like a cheese-steak sandwich or a horse. In the end, I decided to use the more dignified "Philadelphia" No "The", no "Orchestra" – a band so legendary deserves special treatment.

When it comes to the seemingly endless permutations of Soviet-era Russian orchestra-names, I let whimsy, caprice, and available space guide my fingers. Is it *really* necessary to type out "Rozhdestvensky and the USSR Large Radio Symphony Orchestra", when said orchestra had no discernable tonal identity, and when many of the musicians who performed under that rubric also performed as/with the "USSR Academic Symphony Orchestra", the "USSR State Symphony Orchestra", the "Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra" and several other designations. Come to think of it, why was the first-named ensemble designated as the "large" orchestra? Was there another ensemble known as the "small" symphony orchestra? If so, it never recorded under that designation. So I finally decided that it didn’t much matter if I adopted a uniform style for the listings of all those Moscow-based outfits. Besides, until comparatively recent times, the only ensemble in the USSR which routinely played on par with the other great orchestras of Europe was the Leningrad Philharmonic – all those other Soviet bands shared the same sometimes-charming, sometimes-ear-grating tonal qualities: raw string tone, nasal woodwinds, and blatty, watery horns. But under a conductor as manic and inspired as Nikolai Golovanov or (sometimes) Konstantin Ivanov, they made up in sheer gustiness what they lacked in finesse.

Nowadays, of course – thanks primarily to the visionary Naxos label – we know that there are dozens of second-tier European orchestras that play to a very high standard indeed. These deserve some specific identification, so I usually spell out the name of their home city, followed by "PO" for Philharmonic Orchestra, "SO" for Symphony Orchestra, and "RSO" for "Radio Symphony Orchestra" (yes, younger readers, in many European countries, they still have "radio" orchestras, which still give live broadcast concerts, and the tax-payers in those countries seldom grumble about subsidizing those institutions…)

Now that our own government has pretty much divested itself of the "burden" of supporting virtually any performing arts organization (and the states, following Washington’s guidelines, have made "Music Appreciation" an extinct part of the curriculum), very few Public Radio Stations can afford to carry live broadcasts any more.

Not to make too fine a point here, but when the President can spend three years in office without ever learning how to pronounce the word "nuclear" properly, the cause of live symphonic music broadcasts has gone the way of the do-do bird and the chestnut tree…

Enough, already! Here’s a convenient key to the common abbreviations you will find in my listings:

ASO = American Symphony Orchestra

Berlin = Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

BSO = Boston Symphony Orchestra

CSO = Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Cleveland = The Cleveland Orchestra

COA (or C.o.A.) = Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam

Leningrad = The Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra

LSO = London Symphony Orchestra

LPO = London Philharmonic Orchestra

Philadelphia = The Philadelphia Orchestra

RPO = Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

S-RO = Orchestre de la Suisse-Romande

NYPSO = The New York Philharmonic under Mitropoulos and all earlier conductors

NYPO = The same orchestra under Bernstein and all subsequent conductors

Generic Abbreviations:

RSO = Radio Symphony Orchestra

RTVSO = Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra

PO = "Philharmonic Orchestra" (city name attached)

SO = "Symphony Orchestra" (city name attached)

And so forth. You get the idea, I’m sure.