Word: allegros
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...work, cast in three movements, was performed without pause. Despite the contrasting tempi given for each movement (allegro, adagio con moto, allegro giocoso), there was little sense of actual formal differentiation--partly due to the tempo changes within a given movement, partly to the overall consistency, almost to a fault, of the instrumental texture. The texture was dominated by the churning lines of the strings, the quartet often moving in the same manner but isolated registrally. Added to this was the occasional punctuation and melodic quote announced by the remaining choirs of the orchestra, nearly always regulated to a marginal...
...This final section is certainly sedate, almost verging even on morose, culminating in the final couplet of the work: a grandiose choral motto, "Thy pleasures, Moderation, give/ In them alone we truly live." Moderation is not quite so enchanting a subject as either the joie de vivre of L'Allegro or the melancholic beauty of Il Penseroso. Nor could any claim that Jennens' verse stands quite equal to the Milton it seeks to reprove. Though the music is still lovely, the final reprimand of Il Moderato seems hardly the proper note on which to end a work largely hymning youthful...
...Handel and Haydn Society, self-styled "America's Premier Chorus and Period Orchestra," features many interesting baroque instruments, several of which shone in solos in L'Allegro. A baroque flute, for example, enjoyed a lovely solo and interchange with Saffer in Part I, marred only by slight stumbling in the first few bars. The instrument, though held and played like a modern flute, is of black enamel, and considerably wider in diameter. Also fascinating were the horns, ancestors to the modern French horn, which had no stops and could only be played in the primary overtone series, manipulated...
...muted-red harpsichord held a central position, both musically and physically, upon the stage. A small carillon played arpeggios to accompany L'Allegro's "O let the merry bells ring round," near the end of Part I. The bells were beautiful, but unfortunately rather too loud and bright, and overpowered the richer tones of Brandes. Very effectively used, by contrast, were the cello solos which broke up the different airs and recitatives of Part II, and which twice exchanged echoing dialogue with a warbling Saffer. The cellos, too, seemed not to be standard, modern cellos, but rather like those...
...Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, displaying a rhythmic alliance so perfectly refined that it truly seemed as if only one instrument were present. The placement of the cellos between the second violins and the violas allowed for a heightened clarity, producing a concentrated, almost sinewy tone that typified the Allegro Moderato. The first movement elapsed without any fiery outbursts; Gatti instead focused intently upon the lyric strains of the oboe and clarinet. His conducting was comprised of a fairly conventional fluidity of motion. His baton described tightly restrained circles throughout much of the movement, and only with the arrival...