Word: argenta
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Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique (Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti conducting; London, $6.98; Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, Colin Davis conducting; Philips, $7.98). One of the fantastic things about this symphony is the number of superior recorded performances it has had over the years. Argenta, Beecham, Munch, Van Beinum and Ozawa are among the many who have mastered this wildly prophetic score, completed in 1830, only three years after Beethoven's death. Here are two new versions, both by virtuoso conductors and virtuoso orchestras, that go to the top of the list. To choose between them is difficult. Davis' elegant approach...
Where once pastel mansions had gilded green canyons, a snaggle-toothed rubble of chimneys now disfigured the Mecca of conspicuous consumption. Raging through the Los Angeles suburbs of Bel Air and Brentwood, a gale-whipped brush fire-the worst in Southern California's history -had sent up in Argenta-mink smoke 447 homes (bottom price: $50,000), left behind more than $24 million in insurance claims, and the flossiest refugees since the Russian Revolution. Among the homeless were Actor Cliff Robertson, Joan Fontaine, Comedian Arnold Stang, Bandleader Orrin Tucker. All that was left of Burt Lancaster...
Died. Ataulfo Argenta, 44, Spam's top conductor, who got into hot water (in 1954) for deploring his country's musical isolation under Dictator Franco ("There is only one alternative: renovation or death"), later recanted to save his job; of a heart attack; in Madrid...
...political and art circles were shaken. Any comparison between "before" and "after" should conclude with words of praise for "after" in today's Spain. Infuriated composers were only too happy to plunge the matter headlong into politics. Even blind Maestro Joaquin Rodrigo, the only Falangist composer esteemed by Argenta, wrote: "Argenta is definitely wrong. A good Spaniard has the duty as a musician and comrade to keep faith in the music of his country...
Faced with the loss of a hard-earned position, i.e., conductorship of Spain's National Orchestra, Argenta composed a second declaration. He was distressed. He apologized. He humbly affirmed that he was a musician and no writer. Perhaps, he explained, this accounted for the fact that he wrote something he really did not mean. His only aim had been to push and incite Spain's composers towards better production. Moreover, he had always been a convinced Falangist who "owes his personal peace, the peace of his family and the peace of his country to Franco and the Falangist...