Word: b-flat
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...program opened with the Beethoven Sonata in B-flat, op. 22, in the beginning of which the performer's nervousness was noticeable. But by the time the exposition of the first movement was repeated, things were under control, and there followed a structurally clairvoyant performance, emphasizing both the subtle interrelationships and the marked contrasts inherent in the composer's material. In the second movement, I felt that so many gentle hesitations before sforzandi and cadences, in conjunction with a tempo leaning toward the slow side, tended to restrict the flow. However, these elements of rubato, although not to my taste...
NONE OF THE other pieces even approached the Bach. A Muzio Clementi Symphony in B-flat was simply poor music with exposed transitions and bridges (where they existed), trite sequences, and general harmonic and melodic poverty. Typical was an inane arpeggiated triad figure used as melody in the first movement. At least the bubbly rococo confusion of sound obscured the meagre content of the fast movements; absolutely nothing could save the andante...
Schnabel's Duodecimet and Haydn's Symphonie Concertante in B-Flat Major formed the balance of the program, each quite well done. The Philharmonia has only one more concert this season, on May 2, and they certainly deserve a better turnout than Sunday's paltry few hundred...
Then of a sudden he was speaking of Beethoven, and of a sudden I realized that he was speaking of that andante cantabile, the slow movement of the B-flat Trio [Opus 97]. He stopped speaking and began to sing. It was as though the composer, impatient of words, had found speech an impertinence in the presence of such music. The conversation ceased while he sang the theme through to its end. Then he resumed...
...Shaw planned. Ritchard, however, has decided to offer us an enticing appetizer. We hear from one direction a B-flat fanfare for solo trumpet-rather lonely and Coplan-desque in effect-answered from elsewhere by woodwinds. Then, accompanied by some drummers. Ritchard in full general's regalia strides in and delivers a short prologue extracted from Shaw's lengthy opening stage direction. There is no objection to this, for Shaw was characteristically unable to keep from putting some of his best work-often quite irrelevant-into his prefaces, stage directions, and notes...