Word: b-minor
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...beneficiary because his many intimate, complex compositions generally sound better in the home than in a large concert hall. In 1949, there were 15 Bach albums on the market; today there are more than 500-including 24 rival versions of the complete Brandenburg Concertos, and 12 interpretations of the B-Minor Mass. Says Pianist Rosalyn Tureck, founder of the International Bach Society for specialized study of the composer: "The great fire under all of this is the direct meaning that Bach has for us as contemporary persons. He is a phenomenon of our time...
...natural equipment is just right for Chopin. He has a powerful and precise technique, a gift for tracing long, soaring lines out of detailed figurations, and an innately tasteful musicality that spurns either maudlin moonbeams or brittle bravura. He puts it all to work in the Byronic B-Minor Third Sonata, playing with dash, sweep and refined lyricism. His performance of the Second, in B-flat minor, offers something more. Although not the performance of a mellow master like Rubinstein, it displays a subtle feeling for the shifting, subterranean currents of Chopin's emotion. There is an urgency...
...like to think of Brahm's music as short, symmetrical phrases, like the music of Haydn or Mozart. As a result, one often hears a version of Brahms in which the melodies are either blurred or altogether maimed. Seldom is Brahms' musical individuality more forcefully expressed than in his B-Minor Clarinet Quintet, and it is refreshing to hear it played in a way that does not attempt to warp the long melodic lines. The Guarneri String Quartet, in the third concert of its Summer series at Sanders Theatre, with clarinetist Harold Wright, gave a reading of his quintet which...
...fact that the B-minor quintet is the fifth known work for clarinet and strings suggests that there is a danger of poor balance and unmusical tone-blending inherent in such a combination of instruments. But, Mr. Wright and the quartet produced a sound that successfully exploited the instrumentation as a vehicle for musical expression. Rather than stand out as an unwelcome intrusion into a string quartet, the clarinet functioned as a perfectly natural complement to the strings. The end result was a performance that left virtually nothing to be desired...
...knew that everyone from Verdi to Garbo had taken a whack at Dumas' story since it first appeared in 1848. He redistilled it in his own mind into a prologue and four concentrated scenes. Still he could not decide on the music. Then he heard Liszt's B-minor sonata. To most classicists, the piece is sadly second-rate, but it was the answer to Ashton's yearning. He assigned the orchestration to Humphrey Searle, got Cecil Beaton to do the sets, and plunged into the choreography...