Word: bache
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...minutes during the Bach Society Orchestra's concert Saturday night, it was difficult to remember that a chamber orchestra was playing in Paine Hall. The sonorous climaxes of three songs from Hindemith's "Marienleben" sounded forth with all the intensity and power of a full symphony. Disregarding the question of propriety, it was an astonishing demonstration of the virtuosity of the orchestra and its conductor, Michael Senturia...
...Oistrakhs: Bach's Sonata for Two Violins and Piano, Mozart's Sonata No. 15 for Violin and Piano, Beethoven's Trio No. 9 with Pianist Vladimir Yampolsky, and the Gilels, Kogan, Rostropovich trio; Monitor). Singly and together, papa David and son Igor Oistrakh show that the Russians know how to play Bach and Mozart with purity and cool grace...
Richter is a Bach specialist in a country where the cult of Bach demands that old Johann Sebastian be approached in the traditional manner, with coldly precise and mathematically measured accents. Defying convention, Richter brought a dynamic new approach to his Bach reading. His performances proved so brilliantly illuminating that he was offered the top job in the world of German Protestant church music, Bach's own post of Thomaskantor in Leipzig; Richter refused so he could stay in Munich, where he developed a fine 100-voice Bach choir. Gradually the critics became disenchanted. Richter, they felt, had slipped...
Last week, with the critics admitted once again, Richter was obviously out to rehabilitate himself. His 2½-hour program included two secular Bach cantatas (Nos. 214 and 207A), the Violin Concerto in E Major and the Brandenburg Concerto No. 6. The Brandenburg was the most unorthodox. In keeping with Bach's principle that any number can play, Richter had the work performed by only eight players-two violas, a cello, two violas da gamba, two string basses and a harpsichord. It emerged as a chamber work with crystal transparency, uncovering contrapuntal voices heard as they were seldom heard...
Richter, who knows Bach's entire keyboard works by memory, was at the harpsichord himself, his back to the audience, rising to conduct arias and choruses, then dropping like a falcon to improvise accompaniments for the recitatives. The critics were disarmed. Richter gave them a joyfully dynamic performance that was nonetheless satisfyingly authentic. Admitting that there were no signs of Richter's previous peccadillos in this concert and genially explaining the old flaws as "growing pains," the dean of Munich's critics, Karl Heinz Ruppel, summed up the concert in one word: "Wunderbar...