Word: bache
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...strapping man (6 ft. 2 in., 203 lbs.) with a greying Vandyke beard strode on stage at Manhattan's Town Hall last week. An imposing figure in white tie and tails, he waited as the 27-piece Esterhazy Orchestra played the first lilting strains of Bach's Christmas Oratorio. Then, clasping his hands, Alfred Deller began to sing. The contrast was startling: out of this burly frame poured the extraordinarily high, bell-clear voice of that rarest of all male singers, the countertenor...
...Knife. From the Renaissance through the 18th century the countertenor was the most popular singer in Europe. Monteverdi, Bach, Handel, and especially Henry Purcell, himself a countertenor, composed a wealth of lute songs, folk ballads, cantatas, hymns, operas, madrigals and carols for the male alto. The rage for the high-pitched male voice also helped give rise to the castrati singers-boy sopranos castrated before puberty. In 18th century Italy, parents received a handsome fee for each son to go under the knife. But with the dawning of the romantic era in the 19th century, the delicate voices...
Aside from excessive volume, the orchestra handled the complex score amazingly well. Especially delightful was the clarinets' witty opening of the Allegretto, the tuba's blustering fifths in the first trio, and the fine horn ensemble at the end of the first movemnt. The Bach chorale and its successive variations were somewhat less than serene; but the transition to Baroque harmony and sublime peace ("My Jesus comes--farewell world"), from twelve-tone sufferings does demand incredible skill...
Sixteen Stabs. Yet, to true aficionados of the world's only blood art, El Cordobés is the death of the afternoon. "He's like Chubby Checker playing Bach," sniffs one ardent detractor. "It's pop bullfighting...
VLADIMIR HOROWITZ (2 LPs; Columbia) gave his first recital in a dozen years last May 9 at Carnegie Hall; this is a recording of that long-awaited performance. The program, which ranges from a Bach- Busoni toccata (Horowitz's good luck piece because it was the first selection on his debut program) through Chopin to Scriabin, shows a variety of technique and mood from lyric tranquillity to bravura virtuosity. The pianist is master of them all. Perhaps most beautiful is the inspired Schumann Fantasy in C Major; the final notes of the second movement float out as if played...