Word: banally
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...eerie things have happened to Russian Composer Borodin's brilliantly eerie music, and though one or two of the best-known bits (e.g., Stranger in Paradise) from Prince Igor are already jukebox favorites, much of Borodin's famed 19th century work has been made to sound pretty banal...
...light, volatile themes. There were times when the composer seemed to pull himself up short-as if in fear of going beyond the party's current rules-breaking the long sweep of a natural development to introduce another melody. There were other times when he dressed up a banal moment with humorous orchestral tweaks and twitches, or suddenly stirred up a bee's nest of climax. Only the fourth movement sounded thoroughly like the old Prokofiev; playfully capering themes rippled off into odd harmonic corners and back again almost before the listener knew what was happening...
What faults the play does have are due in the main to its unnaturally restricted setting. With no comic maids, noisy children, or boisterous relatives to lives things up, dc Hartog has attempted to provide a touch of raucous humor by a truly banal bit of stage trickery--a raised platform around the bed over which either one or both of the characters is prone to stumble in moments of passion or tenderness. This sort of thing is good for a yuk the first time, but after the third repetition even the fellers and gals of the John Hancock Life...
...bell - by someone on the phone or someone at the door. He seems less to chronicle suffering than to exploit it. But he respects the rules, he scrupulously obeys the sign reading No Unhappiness Permitted After 10:45 p.m., even if it entails the most false and banal of endings...
Lionel Nowak's Trio for Clarinet, Violin, and Cello provided the evening's novelty. Nowak, who also teaches at Bennington, uses a lively semi-atonal style that is immediately appealing without being banal. The unique combination of instruments creates unusual timbre effects, and the performance (except for some excessive violin scraping) did the work full justice...