Word: basses
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Despite his brobdingnagian frame (6 ft. 7 in., 240 lbs.), his ever present cigar and his gravelly bass voice, Paul Volcker is a man who likes to keep a low profile, to perform his financial wizardry as a bureaucratic technician rather than as a public figure. But such behind-the-scenes machinations have their frustrations. One night, after an International Monetary Fund meeting in Copenhagen, Volcker was so exasperated with his colleagues that he strode down to the Tivoli Gardens and proceeded to throw wooden balls in a booth full of china plates until he had smashed away his tension...
Haydn: The Seasons (Soprano Ileana Cotrubas, Tenor Werner Krenn, Bass Hans Sotin, Brighton Festival Chorus, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Antal Dorati conductor, London; 3 LPs). This is Haydn's other major oratorio, structurally less cohesive and dramatically less powerful than The Creation, but a work in which the aging composer set out to demonstrate all that he could do in a wide range of styles and forms. In other words, a compendium of glories. The text, from James Thomson's panoramic poem written in 1730, inspires passages of musical landscape painting, evocations of the hunt, human scenes of yeomen...
Shostakovich: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (Soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, Tenor Nicolai Gedda, Bass Dimiter Petkov, Ambrosian Opera Chorus, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Mstislav Rostropovich conductor, Angel; 3 LPs). Soviet critics thought they heard a masterpiece when this, Shostakovich's second opera, was premiered in 1934. Then Stalin walked out of a performance and they listened again. This time they heard "din, gnash and screech" (Pravda). The work was withdrawn, and Shostakovich pursued more orthodox ways. A sanitized version, unveiled in 1963, found its way to the West on records, but this is the first recording of the original score. Harsh, erotic...
Joni Mitchell: Mingus (Asylum). An act of elaborate and loving homage to the late Charles Mingus, formidable bass player and jazz composer. The record is more emotional in its dedication than in its musicianship, however. Mitchell's lyrics for Mingus' sometimes abstruse music get a little toplofty, and her sidemen-Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Jaco Pastorius are among the most renowned-stay so aloof and mechanical the record turns to stainless steel...
...Budget will undoubtedly be a huge success, not least because Davies slavishly follows the formula that made the Stones' Some Girls a successful comeback album. A disco track, "Superman," will spearhead Low Budget's blitzkrieg on the mass market. Another song, "National Health"--with an unadorned bass line and spare mixing--sounds strikingly like the Stones' "Shattered." Several other tracks are fast-paced, punk-influenced ditties...