Word: beethoven
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...until 4 p.m., then quits for Mexico City's typically heavy (steak and trimmings), typically drawn-out (two hours) dinner. Back at work at 6 or thereabouts, he works into the evening, then spends an hour or two in a smoking jacket with a detective story or Beethoven on stereophonic hifi. He likes to play canasta and watch fights...
Among the real heroes of the weekend bender were half-a-hundred puppets, Poet Ogden Nash, Conductor Leonard Bernstein (also responsible for the Wonderful Town score) and Ludwig van Beethoven...
...same time slot on CBS, Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic provided immense excitement with a partial performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, accompanied by one of Bernstein's uniquely lucid music-appreciation lectures. A leaner, older-looking Lenny-part of the change was obviously due to a haircut-was in top form as conductor, showman and talker, although the grandeur of the Ninth had him reaching hard for genius-sized words. Bernstein conducted the symphony's final movement in a brilliantly balanced performance. The Philharmonic had played the Ninth under Guest Conductor Herbert von Karajan...
Unfortunately, having launched a top-notch series, the sponsor (Lincoln) marred it by ill-chosen sales pitches. In the midst of Beethoven's biggest score was a commercial with slick, whiny music (written by a freelance arranger named Mitch Lee). And immediately after the triumphant choral movement, while the timpani had scarcely stopped vibrating and the listener was still under the spell of the music, an oily announcer's voice heralded a "visit with Mrs. Igor Cassini," who then proceeded, on film, to demonstrate the charms of the new Lincoln Continental...
Over the years. Constant has come to believe that brevity is the soul of musical wit. "In fifty or a hundred years,'' he says, "the symphonies of Beethoven and even Honegger will seem like endless repetitions." How does he feel about his own work? "I was born," says Constant, "under the sign of Aquarius. Far be it from me to suggest a comparison, but it was Mozart's sign...