Word: beethoven
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...BEETHOVEN: THE NINE SYMPHONIES (RCA Victrola; 8 LPs). Another big package, but at the bargain price of $20. Not everyone agrees with Arturo Toscanini's distinctly brisk, no-nonsense approach to Beethoven. About the heroic first movement of the Third Symphony, the maestro once dryly commented: "Some say this is Napoleon, some Hitler, some Mussolini. For me it is simply allegro con brio." Still, Toscanini's brio was like no one else's, and the NBC Symphony strikes sparks as it builds to one peak of excitement after another, and then softly and precisely casts long incandescent...
...Beethoven had his 65-minute Ninth Symphony, Bach his two-hour B Minor Mass. But for Soviet Composer Aram Khachaturian, a three-minute piece of tuneless orchestral blooey has been enough to establish a worldwide reputation. Last week the man who wrote the Sabre Dance (1942) made his American debut, conducting the Washington National Symphony orchestra in a program of his own music. His reputation was enough to sell out the barnlike Constitution Hall (3,810 seats, plus 50 crammed onto the stage beside the orchestra) two nights in a row. The Sabre Dance was on the docket...
...YORK PHILHARMONIC YOUNG PEOPLE'S CONCERTS WITH LEONARD BERNSTEIN (CBS, 4:30-5:30 p.m.). "Forever Beethoven!" The first movement of Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, second and third movements of Concerto No. 4 in G Major and the Leonore Overture No. 3, featuring Pianist Joseph Kalichstein...
...first to admit that some of his gyrations are for the audience's benefit. "For a cymbal crash, the player will come in anyway, but if I give a big gesture, it just adds to the high point. Or in the development section of Beethoven's Eroica symphony, I'm not sure the audience is hearing everything-the different modulations, the canonic effects. I point to the orchestra as if to say 'Look who is playing. Now the theme is in the first violins; now it is in the basses...
...officiating rabbi became suspicious because Mehta did not speak Hebrew. "I'm a Persian Jew," Mehta explained to him, "and we don't speak Hebrew." After the other guests had chanted Hasidic songs for the couple, Mehta sang themes from Dvorak's Cello Concerto and Beethoven's Hamrnerklavier sonata with Hebrew inflections. Later he told the rabbi they were old Persian Jewish hymns...