Word: beethoven
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Even while running a busy law firm. Strong kept an attentive eye on the arts. His diary provides an informal cultural history of 19th century New York, written from the viewpoint of an enlightened conservative. It is crammed with shrewd comments on the music of Beethoven ("the Byron of Musicians") and Mozart ("the king of Melody"), brightened by impromptu reviews of Jenny Lind's singing ("marvelously executed") and Edwin Booth's acting ("carefully studied"). Strong found time to read the classics of his day as they appeared, and appraised them with instinctive good sense...
...dining room for breakfast, which sometimes included champagne-and raspberries. The raspberries were especially favored by Impresario Montague Vert Chester, who cared little about what he ate, provided it was pink. Through the pleasant confusion moved Muriel, her eyes alight, her large mouth working fiercely as she denounced Beethoven's Hammerklavier sonata or praised the writings of her friend, Gertrude Stein. To Muriel, said Mabel Dodge a little wearily, "everything was interesting...
Still Chic. Returning to New York, Muriel cast the cloak of her social and artistic background over a host of Communist intellectuals and pro-Soviet organizations. After World War II, all the intensity which she had once devoted to arguing the merits of Beethoven or Gertrude Stein was given over to stock denunciations of "fascistic tendencies" in the U.S. and stock praise of life in the U.S.S.R. By 1949, still chic, still full of zest, she was president of the Communist-fronting Congress of American Women. The House Un-American Activities Committee in its report of that year gave Muriel...
Standouts in the first release: Master Pianist Artur Schnabel (who died last year) playing two important Mozart concertos, the portentous D Minor, K. 466 and the C Minor, K. 491, with strength and tenderness; Conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler, making the Vienna Philharmonic perform with the best in Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, Schubert's Unfinished and Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G Minor; Violinist Yehudi Menuhin at his dazzling peak in Paganini's popular, pyrotechnical Concerto...
...week, Lewisohn had also proved that popular music is still popular, consistently drawing more listeners than highbrow events. The Kern-Hammerstein night played to 19,000. the Gershwin night to 18,500. The best draws (17,500) among the classical programs: 1) Contralto Marian Anderson; 2) the combination of Beethoven's music, the conducting of Pierre Monteux and the violin playing of Yehudi Menuhin...