Word: beethovens
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...group concluded with Beethoven's Third Rasoumovsky Quartet, a work it has played much better in the past. Rhythmic laxity marred the first movement, and the brilliant fugue of the finale suffered from lack of clarity in some of the voice parts...
This wasn't really a bad performance--there were many moments of lyric and dramatic intensity--but it still was quite a let-down. Perhaps the gentlemen were tired (they came to Cambridge in the midst of a rigorous Beethoven cycle in New York). At any rate, they did justice neither to the music nor to themselves...
...Beethoven: Sonatas No. 8, Op. 13; No. 32, Op. 111 (Solomon, pianist; Victor, 2 sides LP). Except for some affected stretching of the opening phrases of the "Pathétique," British Pianist Solomon's performances are just about perfect. Recording: good...
Swiss-born Edwin Fischer has built his reputation as an exponent of the classics. For him, The Well-Tempered Clavier of Bach, which he recorded years ago, is the "Old Testament," and Beethoven's sonatas are the "New Testament." He is also at his best with the music of Mozart, which he plays on a grander scale than that favored by the tinkly music-box school of Mozart interpreters. Composers such as Chopin seem to elude Fischer, but when he sticks to Bach and Mozart, few pianists anywhere can match him. Wrote a Paris-Presse critic last year: "After...
...profession, was nagged by doubt. Only 32, the top chorus master in the U.S., he was bossing his own 185-voice amateur Collegiate Chorale (sometimes broken down into smaller groups, e.g., the RCA Victor Chorale, the Columbia Choral) and preparing the choral parts for Toscanini's broadcasts of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Verdi's Falstaff, Requiem. But, as he diagnosed himself, "I don't handle the orchestra as well as the singers and I want to find out why." He promised himself a two-year breather to find the answer. Chasing off to Europe, he listened...