Word: beethovens
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...Beethoven and Schubert and the last great classical composers and the first greats of the Romantic era. The Romantics include Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Dvorak, Moussorgsky, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, many of whom were inspired more by small forms like songs or preludes than by symphonies and concertos, which pair a solo instrument and an orchestra. The classical and Romantic repertoire forms the backbone of the music played most often in concert halls...
Accordingly, when Ozawa came to the West in 1959 for further study, he knew he had much to learn. What he did not expect was the astonishment that his career presumption would engender. Germans are suspicious enough when an Italian performs Beethoven; what could a Japanese know? "I realized that what I was doing was strange only when I got to Europe," remembers Ozawa...
...many; to them, he is still the nail that sticks out. In the West, old questions about how deeply he understands music continue to dog him. His detractors write of his "blank interpretations," and indeed Ozawa has always been more effective in Strauss and Stravinsky showpieces than in Beethoven symphonies. Music that demands depth rather than flash taxes him. He has taken up opera in Europe, but his strengths and weaknesses remain the same: his Elektra in Paris was the work of a master colorist but lacked the manic intensity that others generate...
Every character, great or small (and truth to tell, they're all small), has the juice of comic originality in him. In jail with Hi, one convict strums Beethoven's Ode to Joy on the old banjo. The bounty hunter -- he's real, not just a Hi dream -- is a demon road warrior, a warthog from hell who grenades rabbits and torches roadside flowers, can catch flies between his filthy fingers, and has a secret tattoo of Woody Woodpecker on his left pectoral. Gale and Evelle (lots of gender-bent names in this picture) lecture Ed on the importance...
Today those words still apply to too many conductors and their orchestras. Beethoven symphonies are wolfed down like bran flakes, high in moral fiber and good for the soul; meanwhile, less celebrated works are regarded as the aural version of empty calories. Here, apparently, is the enduring Toscanini legacy, and, according to Horowitz's plausible indictment, one that shows few signs of fading away...