Word: beethovens
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Telephone Hour (Mon. 9 p.m., NBC) Pianist Clifford Curzon plays the last movement of Beethoven's Emperor Concerto with the Bell Symphonic Orchestra...
...Beethoven's Quartet in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 131 received similar treatment. Particularly for this piece, comparison with the Budapest group became unavoidable. Many people insist that Beethoven's chamber music be performed with the masculine vigor of the Budapest, for all its lack of suavity. The Paganini, on the other hand, emphasized grace and subtlety. But from a critical standpoint, the integrity of either approach is unquestionable. The greatness of the Paganini Quartet lies in the perfection of its own musical objectives...
...take the orchestra on the trip after Furtwangler died last fall. In its programs the Berlin Philharmonic stuck rigidly to tradition. Its selections in New York last week were downright condescending: Haydn's Symphony No. 104, Prelude and Love Death from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde and Beethoven's Symphony No: 5. The Berliners seemed determined to show the New World how the old classical war horses should be tamed...
...result was a fine, Old-World performance that rarely surged with excitement but was lovingly correct and sometimes glowed with insight. Most appealing moment: the slow movement of the Beethoven, in which the strings sang their melodies against trickling woodwinds. When it was over, the crowd shouted its approval, and the orchestra gave an encore: the Overture to Tannhduser. Von Karajan accepted a basket of chrysanthemums, plucked one and presented it to his concertmaster...
...conductor of the Boston Symphony, Charles Munch, the Glee Club and choral society will never again perform pieces in the same grandiose manner to which they became accustomed under Koussevitzky. The change came in 1950, shortly before they were to assist the BSO in a Pension Fund performance of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis...