Word: brasses
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...small press alcoves on the south side of the courtroom were jammed. Reporters who could not find space lined the corridor beyond and scribbled notes as best they could. Court secretaries who normally stick to their typewriters peered through the brass latticework at the cause of all the hubbub: Dr. Sam Sheppard, 42. With the unwitting help of the press, Sheppard had finally managed to have his case heard by the Supreme Court...
...normally lead to overcritical judgment of interpretation. So you can believe me when I say that the HRO's performance was perfect. There were no detectable wrong notes, or questionable tonalities, or muffed passages. Yannatos's command of his orchestra's dynamics was admirable. The large entrances of the brass choir were thrilling. The trumpets handled a speedy passage with facile precision. And, of course, Daphnis et Chloe gave the HRO an opportunity to show off its unsurpassable solo flutist, Karen Monson...
...opening Canzona Noni Toni for three brass choirs of Gabrieli added insult to the injury the HRO has already meted out to us Renaissance and Baroque buffs. It is bad enough when, as frequently happens, they don't play anything at all from these periods. But to take this delightful Renaissance canzona and brutally massacre it requires real malevolence. Not only were the choirs not together, but one of the trumpets unceasingly insisted on shlurping every single high note. The HRO's next two concerts include works by Vivaldi and Bach. Let us hope they redeem themselves by handling them...
...something less than a torrid success. Ginastera's score, based on a twelve-tone scale and structured after the manner of Alban Berg's groundbreaking 1921 masterwork, Wozzeck, struck the ear but not the heart. It was a complex musical tapestry, flecked with startled tones of brass and wood wind and splotched with splashes of percussion. In total, the score failed to achieve the delineation of character and dramatic thrust that distinguish great opera from good. Don Rodrigo was nonetheless an adventure worthy of the underwriting (by Mrs. John D. Rockefeller Jr.), and no company could have done...
Quincy House has not only taken on this odd melange but battled against a leprechaun-sized stage and an orchestra with two three brass instruments for every stringed one. It acquits itself honorably, but it does not quite...