Word: brasses
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Chicago Symphony. Winner and still champion, Solti's virtuosic ensemble has been the finest in the U.S. for more than a decade, and was often close to the top under earlier music directors like Fritz Reiner (1953-62). The orchestra's strengths are its burnished brass and taut, lean, precise string section, which give its performances a crispness and vitality that are the despair of its rivals. "I have never had a better-spirited orchestra than this one," says Solti, 70. "If they have a conductor they respect, they will go through hell for him." The Chicago spirit...
...consistently well: under music directors as disparate in taste and talents as Serge Koussevitzky, Charles Munch, Erich Leinsdorf and, now, Seiji Ozawa, 47, it has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to adapt to almost any type of music conductorial style. Boston's full strings, warm winds and elegant brass are always in bloom...
...Philadelphia, but only in a sympathetic environment like New York's Carnegie Hall. Under Riccardo Muti, 41, the Italian conductor who succeeded Ormandy in the 1980-81 season, the sound is losing its sometimes overripe fullness and becoming leaner, with greater prominence being given to the winds and brass. The adjustment, though, is not being accomplished without some temporary loss of stature; and Muti so far is more convincing in opera than in orchestral music...
...great orchestra executes its tasks with precision, élan and grace. String sections attack and release a note together, blending their sounds to form a single smooth line. Woodwinds have a distinctive character that lets them stand out against the full orchestra, yet merge back into it when necessary. Brass players keep their often recalcitrant instruments under beguilingly complete control; when a trumpeter reaches for a high note, there is no uncertainty that it will come out right. Overseeing all this is the music director, who balances the orchestra's component parts and gives the ensemble character. He breathes...
Colman, on the other hand, intends to hand-pick his replacement. He named as co-candidates Timothy H. Forster '84 and Andrew A. Bernstein '84 Both are qualified by prior experience, having assisted Colman with the large brass instrument. Neither was available for comment yesterday...