Word: britten
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...sensitivity with which the orchestra performed Benjamin Britten's Suite on English Folk Tunes carried through most of the concert. The suite, in three parts, was delivered in all its interesting orchestration, especially in the dialogues between the timpani and the winds, and in the passages in which the strings play while the remaining players are silent...
...Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra's concert Saturday night was a relatively good performance of an intriguing program that could have been played in just a slightly more inspired fashion. The orchestra, under conductor Yames Yannatos, gave a generally spirited performance of Britten, Gershwin and Mussorgsky. Soloist John Melnyk's performance of the Gershwin Piano Concerto in F was a fine combination of control and verve which highlighted the evening. But the feeling and dynamic playing which a work such as "Pictures at an Exhibition" can evoke even in its less energetic passages did not always appear in what otherwise...
...conveyed the lilting melodies convincingly, although they sometimes sounded muddy. The restrained notes of the strings in "Hankin Booby" constrasted interestingly with the sudden intrusions of the tympani; the orchestra's evocative and controlled playing in this second part was particularly fine and beautiful. The lyrical elegance which suffuses Britten's work appeared most notably in the last part, "Hunt the Squirrel," in which conductor Yannatos had the players emphasize nicely the passages of the strings vying against each other...
Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, conducted by James Yannatos, performs Mussorgsky: "Pictures at an Exhibition," Britten: "Suite on English Folk Tunes" and Gershwin Piano Concerto in F (with soloist John Melnyk, winner of the 1976-77 HRO Concerto Competition). Sanders Theatre. 8:30 p.m. Tickets at $2, 1.50 for senior citizens or with students ID. For info...
...lean, tweedy, modest man, Britten hated it when people referred to this composer or that, even him, as "the greatest." "Of course you can be the tallest composer," he said once. "Alban Berg was probably the tallest composer and Mahler was probably the shortest. But how can you judge that a particular composer was the greatest? Today Bach is considered greater than Handel, yet 100 years ago the opposite was true." For Britten it was enough, as he put it, "if people want to hear what you have written." In his case they...