Word: cd
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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LISZT: Sonata in B Minor; Two Legends; The Blessing of God in Solitude. Francois-Rene Duchable, piano (Erato; LP or CD). Franz Liszt, the archetypal piano virtuoso, wrote only one sonata for his instrument, but what a sonata it is! Bril liant, bombastic, tender, devilishly diffi cult, structurally innovative, the nearly half-hour work is the summa of romantic piano technique, and every modern pianist must test his mettle with it to claim Liszt's mantle. Most opt for a straightforward, flashy approach, hoping to conquer the piece by sheer dexterity. Duchable, a young Frenchman with an especially rich tone...
...delightful, but did anyone outside of an Antonioni film ever enjoy sitting on an inflatable plastic couch or wearing a paper dress? American designers today are again devoting themselves to grownup toys intended to make their owners feel science fictional. After a night playing with the food processor, the CD player and the PC, who wouldn't feel he had seen the future? The playfulness of high-art designers, however, is of a more rarefied kind. Instead of making gadgets, they construct jokes. Sometimes the jokes are academic, such as Michael Graves' neo-Biedermeier chair (1981) and Robert Venturi...
Consumers who buy CDs tend to become fervent disciples. Senator Barry Goldwater, a jazz fan who bought a Hitachi model last year, demonstrates the durability of CDs to neophytes by tossing the disks across his Washington apartment. He is thinking about buying a CD player for his car. Musician Nile Rodgers, who has produced albums for singers David Bowie and Madonna, listens to the CD player in his Porsche as he commutes between Connecticut and New York City. Gerald Koris, a Los Angeles lawyer, has bought more than two dozen classical-music disks since becoming hooked last year. Says...
...CD systems are the stars of a home- electronics industry that is suffering through an otherwise trying year. Sales of home computers, the hot item two years ago, have fallen sharply. Conventional turntables have also been moving at a stagnant rate. Manufacturers of audio gear hope that the popularity of CD players will create a resurgence of demand for amplifiers and speakers. Says Tadahiko Nakaoki, a product planner for Japan's Pioneer brand: "Everybody in this business must be relieved deep down in their hearts...
Compact disks replace the old technology with a digital system based on computers and laser light. On a CD, sound is broken down into binary digits (zeros and ones). Those numbers are stored on an aluminum disk in some 15 billion microscopic pits. When the CD plays, rotating at up to 500 r.p.m., a laser silently scans the pits and then beams their information to a microcomputer that converts the digits back into sound. Because no mechanical part touches the disk's surface, the resulting tone is virtually free of distortion...