Word: cellos
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
CELLIST JANOS STARKER plays with superlative technique: his fingers range the cello fingerboard unerringly while his bow arm sails from one string to another, never straying or accenting incorrectly. But the highlight of Starker's appearance with the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra Friday night, the Dvorak cello concerto in B minor, demands not only precision but also sensitivity, which the world-renowned cellist was either unwilling or unable to furnish...
...showed further short-sightedness when he rotated the instrumentalists within his wind section--an extraordinary policy which resulted in a superb flute performance in Stravinsky's Petrushka and then abysmal, brittle, out-of-tune music from the flutes and oboes in the Dvorak. The sloppy wind performance in the cello concerto obscured a strong effort by the strings to match at least partially the virtuosity of Starker...
...Hindemith, the audience had stopped rattling their programs and was ready for Starker. But he was not ready for them. He performed the first movement of Vivaldi's concerto in D major for cello--a violin concerto rescored for cello--as though his appearance were just another night shift on the assembly line. He payed little attention to the orchestra, which had difficulty adjusting to the soloist's rhythm. In the second movement, Starker finally shed his coldness, swaying his body to listen to the concertmaster and moving his eyebrows as he explored the beauty of Vivaldi's larghetto...
Starker completed the concert with two encores, the sarabande from Bach's fifth suite for unaccompanied cello and then a showpiece written by Piatti. The very demanding Piatti, reinforced what everyone already knew--that Starker is a marvelous technician...
...Count de Morphy sent him to see the French conductor Charles Lamoureux. Gruff, distracted, crippled, Lamoureux rose at the first sounds from Casals' cello, limped toward the young artist, and embraced him, saying: "You are one of the elect." Casals was then 22, and from then on, he had it made. He played for Queen Victoria, the King and Queen of Portugal, and became an intimate of Belgium's Queen Elisabeth (she played violin to his cello...