Word: chanting
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Daniel unfolds in a series of carefully stylized joyous and pathetic sequences, superbly staged (in the chapel of the Intercession of Trinity Parish in Manhattan) to give the effect of scenes from an illuminated manuscript. The action is accompanied by music suggestive of everything from Gregorian chant to folk song, played on reproductions of such authentic medieval instruments as a psaltery, a rebec, a minstrel's harp...
Bang, Bang, Bang. Tammy Grimes-because of her disheveled appearance sometimes known as Grimy Tams-insists that "nightclub singing is the hardest thing in the world to do." She makes it sound like the easiest, as she concocts a wistful chant out of Oscar Levant's Blame It on my Youth, throbs through Limehouse Blues, races with a fine, light lilt through The Springtime Cometh, a take-off an old English madrigal ("Gaily skippeth, nylon rippeth, zipper zippeth, whoop-de-do, which is to say, the springtime cometh"). For Cole Porter's urbane lyrics, her precise, finishing-school...
Those of us (me) who though last year that MacLeish's abbreviated line form would sound too much like a staccato chant on stage got our preconceptions singed. Here is a playwright who is not afraid of beautiful literate language, and none too soon. He has rejuvenated the anemic field of Poetic Drama Since Shakespeare. J.B.'s quality of language and quality of thought make it one of the few plays worth paying Broadway's orchestra-seat ransoms...
Last night's performance, which was led by the Glee Club's conductor, Victor Yellin, was generally uneven, though it too, like the Requiem, had some high points, notably the stunning Gregorian chant tenor solo, sung by Donald Brown. The Williams Glee Club sang with perfect intonation and balance, but these could not make up for its unpolished and open tone. An uneasy, strained quality dominated the performance, relieved only occasionally by sections of tonal warmth...
...Play of Daniel (New York Pro Musica; Decca). In a fascinating excursion into the Middle Ages, the nation's most avid collectors of musical antiquities present an early church musical drama in the original Latin text. The vocal parts suggest everything from Gregorian chant to folk song, the orchestra includes such authentic curiosities as a rebec, a vielle and a minstrel's harp. The result is a sound as finely jeweled, as warmly colored, and often as moving as an expanse of stained glass...