Word: chordal
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...music excerpts from The Tempest and The Merchant of Venice provide a form commensurate with Sullivan's gifts. All the devices that came to be standard in the Savoy orchestrations are here: the long solo horn calls as bridges the violins doubling waltz themes in octaves and the woodwind chordal sections, to name a very few. From the first bassoon solo in The Merchant, the sound is lively and attractive. Sometimes the geography can be confusing (a Viennese waltz set in Venice is hard to fathom), but the spirit is blithe. Sullivan was clearly best in a light vein...
Last week, in its premiere by the St. Louis Symphony with William Warfield narrating, the eleven-minute A Lincoln Address proved to be a combination largely of an unremarkable but solidly crafted series of rich chordal textures laid in behind the voice. It prompted two-thirds of the audience in Powell Symphony Hall to stand and applaud, a handful to stand and walk out, and the remainder pointedly to remain seated. Says Persichetti: "I just want to be judged on musical grounds. I don't want to make hay on the basis of politics...