Word: concertos
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Conductor Franz Waxman raised his baton, and the orchestra sailed into the opening bars of Stravinsky's piano concerto. Then he gave the nod for the first piano passage, and the piano came right in on cue. The audience at last week's International Music Festival in Los Angeles did 2,000 double takes: though the piano bench was vacant, the music was coming out loud and clear...
Michel Block, a diminutive, red-haired pianist who looks like a teen-age Artur Rubinstein, clearly was the choice of a Carnegie Hall audience two years ago, when he competed for the most coveted instrumental prize in the U.S., the Leventritt Award. His performance of Brahms's Concerto No. 2, a work laced with tranquil melodies and fiery passages, brought the audience to its feet for five minutes of applause. But the judges did not give the award to Block or anyone else. Leonard Bernstein, speaking for the judges, pointed out that contestants for the Leventritt do not compete...
...Leventritt Award, which brings $1,000 in cash and appearances with the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Denver symphony orchestras. Onto a stage at the Metropolitan Museum of Art paraded four other finalists: Ralph Votapek, who gracefully turned the willowy phrases of Beethoven's Concerto No. 4; Bela Szilagi, whose Brahms and Liszt were played with cohesive intensity; Marilyn Neeley, a petite brunette who mastered the pyrotechnics of Tchaikovsky with brute female strength; and Stephen Manes, whose forte is clarity...
Then Block took charge at the piano, and with Mozart's "Coronation" Concerto prompted Serkin and Bernstein, Mannes and Graffman and Szell and Firkusny to exchange pleased glances. "Let's hear Beethoven's Opus 27 in E-flat," asked Leopold Mannes from the balcony. Block then eased his way into the Beethoven sonata fantasy with a keen intelligence that paid heed not only to detail but also to essential unity. Displaying versatility as well as virtuosity, Block played a cadenza from a Tchaikovsky concerto and a Liszt sonata. Chattering excitedly, the judges reached a verdict...
Present at the Moscow Conservatory for the opening concert of Janis' second Russian tour were both judges and contestants from the Tchaikovsky Competition, plus Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson. For the occasion, Janis attempted a staggering tour de force: three major concertos in a single concert. While rehearsing the Rachmaninoff First and the Schumann and Prokofiev Thirds with Conductor Kiril Kondrashin and the Moscow Philharmonic, Janis felt "like a race horse trying for the Triple Crown." Conductor Kondrashin was confident: "I have now heard a pianist who can play three utterly different concertos with a perfect sense of style...