Word: conductor
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Manuel de Falla: The Three-Cornered Hat. (The Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, conductor Deutsche Grammophon). Like much ballet music heard outside the theater, The Three-Cornered Hat calls for some imaginative listening. Written for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, it is enormously theatrical, punctuated with expectant pauses from the first fanfare to the last triumphant Jota. Ozawa leads a bright, brassy performance of the Fandango, Seguidillas and Farucca. Teresa Berganza fans will only wish that she had more to sing...
Johann Sebastian Bach: Violin Concertos in E and A-minor; Concerto for Two Violins in D-minor; Air from Suite No. 3 in D (Henryk Szeryng and Maurice Hasson, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Neville Marriner conductor, Philips). Bach was the field marshal of the concerto form, regimenting the fluid lines of such Italian masters as Vivaldi and Corelli into complex string masterpieces. Szeryng, the Polish-born virtuoso, and Second Fiddle Hasson demonstrate great authority within Bach's polyphonic ranks. Their counterpoint in the double concerto is superb, as is the accompaniment led throughout by Neville Marriner...
Puccini: Tosca (Soprano Montserrat Caballé, Tenor José Carreras, Baritone Ingvar Wixell, orchestra and chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Colin Davis conductor, Philips; 2 LPs). This interpretation of Tosca is nothing if not eccentric. Davis' reading of the florid score is rich and clear but systematically undramatic. As the idealistic painter Cavaradossi, Carreras gives a properly ardent performance, but it seems lost on this particular Tosca. The elegant Caballé can no more be made into the hot-blooded actress than the eyes of Cavaradossi's Mary Magdalen can be changed from blue...
Moreover, the gerontocratic lobby likes to point to such distinguished individuals as Conductor Arthur Fiedler (82), Comedian George Burns (81), Navy Admiral Hyman Rickover (77) and Anthropologist Margaret Mead (75) as examples of people whose bright talents are burnished with age. As might be expected, Margaret Mead has advanced an intriguing theory about life expectancy in the U.S. "One reason women live longer than men," she says, "is that they can continue to do something they are used to doing, whereas men are abruptly cut off, whether they are admirals or shopkeepers...
...Chancellor and President took pains to mute their differences, and both sides considered the meeting "an atmospheric success." Schmidt-whom Carter had called "Helmut" all along-finally unbent enough to address the President as "Jimmy." At one remarkable moment, Schmidt, an amateur organist, grabbed the baton from the conductor of the Marine Corps band and led the group in the rousing final measures of the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony...