Word: conductor
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...paralysis of his right arm. The pity was that it ended his performing career. Playing with Cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and his friend Tenor Peter Pears, with whom he shared a semi-manorial brick house in Aldeburgh, Britten was a deft, expressive accompanist at the piano. He was an exceptional conductor, not only of his own works but also of Bach, Purcell and Mozart. His graceful, impassioned version of Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G minor, for example, is the best on records...
...SECOND FACTOR was undoubtedly the presence of violinist and conductor Oscar Shumsky. Shumsky is a prominent faculty member of the Juilliard School and an honorary director of the Violin Society of America. Yet he is not well known outside musical circles or beyond the New York area. He should be. He is a superb violinist and a superb music coach, as the concert revealed. Shumsky has a clear sense of professionalism, and evidently instilled the same sense in HRO, which became an unusually responsive body under his direction. He employs an instructive rather than brilliant technique; he knows exactly what...
...concert opened with an old warhorse, "Autumn" from Vivaldi's The Seasons, which, as interpreted on Saturday night, justified its popularity. The piece featured Shumsky as violin soloist and conductor. The orchestra was extremely cut down, and resembled a sixteen piece Baroquesized chamber ensemble. The choice of music provided an excellent vehicle for Shumsky's awe-inspiring technical capability and his power to elicit clean, solid tone. The accompaniment by the chamber ensemble, especially in the final Allegro, had a shimmering, airy quality--one that marks a thoughtful interpretation of Italian Baroque music. Michael Curry, in particular, carried the obbligato...
Equally convincing was the performance of the first four movements from Mozart's "Haffner" Serenade, K. 250. Again, Shumsky played a dual role as conductor and violin soloist. The work, Mozart's first great orchestral effort, retains both a light, chamber music coloration and a tendency toward a concertant style. (This style makes soloists operate in opposition to the orchestra...
...Under conductor Thomas G. Everett, the Concert Band launched into Giovanni Gabrieli's brief Canzon septimi toni No. 2 (1597) for brass ensemble. Gabrieli designed the work as open-air music for Venice's Piazzi San Marco. The canzon is a work which really has a vocal-fugal style but is played instrumentally. From this standpoint the concert band evoked the antiphonal character of the piece effectively, with strong modulations and an acute sense of tone color...