Word: conductor
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Named after the late conductor, it was organized by the Women's Division of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York; contestants were invited from every nation in the U.N. A total of 32 pianists from 15 countries, including 18 from the U.S., responded. Notably absent were contestants from any Iron Curtain country. Russia explained that it would probably send someone next year, but needed time to "prepare...
There's a new Messiah out this year (no surprise), but don't buy it. Joan Sutherland is its major attraction, and Sir Adrian Boult its conductor. And unfortunately, Sir Adrian is one of those who thinks that Miss Sutherland can only sing well when she is singing Puccini (a palpable falsehood). Consequently, Sir Adrian has ripped Handel's oratoria from its century, making it as operatic and as nineteenth-century as he can. The result is a sprawling, unkempt orchestra, bawling, dyspeptic singers, and crawling, inept tempos. (London A 4357--you'll recognize the album by the ugly crucifix...
Michael Senturia, the principal conductor of the evening, chose a formidable program, demanding Stravinsky (his Symphony of Psalms) and sprightly Beethoven (the Second Symphony). It takes great temerity on the part of any college conductor to think of scheduling even the Beethoven, which is not the silly little Mozartian nothing many people think it, let alone the Stravinsky, which does have the simplicity, order and concentration of the best of Mozart...
...dirge for modern music. Asked by a London newsman which 20th century composers seemed likely to stand the test of time. Paris-born Maestro Pierre Monteux, 86, flatly replied: ''I don't see any, except perhaps Stravinsky." In a tart catalogue of inadequacies, the peppery new conductor of the London Symphony went on: "Mahler, he won't live; he's an imitator. Prokofiev, I don't think so. Shostakovich, no. Hindemith, no inspiration. Bartok: I give him ten years...
...Formula. At the center of it all-the 577 delegates and 200 staffers, 65 observers and 275 reporters, plus assorted wives and special guests-a stern, craggy Dutchman loomed over the Assembly like an orchestra conductor on a podium. Willem Visser 't Hooft is the prime professional of the international ecumenical movement, in which he has spent his entire working life, and the New Delhi Assembly is the crowning of his career, for he plans to retire some time before the next one-probably in Africa six years hence...