Word: dictional
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...with choral and solo sections; in the Psalm, he spins a gossamer a cappella prayer. By contrast, Finzi's quiet music comments on the lyrics, in this case Metaphysical Poet Thomas Traherne's musings on the innocence and beauty of children. Tenor Wilfred Brown's impeccable diction helps to make this a delightfully accessible, intimate performance. The English Chamber Orchestra and soloists, conducted by Imogen Hoist (the composer's daughter), handle their vastly differing assignments well...
...world, and probably the most voluminous. Scientists rely on precise Chinese records of supernovae, sunspots, etc., for the nearly two millennia that Europeans did not believe in such phenomena and thus did not see them. That the Chinese have no word for "no" is a statement about syntax, not diction-there are common words for "not," "don't," "never," etc.-and even so, TIME'S statement is true only of classical Chinese, not of the spoken language. The Chinese word for freedom means freedom and nothing else. Its origin is indeed from two characters that by themselves mean...
...restricted himself to a narrower vocabulary than in any other play except The Comedy of Errors. Everything is taut, economical, classical. Although the characters have their own individualities, they appear here in their public personae, and all adopt a nearly uniform neutral kind of classical forensic diction. Cicero himself has only a few words in the play, but his orations, with all their rhetorical questions, seem to have hovered over the writing of the entire drama...
This scene is regrettably marred beyond redemption by Stephen Joyce, who is woefully miscast and misdirected as Antony. He has intensity, but of an adolescent sort. Supposedly the best orator in a play full of good orators, this Antony afflicts us with an ugly voice and a diction rife with malformed vowels. And when, during a pause, a citizen says, "Now mark him, he begins again to speak," Joyce has not given the slightest hint of intending to resume. This speech--one of the most famous in all literature--is simply a disaster. When it was concluded at the opening...
John Cunningham's Duke is clear but tepid. Adolph Caesar brings a rich voice to the Priest, but his make-believe senility is false. Stephen Pearlman's Antonio exhibits acrocious diction and no comprehension. And how could the director allow him to pass right by Viola-Cesario when exiting in pursuit of the look-alike Sebastian without Antonio's batting an eye? The suspension of disbelief can stretch only...