Word: efrem
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...softspoken, self-effacing man (after his performance in Houston last week, he took a seat in the audience to listen to Efrem Kurtz conduct a Schumann symphony), Tossy is one of the few top U.S. concert violinists who have risen from orchestra ranks...
Kabalevsky: The Comedians (New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, Efrem Kurtz conducting; Columbia, 4 sides). More of the bright, noisy foolishness that has already made Kabalevsky's fellow Russian Khachaturian a U.S. jukebox favorite. Performance: good...
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 9 (New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, Efrem Kurtz conducting; Columbia, 8 sides; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Serge Koussevitzky conducting; Victor, 6 sides). First U.S. recordings of the 1945 work which the high command of Soviet music damned as "ideologically weak" and "not reflecting the true spirit of the Soviet people." U.S. listeners will find the Ninth sometimes playful, often merely trivial and tricky, and never a match for Shostakovich's Fifth. Koussevitzky, speeding the slow movement, gets through it in one record less than Kurtz, but his performance is less satisfactory...
Wieniawski: Violin Concerto No. 2 (Isaac Stern, with the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, Efrem Kurtz conducting; Columbia, 6 sides). A melodic and romantic showpiece by a contemporary of Tchaikovsky, in an impressive performance by young Virtuoso Stern (TIME, June 23)'. Recording: good...
Khachaturian: Gayne (pronounced "guy-nuh") Ballet Suite (New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, Efrem Kurtz conducting; Columbia, 6 sides). The furious-paced, but sometimes silkily lush music for Khachaturian's ballet on Soviet collective farm life. The ballet, which is loud with the pounding rhythms of Armenian dances, won its 43-year-old Soviet-Armenian composer the Stalin Prize in 1942. Performance: excellent...