Word: espressivo
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Sonata's Adagio espressivo certainly captured a more intimate feeling, but the playing was emotionally unremarkable. The high point of the Beethoven came in the Scherzo. where Buswell's devil-may-care boldness struck a wonderful contrast to Levinson's filigreed lines. Here, the interplay of the instruments finally reached the same heights it had achieved in the Bartok...
...entire Quartet showed a sort of 'updated Romantic' sense of time: not too obvious, but always just enough to suggest captivating emotions. Kim and Hwang's deep sounds--the violist's from a gigantic instrument--provided most of the warmth of the opening Andante espressivo-Allegro molto moderato...
Bartok's First Violin Sonata, while heavily influenced by the atonality of Schoenberg, abounds with injunctions of "espressivo" and "appasionato". A listener not aware of this might have thought from Chase's performance that Bartok, desiring some special effect, had ordered the violinist to play dispassionately, and vibrato only selectively if at all. While the first movement is supposed to be tense in character, the rigidity manifest in Chase did not seem quite appropriate. Her sound was frequently forced, and what at first seemed like a special effect--the fact that her vibrato began only after half of each note...