Word: exception
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Like his contemporary Chopin, Liszt was immeasurably better at writing for piano than for orchestra. In either of his two piano concertos, every part except the soloist's will seem like mere accompaniment. This was especially true in this performance of Liszt's second concerto, in A, where Yukiko Sekino '99, the winner of HRO's Concerto Competition, dwarfed her colleagues with her huge technique. Though her double notes left something to be desired (and whose don't?), her fearless and flawless octaves, the sine quibus non of Lisztian bravura, eradicated this quibble. A duet passage with principal cellist Steve...
When I slip him a vague query about "business in Harvard Square," he's on to my intent immediately, and offers answers remarkably similar to the ones I heard at Noke's. Except he layers his discussion with economic jargon...
Then there's that wistful inquiry as to whether one is carrying anyone else's bags--a question that can be of no possible relevance except to the skycaps' union. For, alas, altruism is not yet so endemic that every baggage-encumbered traveler should be suspected of shouldering the burdens of maniacal terrorists disguised as little old ladies with back problems...
...Shepherd named Ludwig von Sacher reverts to dog behavior--scratches on the door, piles of feces on the rug--then recovers enough to write in his journal, "I am alone in the world, a ludicrous animal." So are they all alone, and so they die. This diminuendo is unnoticed, except by the journalist Pira, who notes that the attention of the busy world has drifted elsewhere...
...with outsiders. He was an old man in a hurry; he saw visitors, but only if they could advance the central goal of his life--to make China great again. In the many hours of talks I attended with him, he expressed little personal interest in his foreign visitors except for their technology, which he wanted immediately. Once I brought some books for his beloved grandchildren. Without looking at them, he handed them to an aide and started lecturing me about the need for Washington to lift all export restrictions on modern technologies--not "those...