Word: formula
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...rarely garner the type of hype that the record industry lavishes on more popular and profitable items, but there are exceptions. Advertisements for the "Three Tenors" concert (with Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras) appeared in such unlikely places as subway stations, illustrating the successful use of a formula that was first demonstrated by the soundtrack from Amadeus. It goes like this: In order to guarantee a popular success with a classical recording, bring together popular (and relatively well-known) music, big names and a good pretext, such as a movie or a memorable concert...
...recording of Verdi's Otello on London Records uses this formula neatly. The music is one of the best-known operas by one of the best-known composers of opera, the names are big (Pavarotti, Kiri te Kanawa and Leo Nucci, with Sir Georg Solti at the helm), and the pretext is a double celebration: the 100th anniversary of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the 100th recording on CD of Solti with the CSO. But, unlike the "Three Tenors" concert or the Amadeus soundtrack, a new recording of Otello is the kind of project that must stand...
What is missing is the synthesis, or "sinthesis" as I prefer to call it. The formula is exactly Hegelian. You do your thesis. It drives you crazy, so you avoid it with anti-thesis. Together thesis and anti-thesis explode in a giant ball of fire that, if you're lucky, leaves you with sin-thesis...
...Dylans do deviate--once--from their formula of upbeat electric rockers. Sadly, the result is the monotonous "(Don't Cut Me Down) Mary Quant in Blue," which features an early eighties dance pop groove, a sound last heard on the $100 Yamaha Porta-Sound PSS-470 mini-keyboard that Uncle Harry gave me for Hanukah. So much for fancy production...
...late 1970s, Fisher helped the Carter administration design a formula for the landmark Camp David Accord which made peace between Israel and Egypt. Later, he assisted in negotiations with the government of Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis...