Word: fortissimi
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...soon after the Inauguration, but Pianist Vladimir Horowitz took a rain check. For his second stint at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (he first played there in 1931 for Herbert Hoover), the maestro wanted to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his U.S. debut. And so he did, last week, thundering out fortissimi to an audience packed with the likes of Isaac Stern, Andrés Segovia and Mstislav Rostropovich. Carter, recalling the cherished Horowitz recording he had as a midshipman, said of his guest artist: "A true national treasure...
...expressionistic playing of the first half of the concert would have been quite appropriate in the Berg Quartet. Here, unhappily, the energetic intensity of the performance at times bordered on hysteria--the only moments of the evening when solid technical mastery began to waver. Too many crunchy or strained fortissimi, and an over-emphasis of percussive aspects resulted in something like Everyman's stereotype of a 'modern' work; and the audience response was stereotypically reserved. But all of this is contrary not only to the spirit of the score, but also to Berg's expressed attitude toward the performance...
...discothèques and rock-'n'-roll joints, the trouble is not so much in the instruments themselves, or even the sustained fortissimi or the close quarters. The blame goes to the electronic amplifiers. An old-fashioned oompah military band, playing a Sousa march in Central or Golden Gate Park, generated as much sound. But the sound was not amplified, and was dissipated in the open air. A trombonist sitting in front of a tuba player might be a bit deaf for an hour or so after a concert; then his hearing returned to normal. A microphone hooked...
...century's great composers. Whatever its shortcomings and dull stretches, his music does convey to cramped city audiences a sense of nature's bigness, of a peasant tenacity. Years ago Sibelius wrote in his diary: "A wonderful day, spring and life. The earth exhales a fragrance?mutes and fortissimi. An extraordinary light that reminds one of an August haze...
...Haydn 88th suffered from irregular placement and use of stringed instruments. If the string section of the orchestra were cut in half, so as to bring it closer to Haydn's original instrumentation, the beautiful wood-wind figurations might be heard, and the temptation to blasting fortissimi would be eliminated. Koussevitzky's Haydn is pleasant, but it could be memorable...