Word: fright
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...Stage Fright...
...said in December that the freshmen suffered from "stage fright." He hoped the first three or four matches would snap the grapplers out of it, but after the team's eleventh meet last Saturday, Lee admitted he calculated wrong. "They may still be adjusting to college-level wrestling," he said. "I hope they do better next year...
There was a historical Dracula, however, and according to the authors of In Search of Dracula, he was a fright to believe in. The book clears him of one notable charge: by examining Rumanian, Russian, German and French folklore of the 15th century, in which Dracula figures vividly, it establishes that he was not a vampire. That was Bram Stoker's libel; needing a monstrous name and a far-off place for his fantasy, he chose Dracula and Transylvania. The real Dracula, son of Dracul (the name means dragon), was a Christian prince and mass murderer who lived...
...Until the mid-19th century, pianists, for example, regularly played from the score or improvised. With the score sitting right there on the piano, how could anyone question the pianist's veracity? If he were improvising, virtually composing on the spot, who was to challenge him? Thus stage fright was all but unknown. But then along came Clara Wieck (soon to become Robert Schumann's wife), who did away with the score at public performances. The result, eventually, was an absolute separation of composer and performer...
...improvising. Ideally, they should have the abandon of the jazz saxophonist or the Serbian bard hatching his epic. Another solution, it might be added, would be luring composers from their suburban comfort to play their own music. Until then, he notes, one thing that can alleviate stage fright is "the absolute certainty of a botched performance." In coming upon a piano with a sticky pedal or a defective hammer action, says Rosen, "one is reduced to doing one's best...