Word: glissandi
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...fashioned bravura style and a staggering technique to put it across, he is a one-man tidal wave of sound. His hands can hammer out octaves with machine-gun speed and force. He can pounce on flawless trills from a three-foot distance. He can zip off glissandi in octaves and double notes that would tear the fingernails of many pianists. Occasionally, when he decides to program a piece that demands it, he can even play sweetly and with charm...
...double bass are in the usual baroque soprano-to-bass opposition. Suddenly the bass drops away but a listener cannot but help hear the implied harmonies in the highly regular resolution. More lighthearted is the duet between trombone and double bass just before the final trio. The two glissandi in the trombone theme are terribly funny and the audience appreciated it. In general, the orchestral playing was of consistently high calibre, belying the technical difficulties of Pulcinella...
...that might have come from the throat of a 40-ton canary to the rumble of a stupendous Model T with a cracked muffler. As background the tapes carried the sound of ocean waves, which Hovhaness skillfully blended with cymbals and gongs. The whales were accompanied by whooping brass glissandi, glockenspiels, tam-tam and bass drum. When it was all over, the audience applauded enthusiastically, though it remained unclear whether their applause had been for Composer Hovhaness or the whales themselves. Backstage, the whale voices had already been nicknamed "Beverly," "Birgit" and "Cesare...
Pizzicato passages, stratospheric glissandi, cadenza after cadenza-the balding, blue-eyed violinist tackled each without hesitation and butchered each in turn, always about a quarter-tone off pitch. Eventually, the concertmaster mercifully took the solo play away from the wounded virtuoso. The Aspen, Colo., audience was delighted by the shenanigans. They had, after all, paid as much as $50 to see and hear Jack Benny's violin act which, like his familiar monologues, is a masterpiece of comic tim ing. Benny, 75, and his fiddle have raised well over $5,000,000 at similar benefits, and this one netted...
...voice chorus and a massive orchestra: 32 woodwind and brass instruments, 42 strings, an organ, harmonium, electric bass guitar and a diverse array of percussion instruments, including timpani and musical saw. Though it produces the now familiar range of Penderecki sound-semi-tones and quarter tones, tone clusters, glissandi and primitive knocking noises-the orchestra plays a secondary role to the chorus, which is constantly busy humming, singing neo-Gregorian chant, screaming, laughing, muttering and yelping...