Word: handel
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...German style, i.e., continuous, more or less expressive singing, rather than from the Italian fashion with its separate, show-stopping arias. The voice parts, in their way, are likely to resemble instrumental parts, as they did in the golden age of Italian-style vocalism (up through the days of Handel). Modern composers find this kind of singing more expressive than the vocal thunder of a Celeste...
These failings did not badly mar the Appassionata or the closing Beethoven Sonata Op. 111, but they seriously detracted from Brahm's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel. This work is rarely performed, partly because of its extreme difficulty and partly because it represents a far more abstract approach than the familiar Variations on a Theme by Paganini. Levy's playing lacked the rhythmic urgency needed to keep the Handel set form foundering, in its own intellectual richness. And a lack of clarity first apparent in the swirling Appassionata finale let Brahms' Fugue become a hodge-podge...
INTRODUCTORY MUSIC: "It is usually desirable to have 15 or 20 minutes of introductory music." Sample selections: Handel's Largo, Bach's Come Sweet Death...
...result is as gratifying for the listener as it must be for the players. A new sensitivity to intonation is one of the most outstanding-and welcome-changes Mr. Poto has brought. And from the opening of Handel's Water Music suite, his insight into rhythmic details and emphasis of interplay between instruments testified to rare artistic insight...
...Handel has provided a veritable dictionary of musical rhetoric in which expressiveness is attained via articulation and in which major and minor scales and dominant harmony still evoke all the necessary emotional resonances in the listener. Mr. Greenebaum seems not to have scrutinized a single one of the phrasing patterns in the work. The thunderous 32nd notes in the introduction were played too slowly and without the indicated rest beforehand. Not even in syncopated rhythms was the uniform level of long bowings varied. The last movement was indeed played with a bright and appropriate staccato, but Mr. Greenebaum...