Word: harps
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Down to Business. If the Russians were eager to harp on the issue of inviting other nations, they were not willing to wreck the conference over it, and the U.S.'s Christian Herte>r, taking the chair next day, plunged straight ahead to the conference's real business. His lucid opening speech made clear that there would be a summit conference afterward if "constructive proposals" were made. He affirmed that "the U.S. is in deadly earnest about wanting to reach agreements." After the three other ministers and representatives of the two Germanys made speeches, Christian Herter proceeded...
...Questions. Predictably, Sessions' piece was the most substantial -a difficult "and blazing work, brilliantly played by Violinist Polikoff himself. By contrast, Alexander's Songs for Eve was a plodding and undramatic vocal presentation of texts by Archibald MacLeish around which four accompanying instruments (violin, cello, English horn, harp) weave contrasting sonorities in a striking instrumental texture. Calabro's Sonata and Overton's Quartet were both professional jobs, but more interesting in their smoothly machined parts than in their bland conclusions...
...Intercession of Trinity Parish in Manhattan) to give the effect of scenes from an illuminated manuscript. The action is accompanied by music suggestive of everything from Gregorian chant to folk song, played on reproductions of such authentic medieval instruments as a psaltery, a rebec, a minstrel's harp...
...angel announces "Christ is born." One of the play's engaging qualities is its childlike mixture of varying emotions: a scene of wanton rejoicing to the fluttering sound of recorders gives way to a mood of reverence, signified by the sweet-sounding psaltery, and again to the quiet, harp-punctuated anguish of Daniel's farewell to Darius ("Is it thus, O King, that you wish me to perish...
...ironic contrast with the agonized struggle between Hamlet and Claudius. But the struggle never seems really agonized, and much of the plushery simply gets in the way. Gordon Jacob's music, for instance, is too much and too pretty--it was not a good idea to use a harp in the ghost music. The Play Scene, for another instance, ends in a very ecstasy of lighting and musical effects which succeed in diverting attention from what is actually going on: you can't see the forest for the tree-surgeons...